Expert relevance and the use of context-driven heuristic processes in risk perception

The effectiveness of a medical treatment should not predict its risk (highly effective treatments can be either safe or risky), however, people’s use of heuristic shortcuts may lead them to judge a link between effectiveness and risk, typically a negative correlation. A particular concern is that experts might use such a strategy and that this is unlikely to provide an accurate judgement. This large-scale field-based experiment compares expert-relevant and non-expert-relevant contexts, for both expert and public judgements of risk and effectiveness in the context of blood transfusion medicine. Postal questionnaires were distributed to anaesthetists (experts, N?=?123) and a general public (non-expert) comparison group (N?=?1153); half of the participants were cued with accompanying general information about genetically-modified (GM) biotechnology and half received specific information about blood product technologies. The blood-focussed information served to emphasise the medical relevance of the questionnaire to the expert group. Regression analyses showed that generally perceived effectiveness predicted perceived risk for both experts and non-experts, which suggests heuristic processing. However, although experts appeared to engage in heuristic processing for risk perceptions in certain circumstances, this processing is strongly affected by context. Experts who received the medically relevant context rated perceptions of effectiveness independently of perceptions of risk, unlike those who received the GM context. This indicates a reduced reliance on a low-effort heuristic for experts given an expertise-relevant context. The results are considered in light of dual-process (rational-associative) accounts of reasoning.     

The influence of linear and cyclical temporal representations on risk perception of nuclear waste: an experimental study

Time is an important aspect of the issue of nuclear waste, both from a technical and from a perceptional perspective. Previous studies have investigated the relationship between time and risk perception of nuclear waste, applying the discounting paradigm and therefore limiting time to one very narrow aspect: its duration. However, time is a multifaceted concept and encompasses more than a linear property. The aim of our study is to test the influence of a different aspect of time, namely temporal representations (linear or cyclical) on risk perception of nuclear waste. In an experimental study we demonstrate that both linear and cyclical representations have a reducing effect on risk perception compared to the control condition, where no specific time representation was activated. Examining group differences, we also demonstrate that temporal representations have a differing influence depending on whether participants have a stable belief about nuclear waste or whether they belong to an ambivalent group that does not yet hold a stable belief. Furthermore, we replicate the well-documented gender gap in risk perception. Our results bear potentially interesting implications for risk communication by demonstrating a causal relationship between the graphic representation of time and risk perception of nuclear waste.     

Cultural attributes and risk perception: the moderating role of different types of research and development

Drawing on the grid–group culture theory, this study examines hypotheses to explain how the cultural attributes of an organization influence professionals’ perceptions of risk in the context of research and development (R&D) activities. Specifically, we explore whether two dimensions of cultural attributes – the grid dimension and the group dimension – affect organizational commitment and risk perception. We also investigate whether the impact of the cultural attributes on risk perception is mediated by organizational commitment and whether different types of R&D activities – applied research and developmental research – serve as a moderating variable on the relationships among cultural attributes, organizational commitment, and risk perception. The partial least squares method was used to analyze data collected from full-time senior researchers with over five years of experience at a large technology institute. Our findings indicate that cultural attributes influence the risk perception of R&D professionals through the mediating function of organizational commitment. Further, we found that different types of R&D activities have moderating effects on the relationship between organizational commitment and risk perception.     

Neglected and overemphasized risks: the opinions of risk professionals

Research on risks has mainly been devoted to detailed analyses of such risks that are subject to public debate and policy decision making. However, many if not most of the risks that are now the subject of regulation were once neglected. Experts in conjunction with regulators have a crucial role in putting risks on the policy agenda. But what views do experts have on the matter of attention to risks? In order to answer this question risk assessment experts were asked to list the risks they considered to be over‐emphasized, respectively neglected. Radiation risks constituted the largest category of risks reported to be over‐emphasized. Other risks often reported to be over‐emphasized included BSE, GMOs, amalgam, and air traffic. Lifestyle risks were the largest category of risks reported to be neglected. Other risks often listed as neglected included radon (as an exception within the radiation category), road traffic, socio‐economic risks, energy production excluding nuclear power, and local accidents (including fires and workplace accidents). Risks mentioned about equally often as neglected and over‐emphasized included chemicals and crime. There was a correlation between perceived risk and neglect: risks considered to be neglected were also judged as larger. For a comparison, the topics of articles in the journal Risk Analysis from 1991–2000 were categorized into the same risk categories that were used for the questionnaire. The risks most commonly treated in the journal (chemicals and cancer) coincided with the risks which experts in our survey considered to be overemphasized rather than neglected.     

