Thinking About Risk: Moving Away from "Leaving It to the Experts"

This book introduces basic discussions about risk from a psychological perspective, using risk communication as a keyword.

The inspiration for writing this book came when I received a long, handwritten request from an editor at Chikuma Shobo. Since receiving a handwritten letter is such a rare experience, I accepted the offer immediately.

I always decide on the structure of everything I write, including academic papers, before I start. Therefore, I spent a lot of time discussing the structure. In a paper, one tends to start with definitions, such as "What is risk communication?" I am truly grateful to the editor who carefully advised me on things like chapter organization instead.

I kept two points in mind while writing. First, based on my proposal and with the editor's consent, I tried to avoid recent examples like COVID-19 as much as possible. If I used recent cases, they might be easy to understand now, but there is a high possibility that the details will be forgotten in a few years. Instead, I actively introduced cases where similar things are likely to happen in the future, even if they are old stories. For example, many cases of pollution and drug-induced health disasters take a long time for the recognition of aftereffects and for trials. Similar things can happen even with events occurring in real-time.

Second, since I had been intermittently writing a series of five essays on crisis management in Iwanami Shoten's magazine "Kagaku" (Science) since 2016, along with two separate essays related to COVID-19, I took the most care to ensure the content did not overlap with those.

However, there are parts where I couldn't strictly follow my own rules mentioned above, so COVID-19 stories appear here and there, and there is some slight overlap with "Kagaku." Regarding this point, I can only hope that readers will be forgiving.

I have received feedback from a friend who is incapable of flattery, saying that this is the best book currently available in this field, so I would definitely like to encourage everyone to purchase it.

Just between us, I have included subtle "ikezu" (sarcastic/wicked) expressions here and there that I acquired during my approximately 20 years of living in Kyoto. I would be even happier if you could add discovering them through careful reading to your enjoyment of the book.

Thinking About Risk: Moving Away from "Leaving It to the Experts"

Toshiko Kikkawa

Chikuma Shinsho

240 pages, 946 yen (tax included)

*Affiliations and titles are as of the time of publication.