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People respond to a risk or hazard in ways consistent to their perception of that risk. It is their perception that influences behavior or action (Mileti 1993). Understanding public perception of natural hazards is necessary in order to impact hazard preparedness, and can be a problem because residents of at-risk areas often have inaccurate beliefs about the hazard agent and its impacts, are unaware of available adjustments, and may have erroneous beliefs about the effectiveness of the adjustments of which they are aware (Lindell and Perry 1993). Research shows that adaptive actions are motivated by awareness of the hazard, knowledge of how it can affect the community, and feelings of personal vulnerability to the potential consequences (Janis and Mann 1977). Frequent exposure to hazard relevant information does not automatically elicit attention and comprehension, let alone the acceptance, personalization, and retention required to initiate hazard adjustments (Mileti and Sorensen 1987). Lindell and Perry argue that people do not actually need to understand the hazard in order to be motivated enough to prepare, but they need to believe that the hazard really exists and that protection is needed (1993).
Often, the problem for people to take action regarding a hazard is that they do not believe it really exists. One reason to explain this is that people rely on past experience. In 1992, Hurricane Andrew destroyed 80,000 homes and put 12 insurance companies out of business with its unprecedented force. Even though evacuation was mandatory in southern Florida, many people refused as never before in their memory had a hurricane traveled as far inland as Andrew. The people who were reluctant to evacuate were simply making rational decisions based on past experience (Tobin and Montz 1997).
*Click here for a pdf version. Brenot, J. S. Bonnefous, and C. Marris. (1998) testing the Cultural Theory of Risk in France. Risk Analysis, 18(6): 729-739. *Click here for pdf version. Cronin, Shane, et al. (2004) Participatory methods of incorporating scientific with traditional knowledge for volcanic hazard management on Ambae Island, Vanuatu. Bulletin of Volcanology, 66: 652-668. *Click here, to view the article or click here to download it. Gregory, R. and R. Mendelsohn. (1993) Perceived Risk, Dread, and Benefits. Risk Analysis, 13(3): 259-264. *Click here for pdf version. Hakes, J. and W. Viscusi. (2004) Dead Reckoning: Demographic Determinants of the Accuracy of Mortality Risk Perceptions. Risk Analysis, 24(3): 651-664. *Click here for a pdf version. Janis, I. and L. Mann. (1977) Decision Making: A Psychological Analysis of Conflict, Choice and Commitment. New York: Free Press. Jianguang, Z. (1993) Environmental Hazards in the Chinese Publics Eyes. Risk Analysis, 13(5): 509-513. *Click here for a pdf version. Johnson, B. (1992) Advancing Understanding of Knowledge's Role in Lay Risk Perception, American Sociological Association. *Click here, for this article online. Johnson, B. (2004) Arguments for Testing Ethnic Identity and Acculturation as Factors in Risk Judgements. Risk Analysis, 24(5): 1279-1287. *Click here for a pdf version. Johnson, F. and A. Fisher. (1989) Conventional Wisdom on Risk Communication and Evidence from a Field Experiment. Risk Analysis, 9(2): 209-213. *Click here for a pdf version. Lindell, M. and R. Perry. (1993) Risk Area Residents Changing Perceptions of Volcano Hazard at Mt. St. Helens. In Prediction and Perception of Natural Hazards, J. Nemec, J. Nigg, and F. Siccardi (eds). Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers. McDaniels, T. (1988) Chernobyls Effects on the Perceived Risks of Nuclear Power: A Small Sample Test. Risk Analysis, 8(3): 457-461. *Click here for a pdf version. McDaniels, T., L. Axelrod, and P. Slovic. (1995) Characterizing Perception of Ecological Risk. Risk Analysis, 15(5): 575-588. *Click here for a pdf version.
Mileti, D. (1993) Communicating Public Earthquake Risk Information. In Prediction and Perception of Natural Hazards, J. Nemec, J. Nigg, and F. Siccardi (eds). Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Mileti, D. and H. Sorensen. (1987) Natural Hazards and Precautionary Behavior. In Taking Care: Why People Take Precautions, Neal D. Weinstein (ed). New York: Cambridge University Press. Nemec, J. (1993) Prediction and Perception of Natural Hazards, Springer. Rogers, G. (1997) The Dynamics of Risk Perception: How Does Perceived Risk Respond to Risk Events? Risk Analysis, 17(6): 745-757. *Click here for pdf version. Sandman, P. et al. (1993) Agency Communication, Community Outrage, and Perception of Risk: Three Simulation Experiments. Risk Analysis, 13(6): 585-598. *Click here for pdf version. Savage, I. (1993) Demographic Influences on Risk Perceptions. Risk Analysis, 13(4): 413-420. * Click here for a pdf version. Sjoberg, L. (2000) Factors in Risk Perception, Risk Analysis, 20(1). *Click here, for this article online. Satterfield, T. et al. (2004) Discrimination, Vulnerability, and Justice in the Face of Risk. Risk Analysis, 24(1): 115-129. *Click here for a pdf version. Tobin, G. and B. Montz. (1997) Natural Hazards: Explanation and Integration. New York: The Guilford Press. Tobin, G., and L. Whiteford. 2002. Community Resilience and Volcano Hazard: The Eruption of Tunguahua and Evacuation of the Faldas in Ecuador, Disasters, 26(1): 28-48. *Click here, to view the article or click here to download it. Wilken, Gene. 1992. Agroclimatic hazard perception, prediction, and risk-avoidance strategies in Lesotho, Institute of Behavioral Science.