Good decisions,bad decisions: the interaction of process and outcome in evaluations of decision quality

Process‐based considerations are generally accepted by experts and analysts as being the fundamental drivers of decision quality. However, little work has been done to account for the role of a risk management decision’s outcome as a key driver of the public judgments about decision quality. To this end, the objective of the research reported here was straightforward to determine – via an experiment – the relative importance of decision‐making process and the associated outcome in lay evaluations of decision quality. Our results demonstrate that people seem to have a difficult time unpacking decision‐making processes, even ones they strongly prefer, from their associated outcomes when evaluating decision quality. From a practical standpoint, our results cast doubt on the generally accepted belief that participatory and deliberative decision‐making processes (e.g., for risk management) will – on their own – contribute to positive evaluations of decision quality.     

Of warnings and waiting: an examination of the path of information for two communities hit by Typhoon Haiyan

Abstract

Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines in 2013, causing billions in damage, and taking thousands of lives. Media and researchers claimed that people did not have enough information about the storm, or did not understand the information given to them, and therefore did not evacuate. This research departs from the assumption of a knowledge deficit: it asks how people understood warnings and how information flowed from the government. This research focuses on Guiuan, a municipality that sustained heavy damage and loss of life, and the entry point of many typhoons in the Philippines. Guided by Stuart Hall’s Encoding-Decoding Theory, the researcher carried out focus group discussions with citizens and interviews with local government officials from one coastal and one inland village. Through systematic qualitative analysis of interviews and discussions, the researcher found that participants from different locations in the same municipality understood warning information differently, based on unique epistemological frames. While local government framed people as deficient in knowledge, the citizens actually called upon their previous experiences with storms in order to make evacuation decisions. However, they could not project worse scenarios from previous experience and needed a phenomenon to match an experience in real time before making an evacuation decision. These findings imply that disaster imagination, disaster memory, and disaster knowledge are all distinct concepts, and future research should examine how specific contexts frame risk. Early warning systems for storms must also take into account unique epistemological frames as a means to localize communication and engage communities in the decision-making process.     

Cultural theory and risk perception: a proposal for a better measurement

Why do members of the public disagree – sharply and persistently – about facts on which expert scientists largely agree? We designed a study to test a distinctive explanation: the cultural cognition of scientific consensus. The ‘cultural cognition of risk’ refers to the tendency of individuals to form risk perceptions that are congenial to their values. The study presents both correlational and experimental evidence confirming that cultural cognition shapes individuals’ beliefs about the existence of scientific consensus, and the process by which they form such beliefs, relating to climate change, the disposal of nuclear wastes, and the effect of permitting concealed possession of handguns. The implications of this dynamic for science communication and public policy‐making are discussed.     

Transparency and trust in the European pharmaceutical sector: outcomes from an experimental study

Many European pharmaceutical regulators have committed to a more open, inclusive, and transparent model of regulatory decision-making in recent years. Yet, based on little empirical evidence, they have overwhelmingly adopted ‘fishbowl’ transparency measures, ‘the full disclosure of information without explanatory information or contextualization’ (e.g. heightening access to raw data). This paper conveys recent findings from an open-ended questionnaire with 200 face-to-face interviews carried out in the UK and the Netherlands. The study provides evidence on how members of the public are likely to react to ‘fishbowl’ transparency policies and receiving decontextualized data. After showing respondents raw data from a periodic safety update report that regulators are proposing to proactively release, the survey found they were shocked, concerned, and more worried, while many said they would reconsider taking their medicines and seek further advice. Based on these findings, the authors argue that enhancing ‘transparency’ needs to be integrated with effective, evidence- and science-based benefit/risk communication.     

