Why Do Humans Fear the Wrong Things? Ranking Real vs. Perceived Risk
Three tiers, by what they actually measure
The Spotlight
One visible, vivid, or heavily-covered event gets overweighted in judgments of risk, regardless of how often it actually happens.
The Blind Spot
The quantified mismatch that mechanism produces, and the real-world cost when people act on the miscalibrated version.
The Dread Factor
Not all of the gap is irrational error. Dread and catastrophic potential are a genuinely separate axis from frequency, in both directions.
Explore the data
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Dataset schema
| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
case_id | string | Short identifier for the case, e.g. radon |
case_name | string | Full, human-readable case title |
tier | string | spotlight, blindspot, or dread |
metric_label | string | What the figure measures |
metric_value | number | The reported numeric value |
unit | string | percent, ratio, rank, or count |
source | string | Study, institution, or database |
source_year | number | Year of fieldwork or publication |
sample_size | string | Reported sample size, where available |
Sourcing & methodology
Every figure traces to a named peer-reviewed study, a named government dataset, or a documented data replication, never a repeated internet statistic. The Dread Factor tier is included specifically because it complicates a simple "fear is irrational" story, and that complication is documented rather than smoothed over.
Licensing & compliance
This dataset is available for commercial and internal use under a DT Linux data license. Every figure remains attributed to its original source. No respondent-level or personally identifiable data is included anywhere; all figures are published aggregates.
API access
Need these figures inside your own dashboard or product? DT Linux can expose this and other data-briefing datasets over a lightweight API. Reach out at info@dtlinux.com to discuss access.