Risk perception is the subjective judgment that people make about the characteristics and severity of a risk. The phrase is most commonly used in reference to natural hazards and threats to the environment or health, such as nuclear power. Several theories have been proposed to explain why different people make different estimates of the dangerousness of risks. Three major families of theory have been developed: psychology approaches (heuristics and cognitive), anthropology/sociology approaches (cultural theory) and interdisciplinary approaches (social amplification of risk framework).
Contents
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1 Early theories 2 Psychology approach o 2.1 Heuristics and biases o 2.2 Cognitive Psychology o 2.3 Psychometric paradigm 3 Anthropology/sociology approach o 3.1 Cultural theory 4 Interdisciplinary approach o 4.1 Social amplification of risk framework 5 See also 6 External links 7 References
Representativeness: is usually employed when people are asked to judge the probability that an object or event belongs to a class / processes by its similarity:
- insensitivity to prior probability - insensitivity to sample size - misconception of chance (gambler fallacy) - insensitivity to predictability - illusion of validity - misconception of regression
Availability heuristic: events that can be more easily brought to mind or imagined are judged to be more likely than events that could not easily be imagined:
- biases due to retrievability of instances - biases due to the effectivenss of research set - biases of imaginability - illusiory correlation
Anchoring and Adjustment heuristic: people will often start with one piece of known information and then adjust it to create an estimate of an unknown risk but the adjustment will usually not be big enough:
- insufficient adjustment - biases in the evaluation of conjunctive and disjunctive event - anchoring in the assessment of subjective probability distributions
Asymmetry between gains and losses: People are risk averse with respect to gains, preferring a sure thing over a gamble with a higher expected utility but which presents the possibility of getting nothing. On the other hand, people will be risk-seeking about losses, preferring to hope for the chance of losing nothing rather than taking a sure, but smaller, loss (e.g. insurance).
Threshold effects: People prefer to move from uncertainty to certainty over making a similar gain in certainty that does not lead to full certainty. For example, most people would choose a vaccine that reduces the incidence of disease A from 10% to 0% over one that reduces the incidence of disease B from 20% to 10%.
Another key finding was that the experts are not necessarily any better at estimating probabilities than lay people. Experts were often overconfident in the exactness of their estimates, and put too much stock in small samples of data[6].
ripple to other parties and locations. Traditional risk analyses neglect these ripple effect impacts and thus greatly underestimate the adverse effects from certain risk events. Public distortion of risk signals provides a corrective mechanism by which society assesses a fuller determination of the risk and its impacts to such things not traditionally factored into a risk analysis[19].
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1. ^ Douglas, Mary. Risk Acceptability According to the Social Sciences. Russell Sage Foundation, 1985. 2. ^ "Social Benefits versus Technological Risks" in Science Vol. 165, No. 3899. (Sep. 19, 1969), pp. 12321238 3. ^ Douglas, Mary. Risk Acceptability According to the Social Sciences. Russell Sage Foundation, 1985. 4. ^ [Freudenburg, William R., Risk and Recreancy: Weber, the Division of Labor, and the Rationality of Risk Perceptions. Social Forces 71(4), (June 1993): 909932.] 5. ^ Tversky, Amos and Daniel Kahneman. Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. Science 185(4157) (September 1974): 11241131. 6. ^ Slovic, Paul, Baruch Fischhoff, Sarah Lichtenstein. Why Study Risk Perception? Risk Analysis 2(2) (1982): 8393. 7. ^ Slimak & Dietz, 2006Koger cited in Susan M., and Deborah Du Nann. Winter. The Psychology of Environmental Problems: Psychology for Sustainability. 3rd ed. New York: Psychology, 2010. 216-217 8. ^ Swim, Janet, Susan Clayton, Thomas Doherty, Robert Gifford, George Howard, Joseph Reser, Paul Stern, and Elke Weber. Psychology & Global Climate Change. Publication. American Psychological Association, 2010. Web. 10 Dec. 2010. <http://www.apa.org/science/about/publications/climate-change-booklet.pdf>. 9. ^ Sterman, 2008 cited in Koger, Susan M., and Deborah Du Nann. Winter. The Psychology of Environmental Problems: Psychology for Sustainability. 3rd ed. New York: Psychology, 2010. 219 10. ^ Slovic, Paul, ed. The Perception of Risk. Earthscan, Virginia. 2000. 11. ^ Slovic, Paul, Baruch Fischhoff, Sarah Lichtenstein. Why Study Risk Perception? Risk Analysis 2(2) (1982): 8393. 12. ^ Gregory, Robin & Robert Mendelsohn. Perceived Risk, Dread, and Benefits. Risk Analysis 13(3) (1993): 259264 13. ^ Slovic, Paul, Baruch Fischhoff, Sarah Lichtenstein. Why Study Risk Perception? Risk Analysis 2(2) (1982): 8393 14. ^ Wildavsky, Aaron and Karl Dake. Theories of Risk Perception: Who Fears What and Why? American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Daedalus) 119(4) (1990): 4160.
15. ^ Douglas, Mary and Aaron Wildavsky. Risk and Culture. University of California Press, 1982. 16. ^ Thompson, Michael, Richard Ellis, Aaron Wildavsky. Cultural theory. Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, 1990. 17. ^ Douglas, Mary. Risk and Blame: Essays in Cultural theory. New York: Routledge, 1992. 18. ^ Kasperson, Roger E., Ortwin Renn, Paul Slovic, Halina Brown, Jacque Emel, Robert Goble, Jeanne Kasperson, Samuel Ratick. The Social Amplification of Risk: A Conceptual Framework. Risk Analysis 8(2) (1988): 177187. 19. ^ Kasperson, Jeanne X., Roger E. Kasperson. The Social Contours of Risk. Volumne I: Publics, Risk Communication & the Social Amplification of Risk. Earthscan, Virginia. 2005