A characterisation of the methodology of qualitative research on the nature of perceived risk: trends and omissions

The issue of how risk is ‘perceived’ is one of significant research interest and immense practical importance. In spite of this wide interest, however, it is probably fair to say that most emerging ‘risk’ crises – whether related to natural or technological phenomena – come as a surprise to researchers and to society as a whole. Prediction of human responses to novel potential hazards (or novel manifestations of old hazards) is neither reliable nor complete; strategies to ameliorate inappropriate concerns when they arise (or to make realistic inappropriate absences of concern) do not appear totally effective. It therefore seems apt to ask the question: just what have we learned about ‘risk perception’? In this paper we conduct a structured review of qualitative research on perceived risk – to be followed by a subsequent analysis of quantitative research in a later paper – focusing upon methodological issues. Qualitative research often precedes quantitative research, and ideally informs it; it seeks depth and meaning from few subjects rather than identifying patterns within larger samples and populations. Without adequate qualitative research, quantitative research risks misanalysis of the target phenomenon, at the very least by the omission of relevant factors and inclusion of irrelevant ones. Our analysis here – of qualitative studies conducted across a range of disciplines, not all of which will be familiar to the readers of this journal – suggests that this research suffers from an incomplete coverage of the ‘risk perception universe’, typified by a focus on atypical hazards and study samples. We summarise the results of this research, while pointing out its limitations, and draw conclusions about future priorities for research of this type.     

Drivers of flood and climate change risk perceptions and intention to adapt: an explorative survey in coastal and delta Vietnam

Abstract

This article contributes to current research about determinants of climate change and flood risk perception, and intentions to take adaptive measures. We propose a research model that distinguishes between vulnerability and severity components of perceived risks, and adds perceived adaptive capacity as a third factor to predict the intention to take adaptive measures. We used this combined model as a conceptual lens for an explorative survey among 1086 residents of coastal and delta communities in Vietnam. Pairwise analyses revealed a significant association of flood and climate change risk perceptions with individual’s flood experience, climate change knowledge, frequency of community participation and socio-demographic factors. However, in multivariate analysis, the influence of most socio-demographic factors became weak or patchy. Flood experience was the most influential driver of flood-related risk perceptions but weak for climate change-related risk perceptions and behavioural intentions. Knowledge strongly increased the intention to adapt to flood and climate risks and the perceived vulnerability to and severity of climate change risks, but reduced the perceived capacity to adapt to climate risks. Frequency of community participation increased the perceived vulnerability and severity of climate change risks, the intention to adapt to both climate and flood risks and the perceived capacity to adapt to flood risks, but reduced the perceived capacity to adapt to climate risks. Our research confirms earlier findings that individuals’ knowledge, place-specific experience and social-cultural influences are key predictors of both flood and climate change risk perceptions and intentions to take adaptive measures. These factors should therefore receive ample attention in climate risk communication.     

Risk perception and risk management in the Middle East market: theory and practice of multinational enterprises in Saudi Arabia

This exploratory study investigates the risk perception and risk management strategies of Western multinational enterprises in the Middle East. A sample of 49 German companies operating in Saudi Arabia provides the empirical setting for this research. The study reveals that cultural risk is assessed as more important in the business environment than political, financial, and economic risk. The most critical risk factors are not sufficiently included in the methodology of country risk measures, which are often used as a source for country‐specific risk information. In terms of risk management strategies, participating firms use mostly informal approaches rather than structured hedging or insurance products. Furthermore, we find that firm size has implications on the perception of some risk factors and for the level of risk management sophistication.     

