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Conceptual Issues |
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©
2003-2008 David J. Llewellyn |
Conceptual Issues
What is risk?
Risk is sometimes seen as the probability of an unwanted event occurring, but here risk is taken to mean the probability of an unwanted event occurring and the severity of potential loss. However it is not clear how the probability and severity of risk can be combined in an objective fashion, and methodological difficulties of this kind mean that in practice even systematic risk assessments contain an element of subjectivity and ambiguity. Another major difficulty is in the estimation of the values associated with things thought to be at risk, and a reasonably convincing argument can be made that these should represent social choices rather than technical issues. Although the perception and assessment of risk are essentially phenomenologically based, the nature of risk is fundamentally interactive. Risks exist because things considered to have value are placed at risk, and as such the nature of risk concerns the interaction of people in their environment. Some, but not all risks are the result of our own behaviours, and risks vary in the degree that they can be controlled by our actions. The concept of risk is sometimes said to incorporate the possibility of gain, however it is difficult to see how this constitutes an essential addition, although this might serve as a useful reminder that risky situations may also contain opportunities.
How are risks assessed?
The risk assessment process can be seen as the attempt to predict future situational outcomes based upon the extrapolation from experience and the application of inductive logic. The constructs of significant risk and acceptable risk are extremely difficult to pin down, and remain controversial. Indeed it may be questionable whether these are anything other than subjective "rule of thumb" judgements made by scientists and lay people alike. Intuitive assessments of risk are perhaps particularly susceptible to bias and error, and yet remain an essential aid to individuals in a wide variety of situations. On the other hand formal risk assessments are more systematic but are time consuming, expensive and often difficult to relate to the specific situations that people find themselves in. The use of inductive logic is not infallible in any instance, even if all relevant variables can be taken into account or quantified unambiguously, which is often not the case. On balance we might conclude that both approaches to the risk assessment process have merit, and yet inevitable limitations often lead to assessments that are less "hard and fast" than some people suggest.
What is risk taking behaviour?
Risk taking behaviour is the voluntary participation in behaviours that contain, or are at least seen to contain, a significant degree of risk. As previously noted the notion of significant risk is a slippery one to define, however a case can be made that certain behaviours are assessed to involve a high degree of risk in comparison with other equivalent behaviours, and also involve a high degree of actual risk as measured by the probability of death, injury, financial loss and so on. In practice there is often a surprisingly high degree of agreement between intuitive and systematic risk assessments, and these can be used in combination as a basis to decide which are risk taking behaviours. People adopt different approaches to risk, their "risk orientation", and there are three different risk taking types, namely "risk avoiders" (who avoid activities due to the risks involved), "risk reducers" (who participate in high risk activities in spite of the risks involved), and "risk optimisers" (who participate in high risk activities partly because of the risks involved). The figure below illustrates how risk orientation and level of perceived risk may interact to determine the overall acceptability.
In theory people may move between different approaches to risk, although existing evidence suggests that risk taking is a personality trait, and as such people's attitudes to risk are predicted to be reasonably stable over time.
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