One of the fundamental questions addressed by risk-benefit analysis is "How safe is safe enough?" Chauncey Starr has proposed that economic data be used to reveal patterns of acceptable risk-benefit tradeoffs. The present study investigates an alternative technique, in which psychometric procedures were used to elicit quantitative judgments of perceived risk, acceptable risk, and perceived benefit for each of 30 activities and technologies. The participants were seventy-six members of the League of Women Voters. The results indicated little systematic relationship between perceived existing risks and benefits of the 30 risk items. Current risk levels were generally viewed as unacceptably high. When current risk levels were adjusted to what would be considered acceptable risk levels, however, risk was found to correlate with benefit. Nine descriptive attributes of risk were also studied. These nine attributes seemed to tap two basic dimensions of risk. These dimensions proved to be effective predictors of the tradeoff between acceptable risk and perceived benefit. The limitations of the present study and the relationship between this technique and Starr's technique are discussed, along with the implications of the findings for policy decisions.

A series of experiments studied how people judge the frequency of death from various causes. The judgments exhibited a highly consistent but systematically biased subjective scale of frequency. Two kinds of bias were identified: (a) a tendency to overestimate small frequencies and underestimate larger ones, and (b) a tendency to exaggerate the frequency of some specific causes and to underestimate the frequency of others, at any given level of objective frequency. These biases were traced to a number of possible sources, including disproportionate exposure, memorability, or imaginability of various events. Subjects were unable to correct for these sources of bias when specifically instructed to avoid them. Comparisons with previous laboratory studies are discussed, along with methods for improving frequency judgments and the implications of the present findings for the management of societal hazards.How well can people estimate the fre-how small a difference in frequency can be quencies of the lethal events they may en-reliably detected? Do people have a concounter in life (e.g., accidents, diseases, sistent internal scale of frequency for such homicides, suicides, etc.) ? More specifically, events? What factors, besides actual frequency, influence people's judgments?The answers to these questions may have to society. Citizens must Defense and was monitored by the Office of Naval assess rlsks accurately in order to mobilize Research under Contracts N00014-76-C-0074 and society's resources effectively for reducing N00074-78-C-0100 (ARPA Order Nos. 3052 and hazards and treating their victims. Official ,5469) under subcontract to Oregon Research In-reco nition of the irn p 0r t a nce of valid risk . , ,.,<<., • ^ » 0722 to Perceptronics, Inc. from Decisions and assessments is found m the vital statistics Designs, Inc. that are carefully tabulated and periodically We would like to thank Nancy Collins and reported to the public (see Figure 1 ). There Peggy Roecker for extraordinary diligence and ; Sj i lowev er, no guarantee that these statispatience in typing and data analysis. We are also .

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The construct of place has largely been under-utilized, and, therefore, under-theorized, in social science discussions regarding systematic racial oppression, but we need to consider physical space or symbolic (i.e. social/political) place in our ideas about both racial identity formation and racial relations. During the Jim Crow era, blacks were expected to 'stay in their place', and that place was always subservient to the position of whites. Despite advances by racial/ethnic minorities and other disadvantaged groups, vestiges of this American Jim Crow belief system still operate in society. The author contends that recent widespread voter suppression efforts commencing en masse since 2010 are not a rejection of black bodies per se but a response to perceived black (and brown) bodies out of place. The article provides a framework to help illuminate the presence of continued systematic pushback against the advances of minorities amidst a growing discourse of colorblindness.