Estimating everyday risk: Subjective judgments are related to objective risk, mapping of numerical magnitudes and previous experience.

Abstract

We aimed to investigate individual differences that associate with peoples' acute risk perception for activities such as walking and giving birth, including objective risk and the mapping of numerical magnitudes. The Amazon Mechanical Turk platform was used, with 284 participants recruited (40% female) ranging between 19 and 68 years. Participants had to indicate the positions of (1) the relative death risk of activities on a horizontal-line with 'very low risk of death' and 'very high risk of death' as left and right anchors respectively and (2), numerical magnitudes on a horizontal-line ranging 0-1000. The MicroMort framework was used to index acute risk of death (one/million chance of dying from an accident). Previous experience with the activities, handedness, along with risk propensity and unrealistic optimism were also measured. Linear mixed-effects modelling was used to investigate predictors of subjective MicroMort judgments. Individuals subjectively judged activities to be riskier if the activity was objectively riskier, if they over-estimated on the numerical task (more so for low-risk activities as compared to high-risk), or if they had not experienced the activity previously. The observed relationship between the number line task and everyday risk judgments is in keeping with the idea of a common magnitude representation system. In conclusion, individuals are able to discriminate between activities varying in risk in an absolute sense, however intuition for judging the relative differences in risk is poor. The relationship between the misjudging of both risks and numerical magnitudes warrants further investigation, as may inform the development of risk communication strategies.