Chapter 11. The Fear Factor

We tend to have exaggerated fears of publicized threats that kill people dramatically (terrorism, plane crashes, shark attacks), and to fear too little the risks that are harder to visualize but take many more lives, one by one (ongoing gun violence, childhood illnesses worldwide, heart disease).

We tend to fear things that were risks for our distant ancestors (thus, we may fear snakes more than cigarettes). And we tend to fear what we can’t control, what’s immediate, and what’s vividly available in memory (a shark attack or a terrorism attack, rather than guns in the home or heart disease).