The tendency to prefer the complete elimination of a risk over a larger reduction of a greater risk, even when the latter produces better expected outcomes.
Explained
- People are drawn to eliminating a risk entirely, even when reducing a bigger risk would help more.
- Zero feels categorically safer than small, so certainty outweighs the actual math.
- The comfort of no risk at all is worth a premium in the mind.
- A money-back guarantee sells by taking the user downside to nothing rather than merely lowering it.
