Manifest anxiety,general self-efficacy and locus of control as determinants of personal and general risk perception

The hypothesis that risk perception is associated with differences in personality was proposed. Three personality variables were used, Rotter's Internal vs External Locus of Control Scale, Schwarzer's General Self-efficacy Scale and Taylor's Manifest Anxiety Scale. A scale asking for personal and general risk perception measured perceived risk. It was proposed that individuals low in anxiety, having an internal locus of control and high in self-efficacy should perceive general risks and personal risks higher than individuals high in anxiety and low in self-efficacy and having external locus of control should do. Fifty-nine business students responded to these three scales. The hypothesis was supported by the results and suggested that the personality measures and particularly anxiety were significantly associated to both personal and general risk perceptions.     

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’.     

Associations between affect and risk perception

Risk perception research has been dominated by cognitive psychology as a theoretical basis for understanding how people perceive and judge risks. However, during the last few years the role of affect in risk perception has received increased attention. Potential hazards may cause worry and concern and, consequently, an affective component is involved. Affects are often assumed to be post-cognitive. The present study aims to test the hypothesis that an 'image of risk', i.e. affect, may precede cognitive judgement and need not always be a criterion variable. During the period 1996 to 1998 a questionnaire survey was carried out in Norway. In total 1450 respondents replied to the questionnaire. Structural equation modelling showed that the fit of the models of risk depended on the respondents' sex, education and the type of risks evaluated. In the majority of model tests the idea that an image of risk may predict the cognitive judgement of risk was supported. The study also identified two dimensions of affectivity. Cognitive judgements of risk seemed not be related to affectivity as such, but rather to one aspect of affect, i.e. worry and concern. Treating affectivity as one dimension may be a hindrance to detecting the real associations between general affect and cognitive risk judgements.     

Public perception of scientific uncertainty in relation to food hazards

The research reported here aims to understand how people react to statements expressing risk uncertainty information in the context of a commonly experienced potential hazard, food related risks. Public perception of seriousness of risk for themselves, and for other people was examined for different types of uncertainty, for each of five different food hazards. The results indicated that participants responded to the different types of uncertainty in a uniform way, suggesting that perception of risk associated with uncertainty is not affected by the 'type' of uncertainty. The results further indicated that the seriousness of risk, in the presence of statements of uncertainty, was perceived to be greater for pesticides and genetic modification compared to BSE, high fat diets and Salmonella . It was argued that this could be due to the perceptions of low personal control, and high societal responsibility to protect people and societal control over exposure to the potential risks of pesticides and genetic modification. Under circumstances where people feel they have little personal control over their exposure to a particular hazard, and those social institutions that are perceived to be in control of protecting the public indicate that there is uncertainty associated with risk estimates, the hazard may appear to be 'out of control', which is associated with a perception of serious risk.     

Changes in subjective risks of hurricanes as time passes: analysis of a sample of Katrina evacuees

Using a quasi‐field experiment, we report on subjects' perceptions of the risks of hurricanes. All experimental subjects were displaced by either Hurricane Katrina or Rita, in New Orleans and other Gulf Coast areas, except for a small control group consisting of people who live in central Texas. We examine their perceptions of risks just after the hurricanes occurred, and over one year later to evaluate the change in subjective risk perceptions over time. A latent risk model is estimated in which subjective probabilities of hurricane strike risk are represented as a function of respondents' demographic characteristics and experiences following the storms.     

基于VaR模型的商业银行体系系统性风险研究

本文以中国2016年之前上市商业银行作为中国银行业的代表,测算银行业系统性 风险VaR。整体来讲,我国银行业系统性风险较低,但VaR在2015年较高。虽如此,我国银行业资本持有量能够抵御银行体系的系统性风险。在系统性风险VaR贡献度方面,本文实证分析表明,在样本期间内,浦发银行、中国银行、农业银行、交通银行贡献度较高。银行体系系统 性风险VaR受GDP增长率和沪深300指数收益率的显著影响。     

