In this 10 part series of Reducing Risk Tolerance we will explore each of the ten factors that influence risk rolerance and provide more details about each.  When taken together, this series should provide a more comprehensive review of the factors that influence risk tolerance so action can be taken to reduce risk toerlance and keep people safer. The factors that influence personal risk tolerance are:

• Overestimating one’s own capability and experience (increases risk tolerance)
• Familiarity with the task i.e. complacency (increases risk tolerance)
• Seriousness of the potential safety outcome (decreases risk tolerance)
• Voluntary actions and sense of being in control (increases risk tolerance)
• Personal experience with an outcome (decreases risk tolerance)
• Cost or implications of non-compliance (decreases risk tolerance)
• Confidence in the equipment (increases risk tolerance)
• Confidence in PPE and rescue (increases risk tolerance)
• Potential profit / gain from the action (increases risk tolerance)
• Role models accepting risk (increases risk tolerance)

This episode discusses how voluntary actions and and sense of being in control tends to increase risk tolerance when undertaking a job.  When you are in control of the activity you tend to feel that you are in control of the risks and their potential outcomes which increases your risk tolerance.  This is why people who scuba dive on vacation or recreationally tend to downplay the risks associated with commercial diving activities.  It is also why pepel tend to take more risks on a particular when they do it as opposed to when a close friend or family member is doing the same task.

Additionally, once we decide to activitely participate in an activity, either on or off the job, we then tend to downplay the risks associated with doing the activity.  This is a type of confirmation bias that gets further reinforced by our sense of being in control.

This risk factor is a key element in people getting hurt off the job (i.e. 28 times more likely than at work) as we all tend to engage in riskier activities in our personal lives than at work and our voluntary commitment to the activity and sense of being in control decreases our ability to objectively understand and identify risk.