The Theory of Risk Homeostasis¶
Wilde, G. J. S. (1982). The Theory of Risk Homeostasis: Implications for Safety and Health. Risk Analysis, 2(4), 209-225.
Cited by¶
3 citations across 3 artifacts.
Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.
Primes¶
- Peltzman Effect
- The transferable content is an intervention family that reshapes the constraint set so the offset shrinks. Hide the safeguard from the agent where possible: passive safety such as crumple zones and structural fire protection produces smaller offsets than visible safety such as warning indicators, because an agent cannot consciously rebalance against what it cannot perceive.
This sourceFoundational risk-homeostasis theory: agents rebalance toward a target risk level when perceived safety changes, so perceptible safeguards prompt larger behavioral offsets than imperceptible (passive) ones.
Supported in partVerified against the publisher's abstract
Wilde's abstract gives only the general risk-homeostasis frame, accident rate governed by a target level of risk, not the claim's comparison of passive versus visible safeguards, which needs the full text.
“the accident rate is ultimately dependent on one factor only, the target level of risk in the population concerned which acts as the reference variable in a homeostatic process relating accident rate to human motivation.”
- The transferable content is an intervention family that reshapes the constraint set so the offset shrinks. Hide the safeguard from the agent where possible: passive safety such as crumple zones and structural fire protection produces smaller offsets than visible safety such as warning indicators, because an agent cannot consciously rebalance against what it cannot perceive.
Mechanisms¶
- Adaptive Circumvention Red Team
- The discipline is genuine independence, a real incentive to succeed at breaking the control, and a standing obligation to act on what is found — the same behavioural adaptation the team simulates is what risk homeostasis predicts real users will do once the control is live.
This sourceInvokes risk homeostasis to predict how real users will behave after a control goes live.
- The discipline is genuine independence, a real incentive to succeed at breaking the control, and a standing obligation to act on what is found — the same behavioural adaptation the team simulates is what risk homeostasis predicts real users will do once the control is live.
- Exposure Cap or Rate Limiter
- This is risk homeostasis biting back: constrain one outlet and the drive to a target risk level tends to reappear elsewhere unless the target itself is addressed.
This sourceExplains risk homeostasis as regulation around a target level of risk and argues that lasting safety improvement requires changing that target.
- This is risk homeostasis biting back: constrain one outlet and the drive to a target risk level tends to reappear elsewhere unless the target itself is addressed.
Verification¶
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