Risk Management

            There are multiple factors that influence the way that people and groups view risk. Of these factors we can attribute and discover what has made the individual or the group respond as they did. People perceive risk in terms of individual judgment, which in turn directs their response. Much of the perception is drawn from earlier analysis of the consequence of previous risks, discounting, "group think", attitudes, and outrage. These terms will be discussed throughout this report to leave you with a clear overview of how certain risks are interpreted.
             It is agreed that individuals have the choice to accept or ignore a risk or level of risk. There are many areas of life where people acknowledge carelessly large risks and totally ignore smaller ones. Outrage is a term used to define the level of concern a person has towards a specific risk situation and often differs from one person to the next. We will look at outrage in more detail later on. .
             People often discount risk in order to evaluate its level of threat. Discounting refers to the reduced level of awareness due to factors including time, space and distribution. .
             Time discounting is the proximity in time of the risk. For example someone involved in a car crash yesterday is conscious of the risk involved in driving a car today. The greenhouse effect however is not perceived as an immediate risk so many people choose to ignore it.
             Discounting in space proximity to the individuals home. For example the floods in Europe are of no risk threat to Australia and so we do not consider them high risk.
             Discounting due to distribution refers to they way accidents have occurred. For example smoking kills hundreds of people each year, as does a building collapse however due to the spread nature of the smoker's death's the building collapse is seen as many times more outrageous and is more likely to cause public concern.
             Avoidance of a risk may depend on ease of someone remembering the potential outcomes of risk, it is also important to consider the way risk is described to individuals in clear terminology.