Dylan Evans is a psychologist with an interest in evaluating risk intelligence – how well (or how poorly) people calculate risk based on their actual level of knowledge. His new book Risk Intelligence: How to live with uncertainty explores what kinds of people will most reliably predict outcomes, and concludes that weather forecasters and professional gamblers have skills that most people lack. As well as being good at calculating probabilities, risk intelligent people are also conscious of the limits of their knowledge, and so avoid the temptation to rely on blind luck. Evans’ approach provides an intriguing way to model risk-based decision making.
So do you think your risk intelligence is higher than normal? Evans has a free test to measure your risk intelligence, which you can find here. I took it and scored 74.5, which is apparently quite high. Phew… maybe I am in the right job after all…
