The modern world holds countless risks for humanity, both large-scale and intimately personal—from cyberwarfare, pandemics, and climate change to sexually transmitted diseases and drug use and abuse. Many risks have prompted institutional, regulatory, and technological countermeasures, the success of which depends to some extent on how individuals learn about the risks in question. We distinguish between two powerful but imperfect teachers of risk. First, people may learn by consulting symbolic and descriptive material, such as warnings, statistics, and images. More often than not, however, a risk’s fluidity defies precise description. Second, people may learn about risks through personal experience. Responses to risk can differ systematically depending on whether people learn through one mode, both, or neither. One reason for these differences—and by no means the only reason—is the discrepancy in the cognitive impact that rare events (typically the risk event) and common events (typically the nonoccurrence of the risk event) have on the decision maker. We propose a description–experience framework that highlights not only the impact of each mode of learning but also the effects of their interplay on individuals’ and collectives’ responses to risk. We outline numerous research questions and themes suggested by this framework.

现代世界给人类带来了无数的风险，无论是大规模的还是个人的风险——从网络战、流行病、气候变化到性传播疾病以及吸毒和滥用。许多风险催生了制度、监管和技术对策，其成功与否在某种程度上取决于个人如何了解相关风险。我们区分了两个强大但不完美的风险老师。首先，人们可以通过查阅象征性和描述性材料来学习，例如警告、统计数据和图像。然而，风险的流动性往往无法精确描述。其次，人们可以通过个人经历了解风险。对风险的反应可能会系统性地有所不同，具体取决于人们是通过一种模式、两种模式还是两种模式都不进行学习。造成这些差异的原因之一（但绝不是唯一的原因）是罕见事件（通常是风险事件）和常见事件（通常是风险事件未发生）对决策者的认知影响存在差异。我们提出了一个描述-经验框架，不仅强调每种学习模式的影响，而且强调它们相互作用对个人和集体风险反应的影响。我们概述了该框架提出的众多研究问题和主题。