Risk Estimation for Common Consumer Products

This paper reports a study of risk estimation for common consumer products. Subjects estimated injury frequencies and recalled/identified accident scenarios. While performance on the frequency estimation task highlighted a surprising ability to assess relative levels of risk very quickly, the scenario recall task showed severe errors in judgment. In the frequency estimation task, estimates that were made within 2 seconds of category presentation were just as accurate as those made after lengthy analysis. In the scenario recall task, subjects could recall or generate only about 40 percent of the common accident scenarios associated with each product category, and they overestimated their own ability to recall scenarios. When asked about specific scenarios that they had failed to identify, subjects cited both awareness and memory problems. These findings are discussed with reference to a model of risk perception in which the individual uses a readily accessible base of knowledge for assessing risks.