It seems that people do not extrapolate from experienced small hazards to the possibility of large risks.

This is a hedged claim about research findings on risk perception. True: empirical research (e.g. Kates 1962, Burton et al. on flood plains, or later hazard-perception studies) shows that people who have experienced small hazards tend to base their expectations and precautions on those past events and do not extrapolate to larger possible disasters. Mostly true: the research broadly supports this, but the evidence is narrower than stated (e.g. mostly flood studies) or the effect is a tendency with exceptions. Mixed: studies conflict roughly evenly, or the finding holds in some hazard domains and not in others. Mostly false: the claim rests on a real but narrow or misread finding that does not support the general statement, or the evidence is inconclusive. False: the research shows that people who have experienced small hazards do routinely extrapolate to the possibility of large risks.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 Robert W. Kates Robert W. Kates (personal site, rwkates.org) · 1 January 2018

   “1962 Kates, R. W., 1962. Hazard and Choice Perception in Flood Plain Management, University of Chicago, Department of Geography Research, Paper No. 78.”

2. E2 Robert W. Kates Robert W. Kates (personal site, rwkates.org) · 1 January 2018

   “1964 Burton, I. and R. W. Kates, 1964. The Perception of Natural Hazards in Resource Management, Natural Resources Journal, Vol. III, No. 3, pp. 412-441;”

3. E3 Environmental Preception Clark University (WordPress site of Robert W. Kates) · 2 August 2016

   “1976 Kates, R W., 1976. Experiencing the Environment as Hazard, in Seymour Wapner, Saul Cohen and Bernard Kaplan (eds.), Experiencing the Environment, Plenum Press, pp. 133-156.”

4. E4 gcgs042009.indd Geografie – Sborník České geografické společnosti (Vilímek & Spilková) · 2009

   “It is obvious that individual’s perception of the hazard is influenced by the one’s own experience with the hazard, the extent to which one is sensitive to the characteristics of a natural event and the personality of the perceiver.”

5. E5 gcgs042009.indd Geografie – Sborník České geografické společnosti (Vilímek & Spilková) · 2009

   “At the personal level, however, the intensity of an experience, its recency and frequency seems to be fundamental (Kates 1971).”

6. E6 gcgs042009.indd Geografie – Sborník České geografické společnosti (Vilímek & Spilková) · 2009

   ““…the appraisal of risk is often altered by past experiences that affect judgment…”

E1–E3 are bibliography entries for Kates and Burton's work on hazard perception. They give only titles and state no findings about whether people extrapolate from small hazards to large risks. E4–E6 are from a 2009 review, which says that personal experience, especially its intensity, recency and frequency, shapes how people perceive hazards and alters their judgment of risk. None of this evidence says whether people fail to extrapolate from small hazards to the possibility of larger disasters, so the criteria cannot be applied.