Perceived risk and value of workplace safety in a developing country

We examine the relationship between wages and perceived occupational health risks for petrochemical workers in Taiwan. We estimate hedonic wage functions to compare workers' wages to their perceived risks of fatal and disabling accidents. The results indicate that workers in risky jobs receive a compensating wage differential, after controlling for education, job tenure, and occupational classification. The values of mitigating health risks are estimated using models that control for both fatal and nonfatal accident risks, and so do not suffer the omitted-variable bias characteristic of most earlier studies. The estimated values of statistical life and disabling injury are US$624 000 and US$44 000 in 1995 dollars. We also find a positive relationship between quitting intentions and perceived job risk, which supports the hypothesis that workers' risk perceptions evolve with on-the-job experience.     

Breast cancer risk perceptions and breast cancer worry: what predicts what?

This longitudinal study explored the relationship between perceived breast cancer risk and worry. We measured both absolute and comparative risk perceptions, and also used the Gail algorithm to assess the accuracy of participants' risk perceptions. Three hundred and one women ages 40–75 participated in a two‐part study assessing how format of breast cancer risk presentation affected perceptions of risk. Relative to their Gail scores, women were biased pessimistically about their own absolute breast cancer risk and yet largely accurate about their comparative breast cancer risk. Perceived comparative risk, but not perceived absolute risk or biases in absolute or comparative risk, predicted subsequent worry. Worry predicted subsequent perceived absolute risk and biases in absolute and comparative risk. These results suggest that women's emotional reactions to breast cancer risk are based on accurate (unbiased) perceptions of their comparative risks. In turn, greater worry prompts a re‐evaluation of absolute risk as well as changes in risk biases. Implications for screening are discussed.     

Risk Perception and Worry Related to Adolescents' Judgement of Three Types of Risk

The core aim of this study was to examine determinants of anticipated worry related to three types of risk among adolescents. The participants were Norwegian high‐school students aged 15–19 years (n = 335). They were students at 6 high schools and a total of 15 randomly selected school classes participated in the study. All the students were asked to fill in a self‐completion questionnaire. The response rate was 100 per cent. The participants were shown three video sequences of three‐minute conversations between a person and a listener discussing three risk sources, which each had developed into a problem (drug use, depression, and sexual abuse). The video sequences were shown to the students when they were in their classes. The results showed that there were gender differences in probability assessments as well as in anticipated worry related to the three types of risk. There were also differences in worry depending on the respondent's past experience with an identical or similar problem or risk. In addition to cognitive evaluations, own experience and gender, general worry, social support seeking, anxiety and depression significantly predicted worry. These variables explained 52 per cent of the variance. Worry may be a significant predictor of risk behaviour as well as decisions concerning risks and risk reduction. The results are related to the risk‐as‐feelings hypothesis (Loewenstein, Weber, Hsee and Welch) and other risk decision models are also discussed.     

Determinants of smallholder farmers' perceptions of risk in the Eastern Highlands of Ethiopia

This paper reports findings from a study of 178 farm households from two contrasting areas in the Eastern Highlands of Ethiopia. It examines risk perceptions of smallholder farmers under varying contexts. The study utilized both qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection and analysis. It was hypothesized that human capital and household characteristics and orientation, access to resources, infrastructure, information and environmental factors influence perceptions of risks in different ways. Data reduction for independent variables was done by factor analysis (principal component extraction method). Factor analyses identified factors influencing smallholder farmers' perceptions of sources of risks. Logistic regression analyses were used to study the relationships of identified principal components to perceived frequencies of occurrences and consequences of various sources of risks. Logistic regression analyses revealed that asset endowments, locational settings and livelihood diversification strategies pursued determine smallholders' perceived risks. Key findings from the informal survey point out differentiation in perceptions of causes and sources of risks by different actors.     

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.     

