Talk:Zero-risk bias

Absolute risk versus relative risk
I just noticed that the last sentence of the article doesn't properly illustrate the previous sentence:


 * It is related to the certainty effect, and it can also be explained in terms of a tendency to think in terms of proportions rather than differences. When a risk is reduced to zero, 100% of the risk is removed.

Wouldn't it be more illuminating to say, for example, if a 5% risk is reduced to zero, then the risk is reduced by 5% in absolute terms but by 100% in relative terms? Or somesuch? Neoprote 03:00, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
 * No. If a 5% risk is reduced to zero, then the risk is reduced by five percentage points, or one hundred per cent. — Chameleon 04:31, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Bad example
This article mistakes group decisions for individual decisions, and then attributes an individual bias to the group decision. In fact, the group decision is probably based on other factors. For example, political bodies like Congress make decisions for a variety of reasons as different as the reasons held by dozens of individual members. Attributing a personal bias to this group decision is at best difficult, and is probably impossible. And even if you do attribute a single motive to the group, it might not be the one this author chooses. For example, in the 1950s Congress didn't have the same scientific knowledge we have today, and might not have understood the difference between "zero" and "reasonable" risk in additives. Or they might have decided that the transaction costs of determining "reasonable" risk were so high that an absolute ban was more efficient. In any event, someone who wants to use this example needs to do a lot more research to demonstrate why Congress acted as it did. Otherwise, this example feels like confirmation bias (choosing and interpreting an example because it confirms one's prior beliefs). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rodneylbrownjr (talk • contribs) 03:38, 15 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I've added the sources that used these as examples. —Mrwojo (talk) 06:37, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Bad Edits
Looking back through this article's history, the original explains this concept *much* more clearly! (And the example is much better.) I think the article has been streamlined at the cost of clarity / usefulness. Very unclear why. 67.244.20.72 (talk) 16:25, 18 December 2010 (UTC)


 * The article has since been rewritten with reliable sources. —Mrwojo (talk) 06:37, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Contradictory Explanations
The first sentence of the article seems to be saying that people prefer a smaller number of independent risks, even if the overall uncertainty is greater. The second sentence seems to be saying that people are risk-averse; that they prefer a poor but certain outcome over an uncertain one with a greater expected value. Those are completely different statements; I don't know which of them (if either) the term "Zero-Risk Bias" actually refers to. The example following that pargraph doesn't appear to be a good illustration of either idea (no indication of what that was chosen in preference to).

I've heard that the second idea (that people are risk-averse) is only true when people perceive something as a gain, and that people are risk-seeking regarding changes they perceive as a loss...though I am unable to cite a scholarly source for that. 216.23.182.4 (talk) 02:39, 7 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I rewrote the article based on the available sources I could find online. They were evidently what the original author was reading but didn't cite. "Heuristics, Biases, and the Regulation of Risk" (Gowda, 1999) seems to be a favorite for this topic, but I don't have access to it. —Mrwojo (talk) 06:37, 19 October 2012 (UTC)