Why We Worry About The Things We Shouldn't... ...And Ignore The

[Guest guest]

I did not mean to be gruff or scare anyone....... I am sorry if I did

that........Thank you Pam for this article...... merry merry happy happy

and don't stress, again I apologize if I caused Kitty or any of you any

undo worry. hugs, sally

Why We Worry About The Things We Shouldn't... ...And Ignore The

Things

> We Should

> By JEFFREY KLUGER

>

> Posted Sunday, Nov. 26, 2006

> Correction Appended: November 27, 2006

>

> It would be a lot easier to enjoy your life if there weren't so many

> things trying to kill you every day. The problems start even before

> you're fully awake. There's the fall out of bed that kills 600

Americans

> each year. There's the early-morning heart attack, which is 40% more

> common than those that strike later in the day. There's the fatal

plunge

> down the stairs, the bite of sausage that gets lodged in your throat,

> the tumble on the slippery sidewalk as you leave the house, the

> high-speed automotive pinball game that is your daily commute.

>

> Other dangers stalk you all day long. Will a cabbie's brakes fail

when

> you're in the crosswalk? Will you have a violent reaction to bad

food?

> And what about the risks you carry with you all your life? The father

> and grandfather who died of coronaries in their 50s probably passed

the

> same cardiac weakness on to you. The tendency to take chances on the

> highway that has twice landed you in traffic court could just as

easily

> land you in the morgue.

>

> Shadowed by peril as we are, you would think we'd get pretty good at

> distinguishing the risks likeliest to do us in from the ones that are

> statistical long shots. But you would be wrong. We agonize over avian

> flu, which to date has killed precisely no one in the U.S., but have

to

> be cajoled into getting vaccinated for the common flu, which

contributes

> to the deaths of 36,000 Americans each year. We wring our hands over

the

> mad cow pathogen that might be (but almost certainly isn't) in our

> hamburger and worry far less about the cholesterol that contributes

to

> the heart disease that kills 700,000 of us annually.

>

> We pride ourselves on being the only species that understands the

> concept of risk, yet we have a confounding habit of worrying about

mere

> possibilities while ignoring probabilities, building barricades

against

> perceived dangers while leaving ourselves exposed to real ones. Six

> Muslims traveling from a religious conference were thrown off a plane

> last week in Minneapolis, Minn., even as unscreened cargo continues

to

> stream into ports on both coasts. Shoppers still look askance at a

bag

> of spinach for fear of E. coli bacteria while filling their carts

with

> fat-sodden French fries and salt-crusted nachos. We put filters on

> faucets, install air ionizers in our homes and lather ourselves with

> antibacterial soap. " We used to measure contaminants down to the

parts

> per million, " says Dan McGinn, a former Capitol Hill staff member and

> now a private risk consultant. " Now it's parts per billion. "

>

> At the same time, 20% of all adults still smoke; nearly 20% of

drivers

> and more than 30% of backseat passengers don't use seat belts;

> two-thirds of us are overweight or obese. We dash across the street

> against the light and build our homes in hurricane-prone areas--and

when

> they're demolished by a storm, we rebuild in the same spot. Sensible

> calculation of real-world risks is a multidimensional math problem

that

> sometimes seems entirely beyond us. And while it may be true that

it's

> something we'll never do exceptionally well, it's almost certainly

> something we can learn to do better.

>

> AN OLD BRAIN IN A NEW WORLD

>

> Part of the problem we have with evaluating risk, scientists say, is

> that we're moving through the modern world with what is, in many

> respects, a prehistoric brain. We may think we've grown accustomed to

> living in a predator-free environment in which most of the dangers of

> the wild have been driven away or fenced off, but our central nervous

> system--evolving at a glacial pace--hasn't got the message.

>

> To probe the risk-assessment mechanisms of the human mind, ph

> LeDoux, a professor of neuroscience at New York University and the

> author of The Emotional Brain, studies fear pathways in laboratory

> animals. He explains that the jumpiest part of the brain--of mouse

and

> man--is the amygdala, a primitive, almond-shaped clump of tissue that

> sits just above the brainstem. When you spot potential danger--a

stick

> in the grass that may be a snake, a shadow around a corner that could

be

> a mugger--it's the amygdala that reacts the most dramatically,

> triggering the fight-or-flight reaction that pumps adrenaline and

other

> hormones into your bloodstream.

