References to flight safety ('cause that is what risk assessment is fundamentally all about) being a 'load of crap' really do make me shudder.
Someone else said that it was all 'common sense' - sadly common sense is what makes small children chase balls into the road - you need to know about risk and how to understand whether it is important to you at a given time. That's the un-common sense bit that has to be taught to pilots to stop them for example pressing on into bad weather beyond their abilities.
Risk assessment needs to be understood, and that doesn't mean taking the books into the cockpit - just the understanding. Knowledge about Threat and Error Management (TEM) (my previous comment) is IMHO a useful way of explaining Risk Assessment in a way that pilots understand and it also includes problem resolution which is really quite useful in the cockpit.
At the right time it is ok to chase balls into the road - when the risk is minimised (i.e. when the traffic isn't there). It takes a smart kid to know that but he has to know and understand what the risk was in the first place.