 A few weeks ago, Brian Zigmund Fischer joined Risk Bites to talk about how we feel about risk. Welcome back, Brian. Good to be back. So if risk is the chance that a bad event might happen, do we feel the same about all kinds of risk? I mean, a bad feeling's a bad feeling, right? Actually, no. There are many things that change how we feel about risks. Like what? Well, some of these are obvious. For example, if a risk is likely to occur, then we tend to feel worse about it than if it's unlikely to occur. Paul Slovik, one of the pioneers of risk perception research, has shown that a key question is how well we know the risk. But what do you mean know the risk? Well, we know a lot about some types of risk. Consider car crashes. We know that car crashes happen more often in bad weather. We also know that they happen more often with new drivers who don't have as much experience and with people who don't follow speed limits, right? Okay, so I get that. We know a lot about who gets into car crashes. And as a result, the risk of car crashes is a known risk. So when you say a known risk, you just mean a risk that we're familiar with. Yes. And as a result, even though they happen a lot and can be deadly, most people just are not very afraid of car crashes. Got it. By contrast, consider what happens when a new flu virus appears, as happened back in 2009. I remember that. Right. At the start, we didn't know anything about the virus. That's true. We didn't know whether it was spread quickly or slowly. We didn't know whether most of the people who got sick with it were going to get better or whether many of them would die. We didn't know whether older or younger people would be the most affected. There was a real lot of uncertainty. There certainly was. And uncertainty about a risk scares us. As a result, many people were really afraid of that risk. At first. Only at first? Now, over time, we learned more about the virus. And as we learned more about it, about how it spread, about how many people became sick from it, most of us became less afraid of it. Even though the virus itself hadn't changed. Even though the virus hadn't changed. It seems as though our feelings then about risk aren't just about what we know, but how much we think we know. Yep. That's about right. Well, one thing I do know is that we're out of time for today. Okay. But we're not done yet. I'll be back next week to talk about something else that changes our feelings about risk. But until then, stay safe and feel safe too.