Thinking, Fast and Slow

13: Availability, Emotion, and Risk
because of brain damage: Damasio’s idea is known as the “somatic
marker hypothesis” and it has gathered substantial support: Antonio R.

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Damasio, 
Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain
(New York: Putnam, 1994). Antonio R. Damasio, “The Somatic Marker
Hypothesis and the Possible Functions of the Prefrontal Cortex,”
Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences 351 (1996): 141–20.
risks of each technology: Finucane et al., “The Affect Heuristic in
Judgments of Risks and Benefits.” Paul Slovic, Melissa Finucane, Ellen
Peters, and Donald G. MacGregor, “The Affect Heuristic,” in Thomas
Gilovich, Dale Griffin, and Daniel Kahneman, eds., 
Heuristics and Biases
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 397–420. Paul Slovic,
Melissa Finucane, Ellen Peters, and Donald G. MacGregor, “Risk as
Analysis and Risk as Feelings: Some Thoughts About Affect, Reason,
Risk, and Rationality,” 
Risk Analysis 24 (2004): 1–12. Paul Slovic, “Trust,
Emotion, Sex, Politics, and Science: Surveying the Risk-Assessment
Battlefield,” 
Risk Analysis 19 (1999): 689–701.
British Toxicology Society: Slovic, “Trust, Emotion, Sex, Politics, and
Science.” The technologies and substances used in these studies are not
alternative solutions to the same problem. In realistic problems, where
competitive solutions are considered, the correlation between costs and
benefits must be negative; the solutions that have {ns problems,the largest
benefits are also the most costly. Whether laypeople and even experts
might fail to recognize the correct relationship even in those cases is an
interesting question.
“wags the rational dog”: Jonathan Haidt, “The Emotional Dog and Its
Rational Tail: A Social Institutionist Approach to Moral Judgment,”
Psychological Review 108 (2001): 814–34.
“‘Risk’ does not exist”: Paul Slovic, The Perception of Risk (Sterling, VA:
EarthScan, 2000).
availability cascade: Timur Kuran and Cass R. Sunstein, “Availability
Cascades and Risk Regulation,” 
Stanford Law Review 51 (1999): 683–
7 6 8 . 
CERCLA, 
the 
Comprehensive 
Environmental 
Response,
Compensation, and Liability Act, passed in 1980.
nothing in between: Paul Slovic, who testified for the apple growers in the
Alar case, has a rather different view: “The scare was triggered by the
CBS 
60 Minutes broadcast that said 4, 000 children will die of cancer (no
probabilities there) along with frightening pictures of bald children in a
cancer ward—and many more incorrect statements. Also the story
exposed EPA’s lack of competence in attending to and evaluating the
safety of Alar, destroying trust in regulatory control. Given this, I think the
public’s response was rational.” (Personal communication, May 11, 2011.)