The paper “The Affect Heuristic in Judgments of Risks and Benefits” doesn’t mention explicitly separating benefit from risk in the critical second experiment (and probably not the first either, which I didn’t read). If I were brought in and given the question, ‘In general, how beneficial do you consider the use of X in the U.S. as a whole?’, then I would weigh all positive and negative aspects together to get a final judgment on whether or not it’s worth using. “Benefit” CAN be a distinct concept from risks, but language is messy, and it can be (and I would) interpreted as “sufficiency to employ”. As a result, depending on the reader’s interpretation of “benefit”, it’s possible that any lowering of perceived risk will NECESSARILY increase perceived benefit, no logical error required.
The paper “The Affect Heuristic in Judgments of Risks and Benefits” doesn’t mention explicitly separating benefit from risk in the critical second experiment (and probably not the first either, which I didn’t read). If I were brought in and given the question, ‘In general, how beneficial do you consider the use of X in the U.S. as a whole?’, then I would weigh all positive and negative aspects together to get a final judgment on whether or not it’s worth using. “Benefit” CAN be a distinct concept from risks, but language is messy, and it can be (and I would) interpreted as “sufficiency to employ”. As a result, depending on the reader’s interpretation of “benefit”, it’s possible that any lowering of perceived risk will NECESSARILY increase perceived benefit, no logical error required.
Rather sloppy science, if you ask me.