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Target Risk
Dealing
with the danger of death, disease
and damage in everyday decisions
by
First
edition (1994); see text on remainder of this webpage.
TARGET
RISK 2, second, enlarged and updated edition (2001) (not on the internet)
is available from PDE Publications, Toronto http://www.pde.drivers.com/store/books/014.php
Spanish
translation, (updated from Target Risk 2) Versión al español:
“Riesgo Deseado? El comportamiento humano ante el peligro”
(translated by L. Daniel Ramirez Isaías, México, 2001),
for internet version click on www.darsegu.com/content/view/22/74/
Portuguese
version (updated from Target Risk 2, translated by Reinier J.A. Rozestraten)
: “O Limite Aceitável do Risco, Uma nova Psicologia de
Segurança e de Saúde, O que funciona? O que não
funciona? E por que...”(São Paulo, Brasil, 2005); for publisher
check . www.casadopsicologo.com.br
Japanese
translation, (by Shigeru Haga, Tokyo, updated from Target Risk 2), expected
to appear in 2006.
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[TABLE
OF CONTENTS]
Copyright ©
1994 Gerald J.S. Wilde,
Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Queen's University
Kingston, Ontario, Canada K7L 3N6
e-mail: wildeg@post.queensu.ca
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written
permission of the author.
PDE
Publications
310-5334 Yonge Street
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M2N 6M2
Fax: (416) 767-7425
Tel: (416) 767-4885
e-mail: pde@drivers.com
Cover: Robert Delaunay, Disque (Paris, 1912)
ISBN 0-9699124-0-4
What's
been said about Risk Homeostasis and Target Risk...
Dr. Gerald
J.S. Wilde is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Queen's University in
Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Born in the Netherlands in 1932, he received his
Ph.D. (cum laude) from the University of Amsterdam in 1962. He was visiting
professor at the City University of New York 1964-65, and has been Chairman
of various research groups of the OECD. He has been active in research and transportation
safety since the late '60s and has received visiting scientist's awards from
the governments of France and the Netherlands. His teaching and research interests
include ergonomic psychology, skill acquisition, mass media messages and behaviour
change, human behaviour in transportation, and the psychology of risk taking.
TO TAKE A RISK:
to expose oneself to potential loss.
[from Latin risicare = to navigate around a cliff or rock]
TARGET RISK:
the level of risk a person chooses to accept in order to maximize the overall
expected benefit from an activity.
[Synonyms: accepted, preferred, tolerated, desired risk; set-point risk]
HOMEOSTASIS:
a regulating process that keeps the outcome close to the target by compensating
for disturbing external influences. For example, the human body core temperature
is homeostatically maintained within relatively narrow limits despite major
variations in the temperature of the surrounding air.
[from Greek homeo = matching, similar, and stasis = condition, state of affairs]
RISK HOMEOSTASIS:
the degree of risk-taking behaviour and the magnitude of loss due to accidents
and lifestyle-dependent disease are maintained over time, unless there is a
change in the target level of risk.
Contents
of First Edition
(now out of print and replaced by “Target Risk 2” (2001), with
more empirical evidence.)
This book is dedicated by a boyhood friend to the memory of Damiaen van
Doorninck, Jacques Jansen, Hans Cohen and Izaäc Gosschalk, who fell victim
to the violence of fascists, and offered in lasting gratitude to the Canadians
who liberated Deventer, their hometown in the eastern Netherlands, from Nazi
tyranny on the tenth of April in 1945. All are immortal: the dead live on
in the lives of the living.
- INTRODUCTION
- THE
CONCEPT OF HOMEOSTASIS
- TOWARD
A COMPACT THEORY OF RISK TAKING
- THE
THEORY OF RISK HOMEOSTASIS
- DEDUCTIONS
AND DATA
- INTERVENTION
BY EDUCATION
- 6.1
Education
- 6.2
Training
- 6.3
Lulled into an illusion of safety
- 6.4
Mass media messages for safety and health
- 6.4.1
Yardsticks of effectiveness
- 6.4.2
Message components
- REMEDY
BY ENGINEERING?
- 7.1
The Munich taxicab experiment
- 7.2
The wheels of misfortune
- 7.3
Traffic lights
- 7.4
Motor-vehicle manufacturing standards
- ENFORCEMENT
ACTION
- 8.1
Drinking and driving
- 8.2
Mandatory seatbelt wearing
- 8.3
The Nashville crackdown-slowdown study
- 8.4
The road safety record of Japan
- RISK
HOMEOSTASIS IN THE LABORATORY
- 9.1
Brinkmanship
- 9.2
Are you taking too much risk or too little--and how can you tell?
- INDIVIDUAL
DIFFERENCES
- 10.1
Personality, attitude and lifestyle
- 10.2
The unreliability of accident liability
- 10.3
Prospect and retrospect
- 10.4
Demographic characteristics
- MOTIVATING
FOR SAFETY AND HEALTH
- 11.1
Punishing unsafe acts
- 11.2
Extending incentives for accident-free operation
- 11.3
Disincentives
- 11.4
Requirements for effective incentive programming
- 11.5
Comparing workers with drivers
- 11.6
What a government can do
- 11.7
The role of automobile insurance
- 11.8
Recapitulation
- FURTHER
PERSPECTIVES
- 12.1
Expectationism
- 12.2
Epilogue
Last updated by Web
Manager 2006
Copyright ©
1994 Gerald J. S. Wilde, Ph.D.