risk perception 2 - theories

Question 1

4 theories/approaches to understanding risk perception

Answer 1

cultural theory
heuristics and biases
psychometric paradigm of risk
social amplification of risk

Question 2

cultural theory to understand risk percpetion

Answer 2

they are socially constructed by institutions, cultural values, and ways of life - less about personal control

people are expected to form perceptions of risk that reflect and reinforce their commitment to one or another - cultural way of life

gravitate towards perceptions of risk that advance their way of life

there are 4 cultural ways of life

Question 3

4 cultural ways of lfie

Answer 3

fatalism
hierarchy
individualism
egalitarianism

these fall on 2 dimensions: grid and group

Question 4

grid and group dimensions of cultural ways of life

Answer 4

strong grid = life should be organised through role differentiation based on sex, ethnicity, wealth etc.

weak grid = life should be equal and anyone can participate in any social role

strong group = life as sense of community, people depend on each other

weak group = life is competitive, people fend for themselves

Question 5

way of life - fatalists

Answer 5

strong grid and weak group

regulated by social groups they do not belong to, indifferent about risk

Question 6

way of life - heirarchy

Answer 6

strong grid and group

fear things that disrupt the natural order of society

Question 7

way of life - individualism

Answer 7

weak grid and group

fear things that obstruct their individual freedom

Question 8

way of life - egalitarianism

Answer 8

strong group, weak grid

fear things that increase inequalities amongst people

Question 9

evidence for cultural theory of risk perception

Answer 9

cross-sectional telephone survey of 134 San Francisco Bay area residents

measured associations between 3 ways of life (Hierarchy, Individualism, Egalitarianism) and societal risk concerns

hierarchy and individualism = related to concerns about social deviance and war, but individualism more concerned about market issues

egalitarianism = related to concerns about technology, the environment and breakdown of democracy

overall = each cultural way of life is associated with different risk perceptions

Question 10

limitations of cultural theory (4)

Answer 10

• doesn’t allow for individual rational choice
• empirical support use unreliable and non-validated measures of ‘the ways of life’
• respondents could (and do) rate high on more than one world view
• only explain a small amount of variance in individual perceptions of risk, e.g. studies typically find about 5% of variance in risk judgments are explained by cultural theory measures

Question 11

heuristics and biases

Answer 11

heuristic = mental model on which to base judgements of risk –> shortcuts for thinking, can lead to inaccurate judgements and cognitive biases, based on experience

likely to be used with short time or when self-efficacy for studying facts is low

allows for decision making with incomplete info

Question 12

affect heuristic

Answer 12

draws attention to way feelings about a risk object are used to arrive at conclusions about acceptable levels of risk

positive feelings towards risk object = tendency to underestimate potential harm and overestimate benefits

altering people emotions affects how they perceive a risk

Question 13

evidence for affect heuristics (2)

Answer 13

people are willing to pay twice as much to insure a sentimental item than one that is not (even though insurance doesn’t mean you get it back)

statistics about a disease with death written as number of people out of 10,000 vs as a percentage is viewed as worse even if the percentage is better

Question 14

availability heuristic

Answer 14

risk perceptions depend on how easily someone can see the risk as happening

or how easily one can think of an example of a risky situation happening

direct and indirect suffering explains most of the variance in risk judgements e.g. knowing someone with cancer

Question 15

effect of media on availability heuristic

Answer 15

availability heuristic usually works, but the advent of the mass media causes problems

• rare causes of death tend to be overestimated because they hit the media
• common causes of death tend to be underestimated because they don’t

Question 16

evidence support for availability heuristic - house flooding

Answer 16

participants asked to imagine they were planning to buy a house and then found out some info about flooding probability

result = those who previously experienced flooding rated risk higher than those with no personal experience of it

availability heuristic of direct experience

Question 17

evidence support for availability heuristic - breast cancer

Answer 17

770 women survey around cancer screening behaviour and perceived risk of developing breast cancer

women with history of benign breast disease, with a female relative with breast cancer, or both overestimated their risk

availability heuristic based on direct or indirect experience

Question 18

optimism bias

Answer 18

think bad things happen to other people

e.g. think the risk of spouse being affected is higher than self

defensive denial = protects from worry

downward comparison = compared to other people i am better e.g. they smoke more

egocentrism = i take precautions so i am fine

optimism bias = more likely to engage in risky beahviours

Question 19

evidence for optimism bias - college driving

Answer 19

college-age drivers compared their risk of being involved in a variety of described traffic accidents relative to their peers

optimism bias: believed in almost all situations they would be at less risk than other drivers