Implicit attitudes toward risk: the construction and validation of the measurement method

Methods that are typically used to examine individual differences in risk attitudes (e.g. lotteries, dilemmas, questionnaires) require participants to explicitly declare their willingness to take risk. Therefore, they may be biased by the need for self-presentation or situational characteristics such as time pressure and cognitive constraints that lead to more spontaneous and automatic processing of risk-related information. The aim of this study was to construct an indirect measure of risk attitudes that is free of these methodological limitations. The method based on the Implicit Association Test shows high internal reliability and satisfactory stability over time. It correlates moderately with different explicit measures of risk attitudes that are related to sensation seeking. Finally, it is characterized by a high predictive power. Adding the implicit measure to the set of independent variables representing declarative evaluations of risk attitudes significantly improved the model predicting risky real-life behavior. We argue that the indirect assessment of risk attitudes presented in this paper may be used as an universal measure of people’s risk propensity that is free of biases related to self-presentation and situational factors.     

Dispute and morality in the perception of societal risks: extending the psychometric model

The psychometric paradigm has identified two classic dimensions, dread and unknown risk, structuring the perception of risks. We propose that disputed risk and morality are two additional dimensions that are relevant to describe the cognitive representation of societal risks. Disputed risk captures two aspects of a societal risk: first, that consensus about scientific evidence is low, and second, that the public debate about the risk issue is highly controversial. Morality refers to judgments of reprehensibility, capturing the fact that societal risks frequently involve violations of moral principles. In a survey study employing two samples, a household sample (N = 418) and a student sample (N = 88), participants evaluated 24 societal risks on 23 psychometric scales intended to assess the four constructs dread, unknown risk, disputed risk, and morality. Principal component analyses yielded three dimensions: a common dimension of dread and morality, a disputed risk dimension, and unknown risk. We also assessed judgments of overall riskiness for all risks. Morality and dread both proved to be strong and distinctive predictors of perceived overall riskiness in regression analyses; disputed risk and unknown risk, in contrast, do not play a substantial role as predictors. These findings were replicated across both samples. We conclude that disputed risk constitutes a novel and unique psychometric dimension; morality, on the other hand, coincides with dread in the cognitive representation of societal risks, while still showing a distinct and strong effect in the prediction of risk judgments.     

Beyond under the dome: an environmental documentary amplified public risk perception about air pollution in China

Abstract

Air pollution is a major environmental problem in China and it poses serious risks to public health. Based on the social amplification of risk framework (SARF), this study examines how media, in particular, an impactful environmental documentary titled Under the Dome, influenced Chinese citizens’ risk perception about air pollution. Survey results showed that exposure to the documentary amplified risk perception and risk perception was significantly related to viewers’ information seeking behaviors, policy support, and individual mitigation action about this issue.     

The stability of risk and benefit perceptions: a longitudinal study assessing the perception of biotechnology

The study of public perceptions is considered to be important for making sound policy decisions, since the public decides which products will enter and sustain in the market. Stability of public perceptions is important for policy-makers; only if public attitudes and perceptions remain constant, policy-makers will be able to take them into account. The aim of the present study was to examine the stability of participants’ risk and benefit perceptions of gene technology over a period of two years. In spring, 2008 and in spring, 2010, the same sample of participants filled out an identical questionnaire. Results of structural equation modelling show that risk and benefit perceptions of gene technology applications are moderately stable (r = .5–.7). Furthermore, results show that people distinguish between medical, plant and food applications and applications involving animals when evaluating the risk of gene technology. When evaluating the benefits, participants also take consumer-related benefits into account, such as enhancement of functional properties. Results of the present study suggest that risk research should regularly examine people’s risk perceptions in order to gain a clearer picture of the dynamics of people’s perception and preferences not only of novel technologies, but also of entrenched technologies.     

