I feel that this position could be equally argued if the scopes were switched, given the following motivation.

...if we mentally anthropomorphised certain risks, then we'd be more likely to give them the attention they deserved. -- OP

For example, a harmless :-) play on your comment. All the while, keeping the above maximization criteria in mind.

I would suggest that this is a useful thing to do on a group level (because it's mind-killing; take Yellow Peril for example) but a terrible thing to do on an individual level (to adjust for scope insensitivity and so forth).