Risk by Slovic (From Reading Log One)

Paul Slovic’s article talks about how “risk is socially constructed” and that people look at risks differently based on demographics, worldviews, and the information presented to us. An interesting statistic brought up early was the drastic difference between how white men evaluate risk compare to everyone else. In general they were more likely to rate a particular risk as low concern. Another main point of the article is that the analysis of risks is entirely subjective. When looking at how risky something is, “psychological, cultural, political, and social factors” all play a role in how a risk is analyzed. Slovic also talked about how the media, government, science, and other institutions all tend to publish information to the public that creates distrust. By creating this distrust, the public is more likely to look at something as having more inherent risk than it may actually have.  I find it interesting that new technologies have made large parts of the world much safer than they have ever been. However, due to technologies that keep us indoors and away from our neighbors, we tend to mistrust strangers more. As such I think society has become much more cynical and less willing to take risks as a result.