Risk Management & Mitigation Flashcards

A passage contends that post-disaster risk assessments are inherently biased because analysts unconsciously emphasize the hazard that just occurred. The author calls this 'recency distortion.' Which of the following best describes the type of reasoning error the author is identifying?

Answer: An availability heuristic, where easily recalled events are overweighted in probability judgments.

Recency distortion as described matches the availability heuristic: recent, vivid events become cognitively salient and inflate perceived likelihood.

A health policy passage argues that risk stratification — treating high-risk individuals more intensively — is more cost-effective than universal prevention programs. A critic argues that risk stratification stigmatizes vulnerable groups. These two positions are in conflict primarily over:

Answer: The definition of 'cost-effectiveness' and whether it should include social harms.

The dispute hinges on whether 'cost-effectiveness' accounts only for direct financial costs or also incorporates social costs like stigma.

An author writes: 'Organizations that treat near-miss events as learning opportunities have significantly lower rates of catastrophic failure than those that treat near-misses as evidence of system resilience.' Which inference is best supported by this statement?

Answer: Interpreting near-misses as system resilience may mask systemic vulnerabilities.

If treating near-misses as resilience correlates with higher catastrophic failure rates, such interpretations likely obscure the warnings near-misses provide.

A passage describing military risk assessment argues that quantitative risk models are insufficient because they cannot capture the adversarial, adaptive nature of human opponents. This argument is most analogous to which of the following claims in another domain?

Answer: Financial models fail to predict market crashes because investor psychology is irrational.

Both arguments note that quantitative models fail when the subject actively responds to and counters the model's assumptions — an adversarial dynamic absent from passive physical systems.

In a passage on environmental risk, the author asserts that the 'acceptable risk' threshold set by regulators reflects political negotiation as much as scientific calculation. A defender of the current system responds that regulatory bodies employ independent scientific panels. The best way to evaluate whose position is stronger is to determine:

Answer: Whether the final risk thresholds consistently align with the panels' published technical recommendations.

If final thresholds diverge from the panels' own scientific recommendations, it suggests non-scientific factors — including politics — are influencing outcomes, supporting the author's position.

A passage states that risk transfer mechanisms like insurance can create moral hazard by reducing the insured party's incentive to prevent losses. An author uses this to argue that insurance is net harmful to society. The argument's main weakness is:

Answer: It ignores the risk-pooling benefits of insurance that may outweigh any moral hazard effects.

Identifying only the downside of insurance without weighing its substantial benefit of spreading risk makes the net-harm conclusion unsupported.

An author argues that community resilience to natural disasters depends more on social capital (networks of mutual aid) than on physical infrastructure. The passage concedes that physical infrastructure is necessary but insufficient. Which of the following statements is most consistent with this view?

Answer: Physical defenses may protect against initial impact, but recovery speed is largely governed by community cohesion.

This captures the author's nuanced position: infrastructure is conceded as necessary for protection while social capital is argued as the decisive factor in resilience and recovery.