Risk Perception and Risk Management Paper Example

Introduction

Majority of people involve in some dangerous dealings each day, and the ubiquity has encouraged a considerable effort to comprehend the manner in which people recognize risk. All individuals are looking to manage risks, and all are doing guesswork because if they certainly understood, risk would not be an issue. In other words, in any particular circumstance, an adverse result could or could not transpire, and causative aspects tend to twist the likelihood of different outcomes. There are various definition attached to risk, but in most cases, it is visualized as the probability that a person will experience the impact of danger. A formal definition of risk is a measure of the likelihood and harshness of adverse impacts. In other words, it is a calculation of the probability of an occurrence to take place and with its incidence, the extent to which the consequences would be dire. Having the aptitude to accurately evaluate the risk in a particular state or resulting from some deeds is at an individual qualitative level reliant on the risk tolerance and risk perception of a person.

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In the contemporary world, risk is recognized and acted upon in two vital approach. As feelings, risk denotes the unconscious and instinctual responses to danger. As analysis, risk conveys logic, motive and scientific consideration to bear on evaluation of risk and making decisions. Resilient instinctual emotions like anger and fear in some cases plays the responsibilities in risk as feelings. Both of these emotions seem to have opposite impact in that fear infers risk approximation and anger mitigates them. Fear originates from assessments of uncertainty and situational control, but anger, on the other hand, arises from a review of conviction and personal control. Providentially, people tend to be in calmer state being led by more understated feelings. Current studies have found that although benefit and risk are positively connected across perilous activities in the world, in other word, the activities that are highly risky tend to have more benefit than those that have low risk, people have a negative correlation and decree towards them such that the high-risk dealings are linked with minimal benefit and vice versa.

A survey enquiring for a broad definition of risk is likely to disclose that majority of individuals tend to have rudimentary comprehension of the meaning of risk and might have the aptitude to give an example of what they regard as risky behavior. Anecdotal evidence and scholarly studies asserts that there is no general conception of risk or the extent of peril integral in given activities. The extensive range of views on what is considered high risk and what is not means that people are more disposed to leading themselves in menacing conditions repeatedly placing other individuals in harm's way.

Risk Perception

Risk perception is the independent evaluation of the likelihood of an identified type of accident to occur and the level of concern that a person have on the consequences. To distinguish a risk entails assessments of the possibility and the consequences of undesirable outcome. It could also be contended that impacts correlated with the activity is a component of risk perception. Discernment of risk extends beyond a person, and it is categorized as a cultural and social construct replicating symbols, ideology, history, and values. It trails from the specificity and erraticism of human social existence that it should not merely be supposed that ratings and scores on matching instruments have comparable meanings in diverse contexts (Jun, 2018). The initial point of every risk theory is that all people freely undertakes risks. Risk perception is the capacity of a person to determine a given amount of risk and risk tolerance is referred as the ability of an individual to consent a definite amount of risk. Both of these concepts are unique in their way but very much connected. The failure to precisely recognize risk could result to high levels of risk tolerance which may embolden high-risk behavior. As per other theories, the pivotal flow could turn in opposite direction with routine involvement in high-risk behavior resulting to high levels of risk tolerance and lower levels of risk perception facility.

There is a likelihood that an individual has the aptitude to perfectly evaluate risk depending on the possibility of an event happening and the probable consequence of an incident but that he is agreeable to tolerating higher risks (Ball, Ball-Kin, 2018). The so-called thrill seekers are a sign that greater levels of risk tolerance are not linked to lesser risk perception aptitude. A range of factors guides People's perceptions of risks. Humans will assess risks by such factors as potentiality of catastrophe, controllability, voluntariness, and degree of outcome ambiguity. Majority of people show idiosyncratic preferences among risk options with matching supposed values but over time, disparity in the various results. If citizens are afraid that a main disaster could result from technological failure, an in case that fiasco is not subconsciously comprehended or visualized as low prospect occasion, the apparent potential of the catastrophe then effects on the alleged seriousness of the risk.

Risk perceptions contribute significantly to how people opt to alleviate the risk. For instance, if a person approximates the risk from a threat to be minimal, the likelihood of acting is less so that they can decrease the exposure to the hazard. Risk perception additionally reduces the extent of loss in various instances. In most cases, regardless of how aggressive a person could be in the process of mitigating the risk, it is not certain that their actions will be enough to guard them against the nature's whims (Quarantelli, 2005). Experiments have revealed that risk perception is swayed by number of supposed risk properties or the situation of a risk. Some of leading influential aspects include familiarity, individual control, dread, the insight of justifiable division of risk and benefits, and the likelihood of making an individual or institution accountable for creating a risky position. Risk perception is a function of various things such as giving instinctive heuristics like obtainability, over assurance and anchoring. Additionally, it provides risk-handling agencies and institution with reliability and trust.

