We are used to believe that people gauged risk like actuaries, parsing out cost-benefit data when a merging car came too close or the crime rate spiked. But a wave of psychological experiments in the 1980s upended this thinking.
Researchers found that people use a set of mental shortcuts for measuring danger. Ideally, these shortcuts help people figure out which ones to worry and which to disregard. But they can be imperfect.
When you encounter a potential risk, your brain does a quick search for past experiences with it. if it can easily pull up multiple alarming memories, then your brain concludes the danger is high. But it offer fails to asses where those memories are truly representative.
The tendency cant out in both directs, leading not to undue alarm but undue complacency. Though flu kills tens of thousands of Americans every year, most people's experiences with it are relatively mundane.
"We're conditioned by our experiences,", said Paul Slovic, a University of Oregon psychologist." But experience can mislead us to be too comfortable with things."
We are also conditioned to heavily focus on new threats, looking for any cause for alarm. This can lead us to obsess over the scariest reports and worse-case scenarios, making the danger seem bigger still.
New expressions:
Actuary n.精算师 an actuary is someone who does the cost-benefit report all the time and who calculates the potential risks of a company.
Gauge vt.评估，判定 a formal way to express evaluate or assess, Gauge a problem on a project.
Parse out a technician parse out the data of buyers' behavior.
Upend v.反转（Flip/overturn) means an opinion that has been turned to an opposite side.
The thinking of now working no money has been upended by a new scientist.
Figure out 断定，解决
I need to figure it out/ We have to figure out the problem/ We must figure out a solution
Undue adj.不必要的，不适当的
Undue alarm 不必要的恐慌
Undue complacency不必要的自大
Mundane adj.平常的 （Like normal)
Be conditioned by sth/受到....影响/控制
Be conditioned by our experiences.受我们经验的控制
Be conditioned by our habits被习惯支配
Be conditioned to/Become conditioned to 习惯于
We become conditioned to the new working hours.
You are just conditioned to focus heavily on new words, or the new threats, looking for any reason to stop reading.
Obsess v.纠结，着迷
Obsess over sth. 着迷于某物
Obsess over sb着迷于某人
Sb obsess over sth某人着迷于某事
Sth obsess sb.某物吸引某人
