Out of the Ashes: Hope and Vulnerability as Explanatory Factors in Individual Risk Taking

Abstract

High individual risk taking, whether in terms of life‐style risks or others, has often been explained in terms of acceptance of risks or misperception of the possible negative outcome. This article challenges this view, and points to a kind of risks that does not seem to fit this explanation. These risks are referred to as risks from vulnerability. They are taken because there are no positive alternatives to them, and the choice is perceived as having an element of hope. A new framework is proposed in order to expand these explanatory factors within the risk perception research. This framework analyzes individual risk taking in terms of: poor outset conditions, lack of reasonable options, hope, and liability to disinformation.

Keywords:

• Risk
• risk perception
• individual risk taking
• vulnerability
• risk communication
• hope
• reasonable options
• disinformation
• risks from vulnerability

Acknowledgement

The author would to thank Lennart Sjöberg, Niklas Möller, Sven Ove Hansson and an anonymous reviewer for valuable comments and suggestions.

Notes

1. Economical risks can be considered as a third kind of risk, see Sjöberg (1982).