Evaluation of psychosocial and organizational factors in offshore safety: a comparative study

This study compares UK and Norwegian offshore workers' evaluations of social and organizational factors that can have an impact upon safety on offshore installations. A total of 1138 Norwegian (87% response rate) and 622 UK workers (40% response rate) responded to a self-completion questionnaire, which was distributed to 18 installations in February/March 1994. The questionnaire contained six scales that were suitable and relevant for the purposes of comparison. These scales measured ‘risk perception’, ‘satisfaction with safety measures’, ‘perceptions of the job situation’, ‘attitudes to safety’, ‘perceptions of others' commitment to safety’ and ‘perceptions of social support’. The data show clear differences in how UK and Norwegian workers evaluate various social and organizational factors that can have an impact upon safety, however, eta² analysis indicated that for most of the scales ‘installation’ explained a greater percentage of the variance than sector. The exceptions to this were scales measuring ‘safety attitudes’ where both sector and installation contributed equally to the effects. Although the results from the ‘safety attitudes’ scales should be interpreted with caution (due to low internal reliability), it is possible that they are tapping into more deeply held beliefs about the nature of safety, e.g. ‘fatalism’ and the ‘causes of accidents’. In contrast, the other scales are measuring factors directly related to the working environment such as perceptions of risk and satisfaction with safety measures on the installation. These may reflect the prevailing ‘safety climate’ or ‘atmosphere’ on the installations surveyed, whereas constructs such as ‘fatalism’, etc. may be reflections of underlying ‘cultural’ values. Recognizing the existence of different ‘safety cultures’ and understanding the processes which lie behind them could have implications for safety management in an industry which is highly international in nature and in which workers' are often required to work in foreign countries for varying periods of time.     

The use of multi‐level modelling in risk research. A secondary analysis of a study of public perceptions of genetically modified food

Many studies have examined the relationship between various individual variables and people's perceptions of genetically modified (GM) food. A problem with this type of research is that contextual factors are completely ignored. This article explores the use of multi‐level modelling in the field of risk research, by re‐analysing a recent British study of public perceptions of GM food. As the study employed a multi‐stage sampling strategy, it could be used to examine simultaneously the individual and spatial variation in trust and the acceptability of GM food. While the geographical variation in acceptability was largely due to compositional differences between the sampling points, a geographical variation in trust remained after controlling for individual differences. The analysis demonstrated that city‐dwellers commonly have more trust in the regulation of GM food than other respondents. Next to being associated with a number of socio‐demographic variables, both acceptability and trust were related strongly to voting intention. Moreover, the results suggest that there is a link between vulnerable groups, feelings of exclusion, and (dis)trust. The article is concluded by arguing that multi‐level modelling provides new opportunities for simultaneously examining the individual and contextual basis of public perceptions of controversial risk issues.     

Household adoption of smog protective behavior: a comparison between two Chinese cities

This study compares residents of two Chinese cities – one with a high risk and one with a low risk of air pollution, in terms of their smog experience, reliance on smog information sources, risk perception, attribution of responsibility and intention for adoption of protective behavior regarding smog. The results indicate that the two cities differ considerably in their smog experience, somewhat less so in reliance on smog information sources and risk perception, and very little in protective behavior. Using multiple regression analyses, the study revealed a basic chain of reaction in which demographic characteristics and location cause smog experience and smog information, smog experience and smog information cause risk perception, risk perception causes attribution of responsibility, and attribution of responsibility causes intention to adopt protective behavior. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed and recommendations for further research are suggested.     

小概率高损失事件的忽略——对中国发展巨灾保险的意义

地震、洪水和台风等都属于小概率高损失的巨灾风险,一旦发生将给社会和人们的生活带来破坏性的后果。研究表明,巨灾事件的发生会极大地改变公众对风险或损失的预期和感知。在巨灾事件发生时以及一段时间内,由于风险信息的显著性和可获得性,公众会产生暂时的紧张和恐惧心理,随着时间的流逝,人们会慢慢从非理性中冷静下来,意识到巨灾风险发生的概率是如此之小,过度的担心是没有必要的。这对于巨灾风险制度的发展产生了重要的影响,因此,分析和研究公众对巨灾风险的感知、提出相应的巨灾保险发展的对策建议具有重要的理论和实践意义。     

My computer is infected: the role of users’ sensation seeking and domain-specific risk perceptions and risk attitudes on computer harm

Literature has traditionally shown the potentially harmful consequences of risk-taking in a variety of domains. Less scholarly attention, however, has been directed to the study of risk-taking in the computer use domain. Using scanned data from 1902 computers, we sought to analyze the potentially harmful consequences that sensation-seeking and computer use risk perceptions and attitudes had on users’ computer vulnerability. Results of the study indicated that general sensation-seeking as well as computer use risk perceptions and risk attitudes were predictive of computer harm. The general measure of sensation-seeking was predictive of both risk perceptions and risk attitudes which in turn translated into the existence of malicious software in users’ computers.     

General and specific cancer risk perceptions: how are they related?

Understanding how people construe and act upon cancer risk is important for efforts to target risk-increasing health behaviors. Importantly, research participants are often asked to estimate their risk for cancer (in general), which could mask the fact that cancer represents a range of diseases, and that different cancer types can have distinct risk factors. It is unclear whether individuals perceive general cancer risk as being comprised of an aggregation of risk for specific cancer sites, or whether general cancer risk perceptions reflect the specific type of cancer most salient to them. In this study, general cancer risk perceptions were regressed on specific risk perceptions for colon, lung, prostate (men only), and breast (women only), using data from a nationally representative sample. We found that among men and women, all forms of cancer predicted independent variance in estimates of general cancer risk. There were also stronger relationships between general risk perceptions and each specific risk perception than between any two specific risk perceptions, suggesting that individuals differentiate between specific cancers and general cancer risk. These findings offer some confidence that people’s estimates of general cancer risk take multiple cancer types into account.