A new study found that knowing more about a risk lowered the level of risk perception.
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, USA, looked at how people perceive risk and found that if they knew specifically how likely something was, they felt less risky.
The researchers analyzed the results of 13 studies involving 1,500 participants living in the United States. In one experiment, through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk platform, 390 study subjects were assigned to three groups and received the information that “they all have a 58% chance of being bitten by a flea that causes a bacterial infection as soon as discovery”.
The two groups were then provided with more specific information. One group was given information on the different types of fleas that could cause infections, and those who learned this information were more likely to be bitten by fleas.
The third group was given information on the possibility of being bitten by various types of fleas, along with the likelihood of being bitten. As a result, the group with specific probability information perceived that the information initially received was less likely to actually happen.
“Given all the individual reasons and their probabilities, which may appear to reinforce the perception of how important the event is, it actually reduces the overall risk,” said the researchers. It can help alleviate the fear of
The researchers note that how agencies and policy makers provide information on health risks is increasingly important and can help refine the content so it can be used. “
The results of this study were published in the “Journal of Experimental Psychology: General” under the title “The unlikelihood effect: When knowing more creates less perception”.
