Case file
Risk Compensation
- Filed under
- Need To Act Fast
The charge
When people feel safer, they often take more risk, offsetting some of the intended safety benefit.
How it operates
Behavior adapts to perceived safety margins, so people drift back toward a target level of acceptable risk.
Logged incidents
- Incident 01
Drivers speed up after new driver-assist features are added.
- Incident 02
Traders take larger positions after adding a hedge.
- Incident 03
Employees get sloppier with phishing hygiene after a new security tool launches.
What to watch for
Catch it when a safeguard changes behavior, not just exposure. Ask: 'Did this protection make us technically safer while also making us act bolder?'
Recommended action
Measure behavioral offsets after the intervention and pair safety tools with feedback, training, or guardrails.
Known associates
- Overconfidence EffectPeople's confidence in their judgments often exceeds their actual accuracy, especially for predictions,…
- Social Desirability BiasPeople report attitudes or behaviors that make them look good to others instead of what is most accurate or…
- Third-Person EffectWe tend to believe persuasive messages, misinformation, or manipulation affect other people more than they…
- False Consensus EffectWe overestimate how much other people share our beliefs, preferences, and habits.
- Hard-Easy EffectOn hard tasks we are usually too confident, and on easy tasks we are often not confident enough.
- Lake Wobegon EffectMost people rate themselves as above average on desirable qualities, even when that cannot be true for…
Source of record