Walt Hickey attempts to draw some conclusions about how people feel about taking risks from how they want their steaks cooked. From what I can tell, he doesn't quite make it.
It seems to me that he's missing a couple of reasons why people ask for their steaks to be cooked a certain way. One is past experience involving what you ask for versus what you get. I ideally would like my steak cooked medium. I find that asking for "medium rare" usually results in me getting what I consider medium…and if it doesn't, I can send that steak back and ask for another minute or two on the fire. If I ask for medium and it's cooked too long, I can't send it back to be uncooked and it's awkward (and takes forever) to get them to cook me a whole new steak to my standard.
So I'm not sure where I fall in that survey that shows that 38% want Medium Rare and 31% prefer Medium. I ask for the former but want the latter.
I also have two answers to a question Mr. Hickey poses…
Anyone have a solid hypothesis for why some people like their steaks scorched and desiccated (besides, you know, taste)? I'm out of ideas. Let me know in the comments.
I haven't looked in the comments yet but I'll bet someone in there offers both of my answers. A lot of people get in the habit of ordering steaks a certain way. Maybe their mother cooked them that way. Maybe they first ate steak with someone who made a big impression on them as a gourmet or generally classy person…and they now order them super-overdone because that's the way that person ordered theirs.
And I had two different lady friends who ordered "very well done" steaks because at heart they were against the eating of animals and they were uncomfy with steaks that looked even slightly like bloody flesh. One even told me she preferred hamburger to steak for that reason.