Influences of individual-level characteristics on risk perceptions to various categories of environmental health and safety risks

Over the last five decades, social science researchers have examined how the public perceives the risks associated with a variety of environmental health and safety (EHS) hazards. The body of literature that has been emerged diverse both in the methodology employed to collect and analyze data and in the subject of study. The findings have confirmed that risk perceptions vary between groups of individuals as well as between categories of EHS risks. However, the extant literature on EHS risk perceptions has failed to provide empirical insights into how risk perceptions can be best explained according to the interplay of both (1) the category of EHS hazard appraised and (2) the prominent individual-level characteristics that best explain observed risk perception differences. This study addresses this deficiency in the literature by providing insights into the individual and cumulative roles that various individual-level variables play in characterizing risk perceptions to various categories of EHS risks including ‘agentic risks’ like street drug use and cigarette smoking, ‘emerging technological risks’ like nanoparticles and cloning, and ‘manufacturing risks’ like air and chemical pollution. Our data are drawn from the 2009 Citizens, Science, and Emerging Technologies national study of United States households that investigated public perceptions of EHS risks, traditional and emerging media use, and various individual characteristics like personal demographics, socioeconomic factors, and perceptual filters. The findings show that some categories of EHS risks like those associated with emerging technologies may be more easily predicted than other categories of risks and that individual-level characteristics vary in their explanative power between risk categories even among a single sample of respondents.     

Do climate risk beliefs shape corporate social responsibility?

Global climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our time, potentially affecting everyone, both individuals and businesses. This paper examines whether differences in beliefs about climate change affect firms' decision-making in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) commitment. Using county-level climate change beliefs data from Yale Climate Opinion Maps, we find that firms' Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) scores are higher if they are located in counties where more people believe in global climate change. We then use natural disasters as exogenous shocks to the beliefs about climate risk and continue to find a positive association between CSR and perceptions of climate risks. Furthermore, we discover a stronger correlation between CSR and climate risk beliefs when firms have more local investors.     

Social Thinking about Collective Risk: How Do Risk‐related Practice and Personal Involvement Impact Its Social Representations?

The study investigates the effects of personal involvement in a collective risk on the structure of its social representation, and how those effects depend on risk‐related experience. The paper reports an empirical study conducted within the structural approach to the Social Representations Theory. We tested the effects of risk‐related practice (earthquake experience) and of personal involvement in risk on the structure of its social representation. The results showed that the social representation was normative in nature, but became more practically oriented in the group who experienced earthquake. A normative representation is useful in judging risk's attributes; instead, a more functional, or a more practically oriented representation is expected to enable the use of more diversified risk‐related information especially for practical purposes (risk mitigation behaviour). Similarly, the social representation of participants who were highly involved in seismic risk was more structured and more practically oriented. However, this was true only if they possessed risk‐related experience, either through collective (risk culture) or live earthquake experience. Based on these results, a suggestion is made on how to increase the efficiency of prevention campaigns that aim at encouraging collective risk‐mitigation conduct.     

Perceived health risks and perceptions of expert consensus in modern food society

The article deals with perceptions of food and health risks. Relevant questions are: (1) To what degree do consumers associate specific negative health consequences with food additives and genetically modified food, and do their perceptions differ from the experts’ views? (2) How do consumers perceive experts’ evaluations of health risks connected to food additives and genetically modified food? The results are based on a survey of Norwegian residents in 1999/2000, and of a selected sample of Norwegian experts on food and risks. There were great differences between consumers and experts in their assessments of health risks. To varying extents, consumers associate various health consequences with the risk factors. Consumers seem to perceive experts as more united about the risk factors as health risks than experts do themselves. The findings are discussed with reference to the stigma concept and to a social constructionist perspective. The results contribute to the understanding of consumer perception of risks and their understanding of expert agreement about health risks. They also point to the importance of the interplay between consumers and experts in the public debate and communication process about food and risks.     