Risk perceptions and risk attitudes among Chinese consumers: the toxic capsule crisis

The toxic capsule crisis (TCC) shocked China in 2012, and seriously harmed consumer confidence. Based on a firsthand survey in 12 provinces with 850 observations, this paper examines Chinese consumers’ risk perceptions and risk attitudes about drugs after the TCC. The empirical results suggest that Chinese consumers’ risk perceptions (attributed likelihood of a drug safety accident occurrence) and risk attitudes (measured as level of concern about drug labeling) are weakly negatively correlated, but that risk perceptions are positively correlated with consumer concern about drug safety problems in general. Risk perception was higher among male consumers and those from rural areas, reporting a religious faith, of higher education, and with a family member who has experienced problems caused by drug safety problems. Those reporting a higher level of concern about drug safety issues, with a higher level of understanding of TCC, who reported less frequent physical examinations, and who searched for information after the TCC also had a higher level of risk perception. Being or having a family member who engaged in the health industry and being more satisfied with the government response to the TCC decreased risk perception. Regarding risk attitude, older consumers, those with a higher level of education and with a self-reported religious faith, and those less prepared including those who did not purchase health insurance, do not have health exams as frequently, and who do not take measures of protection and isolation when ill are more concerned about drug labeling information.     

A quantitative assessment of the insider/outsider dimension of the cultural theory of risk and place

This paper examines two hypotheses of risk perception: cultural theory's distinction between insiders and outsiders and the idea that risk perceptions and their determinants differ substantially from one place to the next for the same point‐source hazard. These hypotheses are juxtaposed in cross‐tabulations and logistic regression models with competing explanations of perceived risk in communities living with technological environmental hazards: sound management, benefits, fair facility siting and sociodemographics. The data come from a telephone survey of 455 residents in Swan Hills (n = 173), Fort Assiniboine (n = 171) and Kinuso (n = 111), Alberta, Canada who are all near a large‐scale hazardous waste treatment facility. Considerable support is found for the insider/outsider thesis in terms of the highest ranked information sources and trust to ensure safety. Place differences are clear where, for example, the least facility‐related concern is in Swan Hills (31%) 12 km away, the highest is in Kinuso (81%) 70 km away and moderately high concern is in Fort Assiniboine (62%) which is also 70 km away. This study highlights the importance of fair facility siting, the need to go beyond cultural bias analysis when studying the cultural theory of risk, and suggests further exploration of the notion of tailoring risk communication that is place specific, and emphasizes channels that may be defined as ‘outsider’ and ‘insider’.     

The new political importance of the old hurricane risk: a contextual approach to understanding contemporary struggles with hurricane risk and insurance

In the United States, policy-makers struggle to resolve conflict between public demands for affordable insurance costs covering hurricanes and market demands for risk-based insurance pricing. Given the socially constructed nature of risk, a risk-based pricing approach prioritizes insurer values and business practices over all societal value goals expressly limiting democratic inclusion in decision-making about risk. As a step towards the more democratically inclusive approach of risk governance, this article uses the state of Florida as a case study to provide a narrative of the social and political context for the evolution of the idea of U.S. hurricane risk. I argue that today’s hurricane risk is a product of long-standing shared efforts to build prosperity. However, it is no longer a simple risk for society to overcome on its way to economic well-being. Contemporary hurricane risk is systemic and serves as a nexus for political battles over American values.     

The differences in perception of radiological risks: lay people versus new and experienced employees in the nuclear sector

This paper studies the differences in perception of two radiological risks – an accident at a nuclear installation and medical X-rays – between four different groups: the general population without (1) and with experience related to radiological risks (2), new employees (3) and professionally exposed people (4) in the nuclear sector. More precisely, this study determines if differences in risk perception can be explained by the level of experiences with ionizing radiation, the knowledge level about radiological risks, the confidence in authorities, the attitude towards nuclear energy, the trust in a management of nuclear installations, gender and age. The data are gathered using computer assisted personal interviews based on the SCK-CEN Barometer of the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre. The relations between risk perception and the independent variables are tested with linear regression analysis. The risk perception of both risks differs significantly between the four population groups. The professionally exposed people and the new employees in the nuclear sector have a significant higher risk perception for medical X-rays compared to the risk for an accident at a nuclear installation. For the general population without experience, it was just the opposite. The general population with experience does not have a significant difference in risk perception between the two radiological risks. Level of experiences with ionizing radiation is determined as an important variable; people have a lower perception of radiological risks when they have higher experiences with risk.