>

> It's not until a fraction of a second later that the higher regions

of

> the brain get the signal and begin to sort out whether the danger is

> real. But that fraction of a second causes us to experience the fear

far

> more vividly than we do the rational response--an advantage that

doesn't

> disappear with time. The brain is wired in such a way that nerve

signals

> travel more readily from the amygdala to the upper regions than from

the

> upper regions back down. Setting off your internal alarm is quite

easy,

> but shutting it down takes some doing.

>

> " There are two systems for analyzing risk: an automatic, intuitive

> system and a more thoughtful analysis, " says Slovic, professor

of

> psychology at the University of Oregon. " Our perception of risk lives

> largely in our feelings, so most of the time we're operating on

system

> No. 1. "

>

> There's clearly an evolutionary advantage to this natural

timorousness.

> If we're mindful of real dangers and flee when they arise, we're more

> likely to live long enough to pass on our genes. But evolutionary

> rewards also come to those who stand and fight, those willing to take

> risks--and even suffer injury--in pursuit of prey or a mate. Our

> ancestors hunted mastodons and stampeded buffalo, risking getting

> trampled for the possible payoff of meat and pelt. Males advertised

> their reproductive fitness by fighting other males, willingly

engaging

> in a contest that could mean death for one and offspring for the

other.

>

> These two impulses--to engage danger or run from it--are constantly

at

> war and have left us with a well-tuned ability to evaluate the costs

and

> payoffs of short-term risk, say Slovic and others. That, however, is

not

> the kind we tend to face in contemporary society, where threats don't

> necessarily spring from behind a bush. They're much more likely to

come

> to us in the form of rumors or news broadcasts or an escalation of

the

> federal terrorism-threat level from orange to red. It's when the risk

> and the consequences of our response unfold more slowly, experts say,

> that our analytic system kicks in. This gives us plenty of

opportunity

> to overthink--or underthink--the problem, and this is where we start

to

> bollix things up.

>

> WHY WE GUESS WRONG

>

> Which risks get excessive attention and which get overlooked depends

on

> a hierarchy of factors. Perhaps the most important is dread. For most

> creatures, all death is created pretty much equal. Whether you're

eaten

> by a lion or drowned in a river, your time on the savanna is over.

> That's not the way humans see things. The more pain or suffering

> something causes, the more we tend to fear it; the cleaner or at

least

> quicker the death, the less it troubles us. " We dread anything that

> poses a greater risk for cancer more than the things that injure us

in a

> traditional way, like an auto crash, " says Slovic. " That's the dread

> factor. " In other words, the more we dread, the more anxious we get,

and

> the more anxious we get, the less precisely we calculate the odds of

the

> thing actually happening. " It's called probability neglect, " says

Cass

> Sunstein, a University of Chicago professor of law specializing in

risk

> regulation.

>

> The same is true for, say, AIDS, which takes you slowly, compared

with a

> heart attack, which can kill you in seconds, despite the fact that

heart

> disease claims nearly 50 times as many Americans than AIDS each year.

We

> also dread catastrophic risks, those that cause the deaths of a lot

of

> people in a single stroke, as opposed to those that kill in a

chronic,

> distributed way. " Terrorism lends itself to excessive reactions

because

> it's vivid and there's an available incident, " says Sunstein.

" Compare

> that to climate change, which is gradual and abstract. "

>

> Unfamiliar threats are similarly scarier than familiar ones. The next

E.

> coli outbreak is unlikely to shake you up as much as the previous

one,

> and any that follow will trouble you even less. In some respects,

this

> is a good thing, particularly if the initial reaction was excessive.

But

> it's also unavoidable given our tendency to habituate to any

unpleasant

> stimulus, from pain and sorrow to a persistent car alarm.

>

> The problem with habituation is that it can also lead us to go to the

> other extreme, worrying not too much but too little. Sept. 11 and

> Hurricane Katrina brought calls to build impregnable walls against

such

> tragedies ever occurring again. But despite the vows, both New Orleans

> and the nation's security apparatus remain dangerously leaky. " People

> call these crises wake-up calls, " says Dr. Irwin Redlener, associate

> dean of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University

and

> director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness. " But

they're

> more like snooze alarms. We get agitated for a while, and then we

don't

> follow through. "

>

> THE COMFORT OF CONTROL

>

> We similarly misjudge risk if we feel we have some control over it,

even

> if it's an illusory sense. The decision to drive instead of fly is

the

> most commonly cited example, probably because it's such a good one.