Comparing precaution in the United States and Europe

The regulation of health and environmental risks has generated transatlantic controversy concerning precaution and the precautionary principle (PP). Conventional wisdom sees the European Union endorsing the PP and proactively regulating uncertain risks, while the United States opposes the PP and waits for evidence of harm before regulating. Without favouring either approach, this paper critically analyses the conventional depiction of transatlantic divergence. First, it reviews several different versions of the PP and their different implications. Second, it broadens the transatlantic comparison of precaution beyond the typical focus on single-risk examples, such as genetically modified foods. Through case studies, including hormones in beef and milk production and mad cow disease in beef and in blood donations, as well as reference to a wider array of risks, the paper demonstrates that relative precaution varies enormously. Sometimes the EU is more precautionary than the US (such as regarding hormones in beef), while sometimes the US is more precautionary than the EU (such as regarding mad cow disease in blood). Thus, neither the EU nor the US can claim to be categorically 'more precautionary' than the other. The real pattern is complex and risk-specific. Third, the paper seeks explanations for this complex pattern in five sets of hypotheses: optimal tailoring on the merits, political systems, risk perceptions, trade protectionism, and legal systems. None of these hypotheses fully explains the observed complex pattern of relative transatlantic precaution. The paper concludes that differences in relative precaution depend more on the context of the particular risk than on broad differences in national regulatory regimes.     

Examining inequities in children’s environmental health: results of a survey on the risk perceptions and protective actions of new mothers

Young children are more highly exposed and vulnerable to environmental health hazards than adults due to a variety of physiological and behavioural factors. Despite the significant responsibility mothers typically bear in managing their children’s health, little is known about how they perceive and negotiate these risks in their day-to-day lives. To better understand mothers’ environmental health risk perceptions and associated protective actions across socio-economic and geographic contexts, a telephone survey was conducted among new mothers (n = 606) recruited through two Public Health Units in Ontario, Canada. Analyses revealed that approximately half of the respondents were moderately or highly concerned about environmental health risks, ranging in nature from household products to outdoor air contaminants. Factors affecting the likelihood of experiencing concern included lower income and lower levels of perceived control. With regard to protective actions, 43% reported taking three or more actions to reduce environmental health risks to their children, with the likelihood of taking action being negatively affected by factors including low income and first language other than English or French, and positively affected by being a first-time parent (primiparous). This study contributes to our understanding of environmental health risk perceptions and associated protective behaviours among new mothers, and has implications for the development of more context-focused risk management and communication strategies.     

基于贝叶斯网络的我国商业银行声誉风险度量研究

根据我国商业银行声誉风险分布情况,构建商业银行声誉风险评价体系。运用贝叶斯网络模型,考量国有商业银行2007~2012年间的485组声誉损失数据,得出声誉风险的超极限矩阵。实证表明,企业感召力缺乏、产品和服务缺陷、银行风险控制不足等成为中国商业银行声誉风险的主要因素,银行应有针对性地对其进行有效规避和分散。     

Public perceptions of environmental risk in China

China, as a ‘double risk’ society, is in urgent need for effective environmental risk management systems. Compared with other risks, man-made environmental risks have not been given due weight. Public awareness and perceptions of environmental risks are crucial in all phases of effective risk management. However, little is known about public perceptions of environmental risks in China. To contribute to better understanding of public perception of environmental risk, a questionnaire survey was conducted among university students in Beijing, who represent a group with high level of education and a generally high sensitivity to new information. The results show that even this group has limited knowledge about environmental risks and current risk management systems. Further studies are needed to understand the social construction of environmental risks in China and to seek ways to involve the Chinese public in emergency response and risk management.     

Consequences of perceived risk: Demand for mitigation

The theory of risk society claims that ‘individualisation’ has led social class positions to loose their significance in explaining risk and risk perceptions in late modernity. Using social survey data from England, this proposition was put to an empirical test for three types of risks: income loss, accident or illness, and poor customer service or advice. Regression analyses revealed that class position only affected perceptions of the risk of income loss, whereas the risks of accidents or illness and of poor customer service or advice were strongly shaped by welfare and value orientations. While other indicators of individualisation derived from the data failed to explain variations in risk perceptions, the strongest effect on current risk perceptions was the experience of risk events in the past, and awareness of and drawing on support systems. The findings demonstrate the need for risk theory to differentiate between types of risks and to draw out more clearly their sociological contexts in order to grasp fully the nature of perceptions of risk prevailing in late modern society.