Risk compensation
Also known as Peltzman effect
Not a bias
The tendency to take more risks when we feel safer and to act more carefully when we feel more at risk. Safety measures can lose part of their benefit this way.
In everyday life
In one study, children ran an obstacle course faster and more recklessly when they wore safety gear than when they didn't.
After buying a car with automatic emergency braking, you start checking your phone at red lights and following the car ahead more closely.
Why your mind does this
To act at all, we need some belief that our choices matter and that we can pull them off. A bit of extra confidence gets us moving, keeps us going after setbacks, and protects our sense of self-worth and our standing in a group.
Its family, in 30 seconds: Confidence to act
How to spot it
Notice when new safety gear or a backup plan makes you relax your other habits.
What you can do
When you add a safety measure, decide in advance that your other careful habits stay exactly the same.
Same family: Confidence to act
- Overconfidence effect
- Social desirability bias
- Third-person effect
- False consensus effect
- Hard-easy effect
- Lake Wobegon effect
- Dunning-Kruger effect
- Egocentric bias
- Optimism bias
- Forer effect
- Barnum effect
- Self-serving bias
- Actor-observer bias
- Illusion of control
- Illusory superiority
- Fundamental attribution error
- Defensive attribution hypothesis
- Trait ascription bias
- Effort justification
- Risk compensation
- Peltzman effect
SourcesHedlund (2000)·Wikipedia