Question 20

evidence for optimism bias - smokers and cancer

Answer 20

US national telephone survey of current smokers asked about their own risks of cancer vs the risk of the average smoker

• believed they had a lower risk of developing lung cancer than the average smoker
• perceived risk of cancer did not increase proportionally with the number of cigarettes smoked per day
• agreement with several myths, e.g. that exercise undoes most smoking effects

Question 21

psychometric paradigm

Answer 21

suggests risk perceptions are based on a range of dimensions

attempted to create a taxonomy to understand and predict estimates of risk

ask participants to rate riskiness of hazards and then rate each on other dimensions e.g. novelty, severity, knowledge

then look at correlation between riskiness and dimensions – therefore see which dimensions matter

Question 22

psychometric paradigm - which dimensions matter

Answer 22

this varied depending on which paper you look at (not all used in every study)

early studies used 9:

• voluntary vs involuntary
• chronic vs catastrophic
• common vs dreaded
• certain not fatal vs definitely fatal
• known to those exposed vs unknown
• immediate effects vs delayed
• known to science vs not known to science
• not controllable vs controllable
• new vs old

Question 23

limitation of common vs dreaded dimension in psychometric paradigm

Answer 23

common vs dreaded is a weird comparison –> described as something learnt to live with and can think about calmly or is it dreaded on the level of a gut reaction

this is measuring multiple things, not just 2 ends of a scale - can be used to something but not calm about it

Question 24

scoring of psychometric paradigm - 2 most impactiful factors

Answer 24

factor analysis of dimensions typically identifies 2 factors out of the 9:

dread and the unknown:

dread = lack of control, fatal, involuntary
unknown = new, unknown to science, effect delayed

dread = strongest correlations with global estimates of risk

can then use these 2 as two dimensions on a graph to plot different hazards or activities

Question 25

evidence for psychometric paradigm

Answer 25

907 people in UK rated 11 old and new food hazards on 12 risk dimensions

principal components analysis = 2 main components:

• dread
• knowledge

these explained 80% of variance in perceptions

Question 26

strengths of the psychometric paradigm (4)

Answer 26

• basic gist of psychometric paradigm replicated many times
• different dimensions matter in different situations, but agreement that Dread and unknown are important
• factor structure is pretty stable
• factors account for risk perceptions pretty well, studies in the tradition of the psychometric paradigm typically explain 70% or even more of the variance in risk perceptions

Question 27

limitations of the psychometric paradigm (4)

Answer 27

• works best on aggregate level data (i.e., comparing different risks among groups)
  –> poorer associations at individual level or for individual risks
  –> “ecological fallacy”
• replication of correlations and factors could be due to artefacts in the question wording (they are pretty similar)
• “risk” is often targetless – risk to me? to my family? to non-specific others?
• different properties, and different dimensions, seem to matter in different studies - unclear what is the testable prediction

Question 28

social amplification of risk (SARF)

Answer 28

brings together previous fragmented theories to better understand how risk information is disseminated and changed through different actions and interactions

how communications of risk events pass from the sender through intermediate stations to a receiver explaining how risks are amplified or attenuated –> like chinese whispers

main thesis = risk events interact with individual psychological, social and other cultural factors in ways that either increase or decrease public perceptions of risk

Question 29

social amplification and attenuation of risk

Answer 29

5 channels:

• sources of info - personal experience, direct communication
• info channels - social networks
• social stations - opinion leaders, cultural/social groups, govt, news
• individual stations - attention filter, decoding, heuristics, evaluation and interpretation
• institutional and social behaviour - attitude, political action, social protest

these all have ripple effects to society, industry, community and more

Question 30

evidence for social amplification of risk

Answer 30

effect of increased media reporting about the risks associated with genetically modified food on public attitudes to the technology

survey 1= feb 1998 –> before media attention to genetic modification peaked

survey 2 = march 1999 –> media coverage was at its peak

survey 3 = july 2000 –> level of media attention was subsiding

results:

• perceptions of risk associated with genetically modified food increased during the highest levels of media coverage
• but risk perceptions subsequently reduced as coverage diminished

Question 31

strengths of social amplification of risk (2)

Answer 31

can explain why certain risks experts characterize as small “produce massive public reactions”

helps to clarify phenomena, such as the key role of the mass media in risk communication and the influence of culture on risk processing

Question 32

limitations of social amplification of risk (3)

Answer 32

amplification may be directed as to what are regarded as ‘exaggerated’ risks

may be too general to test empirically and particularly to seek outright falsification

formulated 30 years ago
- long before the advent of the online media environment we know today
- largely studied within traditional mass media