RISK TAKING

Risk taking

Outline:

A clear introduction of the topic risk taking has been provided, giving a clear picture of the topic

Analysis of three articles provided within the context of risk taking

Prresentation of similarities among the three articles

Concluding the paper with a short summary of the paper

Risk Taking

Introduction

People face many risks around them and their environment in their daily lives; for example, the risk of being injured in a car accident while driving and the risk of environmental pollution after a crash of a chlorine-carrying freight train. People accept these hazards to some extent because they also provide benefits; driving to work by car is faster and more convenient than walking, and the chemical industry needs chlorine to produce plastic consumer goods, among other things.

Risk is defined here as the probability of certain negative consequences from a hazard. The benefits of a hazard are described as its positive consequences. Risk is narrowly defined here; a risk assessment generally also includes consideration of other factors, such as the uncertainty of the consequences, the activity itself, and the benefits of this activity. In contrast, risk can also have a positive connotation, when it implies a chance of gaining positive consequences, such as in gambling.

Thesis Statement

In this paper, we would be discussing risk taking in different set of fields. For this purpose, we have selected 3 articles that are related to distinct set of fields. We would be analyzing those three articles and try to understand the risk factors and the challenges that are involved in them.

Literature Reviewed

First Study: “Why Should We Care?—What to Do About Declining Student Empathy”

Last year, the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research published findings in a widely publicized study that demonstrated that today's college students are significantly less empathetic than were college students who attended school in the 80s and 90s. According to Sara Konrath, a research at the Institute, students are 40% less empathetic after the year 2000 as compared to students who attended school two or three decades ago. The study essentially compounded the results of 72 different studies of American college students, ranging from 1979 to 2009.

But the actual causes for this increasing retreat into the self, in which understanding other people, their plights, their different points of view, has become all but impossible, are anyone's guess. Recently, associate professor of American culture and African-American studies Paul Anderson and Konrath penned an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education in which they hazarded a guess at several of the causes that may be underpinning student narcissism and what should be done about it.

Indeed, how are we to fix this problem? Although the authors make references to “empathy workshops,” to me this reeks of the very “market fundamentalism” that the authors decry. Empathy cannot be examined, measured, and taught in a “workshop” setting, which is yet another product of “self-help”, an industry rooted in the neo-liberal market mentality. Empathy can be learned in various ways, but I think the most important thing is to subject ...