> Behind the wheel, we're in charge; in the passenger seat of a crowded

> airline, we might as well be cargo. So white-knuckle flyers routinely

> choose the car, heedless of the fact that at most a few hundred

people

> die in U.S. commercial airline crashes in a year, compared with

44,000

> killed in motor-vehicle wrecks. The most white-knuckle time of all

was

> post--Sept. 11, when even confident flyers took to the roads. Not

> surprisingly, from October through December 2001 there were 1,000

more

> highway fatalities than in the same period the year before, in part

> because there were simply more cars around. " It was called the '9/11

> effect.' It produced a third again as many fatalities as the

terrorist

> attacks, " says Ropeik, an independent risk consultant and a

former

> annual instructor at the Harvard School of Public Health.

>

> Then too there's what Ropeik and others call " optimism bias, " the

thing

> that makes us glower when we see someone driving erratically while

> talking on a cell phone, even if we've done the very same thing,

perhaps

> on the very same day. We tell ourselves we're different, because our

> call was shorter or our business was urgent or we were able to pay

> attention to the road even as we talked. What optimism bias comes

down

> to, however, is the convenient belief that risks that apply to other

> people don't apply to us.

>

> Finally, and for many of us irresistibly, there's the irrational way

we

> react to risky behavior that also confers some benefit. It would be a

> lot easier to acknowledge the perils of smoking cigarettes or eating

too

> much ice cream if they weren't such pleasures. Drinking too much

confers

> certain benefits too, as do risky sex, recreational drugs and

uncounted

> other indulgences. This is especially true since, in most cases, the

> gratification is immediate and the penalty, if it comes at all, comes

> later. With enough time and enough temptation, we can talk ourselves

> into ignoring almost any long-term costs. " These things are fun or

hip,

> even if they can be lethal, " says Ropeik. " And that pleasure is a

> benefit we weigh. "

>

> If these reactions are true for all of us--and they are--then you

might

> think that all of us would react to risk in the same way. But that's

> clearly not the case. Some people enjoy roller coasters; others won't

go

> near them. Some skydive; others can't imagine it. Not only are thrill

> seekers not put off by risk, but they're drawn to it, seduced by the

> mortal frisson that would leave many of us cold. " There's an internal

> thermostat that seems to control this, " says risk expert

of

> University College London. " That set point varies from person to

person

> and circumstance to circumstance. "

>

> No one knows how such a set point gets calibrated, but evidence

suggests

> that it is a mix of genetic and environmental variables. In a study

at

> the University of Delaware in 2000, researchers used personality

surveys

> to evaluate the risk-taking behavior of 260 college students and

> correlated it with existing research on the brain and blood chemistry

of

> people with thrill-seeking personalities or certain emotional

disorders.

> Their findings support the estimate that about 40% of the high-thrill

> temperament is learned and 60% inherited, with telltale differences

in

> such relevant brain chemicals as serotonin, which helps inhibit

> impulsive behavior and may be in short supply in people with

high-wire

> personalities.

>

> CAN WE DO BETTER?

>

> Given these idiosyncratic reactions, is it possible to have a

rational

> response to risk? If we can't agree on whether something is dangerous

or

> not or, if it is, whether it's a risk worth taking, how can we come

up

> with policies that keep all of us reasonably safe?

>

> One way to start would to be to look at the numbers. Anyone can agree

> that a 1-in-1 million risk is better than 1 in 10, and 1 in 10 is

better

> than 50-50. But things are almost always more complicated than that,

a

> fact that corporations, politicians and other folks with agendas to

push

> often deftly exploit.

>

> Take the lure of the comforting percentage. In one study, Slovic

found

> that people were more likely to approve of airline safety-equipment

> purchases if they were told that it could " potentially save 98% of

150

> people " than if they were told it could " potentially save 150

people. "

> On its face this reaction makes no sense, since 98% of 150 people is

> only 147. But there was something about the specificity of the number

> that the respondents found appealing. " Experts tend to use very

> analytic, mathematical tools to calculate risk, " Slovic says. " The

> public tends to go more on their feelings. "

>

> There's also the art of the flawed comparison. Officials are fond of

> reassuring the public that they run a greater risk from, for example,

> drowning in the bathtub, which kills 320 Americans a year, than from

a

> new peril like mad cow disease, which has so far killed no one in the

> U.S. That's pretty reassuring--and very misleading. The fact is that

> anyone over 6 and under 80--which is to say, the overwhelming

majority

> of the U.S. population--faces almost no risk of perishing in the tub.

> For most of us, the apples of drowning and the oranges of mad cow

> disease don't line up in any useful way.

