Risk is a vital aspect of human life
dating back to when humans were on the African plain. Back then our risk assessment
was a little different though. Was that a lion, or just some grass blowing in the
wind: what was that sound? Maybe just the creak of a tree, or maybe something
that wants to make us dinner? Nowadays our risk assessment is not quite as
severe, but still vitally important to our existence. Through the eons we have
been evolving, bettering our risk assessing skills through the development of
our amygdala and the fight or flight response. The amygdala (Greek for
"almond" because of its shape) is at the heart of where the fear response
and symptoms come from, when someone is in a state of fear this is where the
instinctive subconscious reactions originate. Whether or not that
"risk" or "fear" is real or perceived the same instinctual
reactions occur none the less. An example of risk assessment would be; when a
close friend jumps out in order to scare someone, at first the body identifies
that something is not right about the situation. This is where the flight or
fight response kicks in, will you stay your ground, or try for a tactical
retreat? Since the signals from the bodies senses reach the amygdala first,
then are relayed to the rest of the brain at this point you have very little
control over what your reaction will be. Only after the signals are sent to the
hippocampus (where rational thought and conscious thought happens) do you get a
choice in how you react.
There are ways to "train"
the responses from the amygdala, however they require rather extreme
conditioning. Now risk assessing and risk perception happen on a conscious
level. Let's first look at risk itself. What do we consider to be risky
behavior? Anything that looks like it could pose a risk to either our health, financial well-being, or taking our lives into our own hands. Now there are many other potential
risky behaviors, but these are too numeral to list. If we look at examples of
risky behavior, some that stand out amongst the rest would be riding carnival
rides, walking in traffic, tight rope walking without safety nets, etc. These
are all activities that we can unilaterally call risky behaviors, or situations
that have the potential to cause bodily harm. Conversely we can look at risk perception. These are those situations where they actually are quite
dangerous. But do to either becoming numb to them, damage, or by convincing our brains
that its fine we over ride the fear response.
A good example of this would be driving down our home street: most car
accidents happen less than a mile from home. Driving is a very dangerous
activity, yet as a whole we take just how dangerous it is for granted. Thus assigning
it a lower risk perception level, making it seem safer than it actually is. A
good contrast to this but still falling under risk perception would be the
feeling we get when standing on the observation deck of a very tall building.
Even though there is either glass or at least a railing, most people have the
same instinctive reaction. This reaction is to press our backs up against the
wall, or to slowly inch towards the edge and grip the hand rail in a white
knuckle death grip. In this situation our senses are in conflict with each
other, consciously we know that we are safe, that we can't possible fall. Yet
our brains, and more so our amygdala are quite certain that we are entirely too
high and would feel much better back on ground level. In this instance our conscious
risk perception is conflicting with our subconscious risk perception.
There are people who crave the exhilaration
of fear though: these people are so called "adrenaline junkies". They
are always looking for situations with which to feel the rush from living on
the edge. That's where roller coasters, skydiving, and other such activities come
into play. These recreational activities are fueled by our concept of risk
perception. By tricking the mind into thinking that the activity is risky we
can replicate the fear response. In so doing, we can release adrenaline into
the body, raising the heart rate and blood pressure. This gives us the
"high" of fear in a relatively safe environment. In most cases we are
in more danger and should be more concerned about the risk of driving to the activity
area.
By using heuristic models (as seen below) we can
more accurately see how risk vs. risk perception takes place.