Risk perception and Risk management

Risk management entails every activity that facilitate the likelihood of risk occurrence or its impacts to be eradicated or minimized to satisfactory level (Poljansek, 2017). The initial step of risk management is spotting out the associations affecting the dealings of the involved decision maker. It could be visualized as the first situation assessment whereby a research is conducted on internal-external environments and their features. Risk identification must take place in the second step. Each risk is composed of three constituents including, the cause, created problem and future effect. In identifying the risks, every risk ought to be registered even though at that instance of identifying, the chances of occurrence and the impact of a risk are perceived as negligible (Quarantelli, 2005). Risk analysis is the third step, and it is here that the likelihood of occurring and the impact of risk are evaluated. A risk could be scrutinized factual if contemplated as a mass marvel but if not, the risk may be judged subjectively. Nevertheless, whether or not a given risk is recognized as mass marvel, the available information will also determine. In case an adequate number of observations are obtainable, on a comparatively modest phenomenon that is contingent on people, expressive associations could be instituted using data mining even devoid of any suppositions. The fourth step of risk management is all about evaluating the risk regarding the tolerable level of risk and the protection level already attained. Risk attitude, which is far from being without subjective aspects, fundamentally controls the acceptable level of risk. As such, decision makers could be risk neutral, risk reverse and risk seeking. When implementing a risk management, the goal is principally to minimize the extent of gross risk up to a satisfactory level rather than eliminating the risk entirely (Quarantelli, 1996). To the point of risk aversion, the risk is 'reduced 'to menace by the decision maker evasion of given risk actions. The act by itself is precarious since the decision could shift to other stakeholders.

Importance of risk perception to the field of emergency management

The immense nature of disasters that are prompt is undeniably worrying because the assessment conducted globally and the number of individuals victimized by these disasters keeps augmenting per year. In 2011 for example, 30, 773 people died globally and resulted in an unprecedented 366.1 billion dollars in economic losses. Even though it is daunting to transform the magnitude and rate of disasters, risk perception can assist in preparedness activities that can help in ameliorating the impacts of disasters (Cao, Zhu, Han, 2017). No one knows when or if disasters will take place, but they do. Risk perception gives the responsibility of self-preparedness in case of an emergency. For example, it is not a guarantee that fire will occur in a building, but as a result of risk perception, the employees can prepare themselves by having fire extinguishers all over the structure. Risk perception is also going to make people in the emergency department to become more responsible in that they have already evaluated the probability and what they should do or not do to minimize the chances of occurrence. With clear comprehension of risks, the chances of making more mistakes are minimal thus reduced losses. Risk perception also helps people to acknowledge the probability of disasters happening and not live in denial.

Conclusion

In conclusion, risk is visualized as the probability that a person will experience the impact of danger. A formal definition of risk is a measure of the likelihood and harshness of adverse impacts. Risk perception is the independent evaluation of the likelihood of an identified type of accident to occur and the level of concern that a person have on the consequences. To distinguish a risk entails assessments of the possibility and the consequences of undesirable outcome. Risk management entails every activity that facilitate the likelihood of risk occurrence or its impacts to be eradicated or minimized to satisfactory level. Risk perceptions contribute significantly to how people opt to alleviate the risk.

References

Ball, D. J., & Ball-King, L. N. (2018). Risk and the perception of risk in interactions with nature. Oxford Medicine Online. doi:10.1093/med/9780198725916.003.0011

Cao, J., Zhu, L., Han, H., & Zhu, X. (2017). Emergency Risk Management. Modern Emergency Management, 147-177. doi:10.1007/978-981-10-5720-5_4

Jun, S. M. (2018). Consumer Classifications Based on Risk Perception and Safety Behavior in the Risk Perception Attitude Model along with Comparison of Recall Behaviors - Focusing on Industrial Products, Food, Automobiles, and Medicine -. Crisis and Emergency Management: Theory and Praxis, 14(2), 1-17. doi:10.14251/crisisonomy.2018.14.2.1

Poljansek, K. (2017). Science for disaster risk management 2017: Knowing better and losing less. S. l.: European Commission.

Quarantelli, E.L. (2005). Catastrophes are different from disasters: Some implications for crisis planning and managing drawn from Katrina.

Quarantelli, E.L. (1996). The future is not the past repeated: Predicting disasters in the 21st century from current trends. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 4(4): 229-240.