The long answer is, how much mumbo jumbo do you want to read?
The extended question is, why do you want to? And,
What are your assumptions about fallibility and prediction?
I was sent a link to this publication A Domain-Specific Risk-Attitude Scale: Measuring Risk Perceptions and Risk Behaviors by someone in the safety industry who asked why I didn’t use this so-called method.
Whenever I am sent this kind of stuff it is always best to start with some Critical Discourse Analysis. Just look at the Language and Discourse (power in language) and you will learn a great deal about the ontology, methodology, purpose, Ethic and assumptions of the authors.
In CDA look for what is undeclared and what is unspoken in this kind of publication. Moreso, the mythology that surrounds so called ‘peer reviewed’ (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/leap.1414 ) work is often approved by ‘in-house’ clubs of academics (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1420798/ ) sustaining the mythology of ‘publish or perish’ (https://www.proquest.com/openview/2e536c3bc798b176737a48709eeb1196/1.pdf?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=47699 ). WE already know that peer review is a joke (https://asm.org/articles/2024/november/ai-peer-review-recipe-disaster-success), AI has made sure of that.
Here are some examples of words and frequency used:
Behaviour – 200
Personhood – 0
Conscious – 0
Fallible – 0
Unconscious – 0
Randomness – 0
Unpredictable – 0
Predict – 27
Uncertainty – 9
Culture – 2
Human – 0
Learning – 1
Moral – 0
This is a mechanical paper targeting an audience that believes the undeclared myths of behaviourism.
We know that risk is defined by uncertainty and cannot be twisted to ensure certainty, regardless of the engineering, tables, spreadsheets and mathematical mumbo jumbo one produces in tables and percentages.
It is simply nonsense to suggest you can know about uncertainty and human choice by running a set of questions by a population sample with loaded statements formulated by people with no expertise in Linguistics.
Moreso, the fact that risk must be held in tension with learning is never mentioned in this kind of stuff. The word ‘learning’ appears once and not in relation to risk.
The fact is, that risk is essential for learning and any diminishing of risk appetite and risk attitude results in the suppression of learning. Of course, no-one wants to talk about that!
Risk is a wicked problem and cannot be measured, neither can risk-perception, risk-taking or risk-attitude. Similarly, there is no measure for risk-aversion or behaviour prediction. All of this is pure behaviourist mythology.
Of course, when you read this on page 283, you know what territory you are in:
‘We would like to end with some speculations about the processes that might underlie the pattern of responses observed in our three studies and modeled by the risk–return model of equation.’
So, we end with ‘speculations’, ‘serendipitous findings’ (next para), ‘a purely as-if model of risk taking’, ‘situational factors’, ‘affective processes might play a role in risk-taking’, ‘Individual or gender differences (e.g. in sensation seeking) may influence people’s affective response towards risk’ etc. and this:
‘Affective responses color perceptions of risks and benefits (Alhakami and Slovic,1994) which in turn influence risk taking, as shown in our studies. While not providing any direct evidence about mediating (cognitive or affective) processes, our scales allow for a functional analysis of differences in risk taking that goes further in providing explanations useful for interventions than any other existing approach.’
In other words, they don’t know! The language at the end of this paper says nothing about certainty or prediction! Yet, it conveys the impression that somehow the researchers have some scale that is useable for risk-taking measures? The language is about: ‘may, ‘might’, ‘possibly’, ‘as-if’ (faith) and ‘speculations’. Yet, the tone of the paper is about mechanical prediction and knowing.
Unfortunately, the safety person who posted this paper to me was asking why I didn’t use this measure (DOSPERT) for safety. They were convinced by all its tables, measures and mumbo-jumbo that it was possible to measure risk-taking. Even if there was a measure for risk-taking what interventions you use says more about your mythology than reality and, so little about your bias against risk.
Yet, this peer-reviewed paper says nothing about its measures, it’s assumptions, ethical considerations, flawed linguistic interpretations in surveying, philosophy or using quantitative measures applied to human psychology. What would you expect, its behaviourism, peer-reviewed by behaviourist academics to maintain the mythology of behaviourist assumptions. This is how academic works. The best back-slapping wins.
Risk is not the problem. Risk cannot be measured and despite all the wishing to the contrary, Risk Makes Sense (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/risk-makes-sense/).
If you live in the USA and want to know more about methods that are NOT behaviouristic, that are positive, constructive and practical that work. Register for the conference in Houston in May.
Registration Here: https://linktr.ee/SPoR.USA.may2025
Dr Rob Long
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