>

> But such statistical straw men get trotted out all the time. People

> defending the safety of pesticides and other toxins often argue that

you

> stand a greater risk of being hit by a falling airplane (about 1 in

> 250,000 over the course of your entire life) than you do of being

harmed

> by this or that contaminant. If you live near an airport, however,

the

> risk of getting beaned is about 1 in 10,000. Two very different

> probabilities are being conflated into one flawed forecast. " My

favorite

> is the one that says you stand a greater risk from dying while

skydiving

> than you do from some pesticide, " says Egan Keane of the

Natural

> Resources Defense Council. " Well, I don't skydive, so my risk is

zero. "

>

> Risk figures can be twisted in more disastrous ways too. Last year's

> political best seller, The One Percent Doctrine, by journalist Ron

> Suskind, pleased or enraged you, depending on how you felt about war

in

> Iraq, but it hit risk analysts where they live. The title of the book

is

> drawn from a White House determination that if the risk of a

terrorist

> attack in the U.S. was even 1%, it would be treated as if it were a

100%

> certainty. Critics of Administration policy argue that that 1%

> possibility was never properly balanced against the 100% certainty of

> the tens of thousands of casualties that would accompany a war.

That's a

> position that may be easier to take in 2006, with Baghdad in flames

and

> the war grinding on, but it's still true that a 1% danger that

something

> will happen is the same as a 99% likelihood that it won't.

>

> REAL AND PERCEIVED RISK

>

> It's not impossible for us to become sharper risk handicappers. For

one

> thing, we can take the time to learn more about the real odds. Baruch

> Fischhoff, professor of social and decision sciences at Carnegie

Mellon

> University, recently asked a panel of 20 communications and finance

> experts what they thought the likelihood of human-to-human

transmission

> of avian flu would be in the next three years. They put the figure at

> 60%. He then asked a panel of 20 medical experts the same question.

> Their answer: 10%. " There's reason to be critical of experts, "

Fischhoff

> says, " but not to replace their judgment with laypeople's opinions. "

>

> The government must also play a role in this, finding ways to frame

> warnings so that people understand them. Graham, formerly the

> administrator of the federal Office of Information and Regulatory

> Affairs, says risk analysts suffer no end of headaches trying to get

> Americans to understand that while nuclear power plants do pose

dangers,

> the more imminent peril to both people and the planet comes from the

> toxins produced by coal-fired plants. Similarly, pollutants in fish

can

> be dangerous, but for most people--with the possible exception of

small

> children and women of childbearing age--the cardiac benefits of fish

> easily outweigh the risks. " If you can get people to compare, " he

says,

> " then you're in a situation where you can get them to make reasoned

> choices. "

>

> Just as important is to remember to pay proper mind to the dangers

that,

> as the risk experts put it, are hiding in plain sight. Most people no

> longer doubt that global warming is happening, yet we live and work

in

> air-conditioned buildings and drive gas-guzzling cars. Most people

would

> be far likelier to participate in a protest at a nuclear power plant

> than at a tobacco company, but it's smoking, not nukes, that kills an

> average of 1,200 Americans every single day.

>

> We can do better, however, and leaders in government and industry can

> help. The residual parts of our primitive brains may not give us any

> choice beyond fighting or fleeing. But the higher reasoning we've

> developed over millions of years gives us far greater--and far more

> nuanced--options. Officials who provide hard, honest numbers and a

> citizenry that takes the time to understand them would not only mean

a

> smarter nation, but a safer one. [This article contains a complex

> diagram. Please see hardcopy or pdf.] TOTAL ANNUAL DEATHS 2.5 MILLION

> Homicide 17,732 Suicide 31,484

>

> Terrified of bees, snakes and swimming pools? ACCIDENTS 109,277 Maybe

> you should worry more about your heart DISEASES 2.3 million Other

> diseases 681,150 Diabetes 74,219 Chronic lower-respiratory disease

> 126,382 Stroke 157,689 Cancer 556,902 Heart disease 685,089 All other

> deaths 8,364 Sources: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention;

> National Transportation Safety Board

>

> Correction: The original version of this story incorrectly identified

> Ropeik as a " former professor at the Harvard School of Public

> Health. " In fact, Mr. Ropeik was a former annual instructor, not a

> professor, and he was not a member of the school's faculty.

>

>

> With reporting by Bjerklie/New York, Dan Cray/Los Angeles

>

> http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1562978,00.html

>

>

" and the beat goes on....... " Sonny Bono

--------------Learn the art of patience. Apply discipline to your thoughts when

theybecome anxious over the outcome of a goal. Impatience breeds anxiety,fear,

discouragement and failure. Patience creates confidence,decisiveness, and a

rational outlook, which eventually leads tosuccess. --

__________________________________________________