Risk minimization by comparison downgrades harm to an annoyance

Evidence

Philip Morris executives devised a strategy document declaring that if they failed to discredit secondhand smoke as a health risk, they could minimize it by comparison with risks associated with everyday activities: … Whether or not we succeed in discrediting the notion that ETS is a health risk, we can place the risk in context and thereby minimize it. Thus, non-smokers may still believe ETS is a health risk, but on par with driving a car, shoveling snow, etc. Low risk makes ETS an annoyance issue which can be handled by courtesy and tolerance (Philip Morris USA, 1989). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1672

Categorization

• SEED: Useful for an essay on how industries or states normalize harm by benchmarking against everyday risks.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1672