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AbstractI shall discuss, from a personal perspective, research on risk perception that has created an understanding of the dynamic interplay between an appreciation of risk that resides in us as a feeling and an appreciation of risk that results from analysis. In some circumstances, feelings reflect important social values that deserve to be considered along with traditional analyses of physical and economic risk. In other situations, both feelings and analyses may be shaped by powerful cognitive biases and deep social and partisan prejudices, causing nonrational judgments and decisions. This is of concern if risk analysis is to be applied, as it needs to be, in managing existential threats such as pandemic disease, climate change, or nuclear weapons amidst a divisive political climate.

10 pages ; In 1994 I carefully followed the reports of the genocide occurring in Rwanda where some 800,000 people were murdered in about 100 days. I was shocked by the indifference of the American public to this terrible news and angered by the refusal of the world's governments to intervene and stop the bloodshed. I'm a researcher who studies the psychology of risk and decision making. And after the Rwandan genocide, my colleagues and I decided to study why we are so often indifferent to genocide and other mass atrocities and fail to intervene to prevent them from occurring. Through my research, I've learned something disturbing, and that is "the more who die, the less we care." Today I am going to explain what our research shows about why we are so often indifferent to genocides and mass atrocities and then offer some recommendations about how we might overcome the mistakes we make in our "arithmetic of compassion."

Risk management has become increasingly politicized and contentious. Polarized views, controversy, and conflict have become pervasive. Research has begun to provide a new perspective on this problem by demonstrating the complexity of the concept "risk" and the inadequacies of the traditionalview of risk assessment as a purely scientific enterprise. This paper argues that danger is real, but risk is socially constructed. Risk assessment is inherently subjective and represents a blending of science and judgmentwith important psychological, social, cultural, and political factors. In addition, our social and democratic institutions, remarkable as they are in many respects, breed distrust in the risk arena. Whoever controls the definition of risk controls the rational solution to the problem at hand. Ifrisk is defined one way, then one option will rise to the top as the most cost‐effective or the safest or the best. If it is defined another way, perhaps incorporating qualitative characteristics and other contextual factors, one will likely get a different ordering of action solutions. Definingrisk is thus an exercise in power. Scientific literacy and public education are important, but they are not central to risk controversies. The public is not irrational. Their judgments about risk are influenced by emotion and affect in a way that is both simple and sophisticated. The same holds true for scientists. Public views are also influenced by worldviews, ideologies, and values; so are scientists' views, particularly when they are working at the limits of their expertise. The limitations of risk science, the importance and difficulty of maintaining trust, and the complex, sociopolitical nature of risk point to the need for a new approach‐one that focuses upon introducing more public participation into both risk assessment and risk decision making in order to make the decision process more democratic, improve the relevance and quality of technical analysis, and increasethe legitimacy and public acceptance of the resulting decisions.

47 pages ; Risk management has become increasingly politicized and contentious. Polarized views, controversy, and conflict have become pervasive. Research has begun to provide a new perspective on this problem by demonstrating the complexity of the concept ''risk'' and the inadequacies of the traditional view of risk assessment as a purely scientific enterprise. This paper argues that danger is real, but risk is socially constructed. Risk assessment is inherently subjective and represents a blending of science and judgment with important psychological, social, cultural, and political factors. In addition, our social and democratic institutions, remarkable as they are in many respects, breed distrust in the risk arena. Whoever controls the definition of risk controls the rational solution to the problem at hand. If risk is defined one way, then one option will rise to the top as the most cost-effective or the safest or the best. If it is defined another way, perhaps incorporating qualitative characteristics and other contextual factors, one will likely get a different ordering of action solutions. Defining risk is thus an exercise in power. Scientific literacy and public education are important, but they are not central to risk controversies. The public is not irrational. Their judgments about risk are influenced by emotion and affect in a way that is both simple and sophisticated. The same holds true for scientists. Public views are also influenced by worldviews, ideologies, and values; so are scientists' views, particularly when they are working at the limits of their expertise. The limitations of risk science, the importance and difficulty of maintaining trust, and the complex, sociopolitical nature of risk point to the need for a new approach—one that focuses upon introducing more public participation into both risk assessment and risk decision making in order to make the decision process more democratic, improve the relevance and quality of technical analysis, and increase the legitimacy and public acceptance of the resulting decisions. ; Preparation of this paper was supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Electric Power Research Institute, and the National Science Foundation under Grants No. 91-10592 SBR 94-122754.