Publications

Risk perceptions of men and women scientists

Studies of the general public have shown that women express far greater concern than men about many health and environmental hazards. A variety of explanations have been offered, including differentials in scientific knowledge or general concerns about technology. The purpose of this study is to analyze differences in the ways that men and women scientists perceive nuclear risk. This article examines the risk attitudes and perceptions of a large mail survey sample of men and women scientists. The sample consists of randomly selected members of the biological and physical science sections of the American Association for the Advancement of Science who reside in Colorado and New Mexico. Men scientists tend to see substantially less risk from nuclear technologies than do women scientists, but this difference is not a manifestation of different levels of scientific training or attitudes toward nature, technology, and normative aspects of risk. Gender differences and field of research have an additive effect on risk perceptions, with women scientists and life scientists perceiving greater risks

Decision processes, rationality and adjustment to natural hazards

No abstract is provided for this article.

Perceived Risk, Stigma, and Potential Economic Impacts of a High‐Level Nuclear Waste Repository in Nevada

This study investigates the potential impacts of the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, upon tourism, retirement and job‐related migration, and business development in Las Vegas and the state. Adverse impacts may be expected to result from perceptions of risk, stigmatization, and socially amplified reactions to “unfortunate events” associated with the repository (major and minor accidents, discoveries of radiation releases, evidence of mismanagement, attempts to sabotage or disrupt the facility, etc.). The conceptual underpinnings of risk perception, stigmatization, and social amplification are discussed and empirical data are presented to demonstrate how nuclear images associated with Las Vegas and the State of Nevada might trigger adverse economic effects. The possibility that intense negative imagery associated with the repository may cause significant harm to Nevada's economy can no longer be ignored by serious attempts to assess the risks and impacts of this unique facility. The behavioral processes described here appear relevant as well to the social impact assessment of any proposed facility that produces, uses, transports, or disposes of hazardous materials.

Cultural Evaluations of Risk: 'Values' or 'Blunders'?

The phenomenon of cultural cognition refers to the disposition of individuals to adopt factual beliefs about risk that express their cultural evaluations of putatively dangerous activities. In a previous review essay (119 Harv. L. Rev. 1071 (2006)), we suggested that this phenomenon makes it inappropriate to treat public risk perceptions that differ from those of expert regulators as simple mistakes, which should be denied weight in lawmaking, as opposed to values, which presumably should guide regulatory policy in a democratic society. Cass Sunstein wrote a critical response (119 Harv. L. Rev. 1110 (2006)). Sunstein's basic thesis is that cultural cognition is largely a result of bounded rationality, not an alternative to it, and as such generates beliefs no more entitled to normative respect than those associated with other types of cognitive biases. We offer a (brief) reply, distinguishing the question of whether cultural cognition can be explained by biases and heuristics attributable to bounded rationality (we say, no) from the question of whether beliefs founded on cultural cognition should be normative for law (we say, sometimes).

Scope insensitivity in helping decisions: Is it a matter of culture and values?

The singularity effect of identifiable victims refers to people's greater willingness to help a single concrete victim compared with a group of victims experiencing the same need. We present 3 studies exploring values and cultural sources of this effect. In the first study, the singularity effect was found only among Western Israelis and not among Bedouin participants (a more collectivist group). In Study 2, individuals with higher collectivist values were more likely to contribute to a group of victims. Finally, the third study demonstrates a more causal relationship between collectivist values and the singularity effect by showing that enhancing people's collectivist values using a priming manipulation produces similar donations to single victims and groups. Moreover, participants' collectivist preferences mediated the interaction between the priming conditions and singularity of the recipient. Implications for several areas of psychology and ways to enhance caring for groups in need are discussed.

Fast and Slow Thinking in the Face of Catastrophic Risk

Studies of behavior in the face of natural disasters and mass atrocities provide common lessons about managing catastrophic threats. We cannot assume that the massive destructiveness of an event will lead us to appreciate and appropriately respond to the risk. The potential consequences, whether in billions of dollars or millions of endangered lives, often fail to convey the emotional meaning necessary to motivate effective protective actions. Rather than trusting our desensitized feelings as our moral compass, we must employ slow and careful thinking, coupled with short-term incentives, to create policies, procedures, laws, and institutions that will nudge or even require us to behave in ways that accord with our considered values for protecting human lives and property.

Perception of Risks from Electromagnetic Fields: A Psychometric Evaluation of a Risk-Communication Approach

Potential health risks from exposure to power-frequency electromagnetic fields (EMF) have become an issue of significant public concern. This study evaluates a brochure designed to communicate EMF health risks from a scientific perspective. The study utilized a pretest-post test design in which respondents judged various sources of EMF (and other) health and safety risks, both before reading the brochure and after. Respondents assessed risks on dimensions similar to those utilized in previous studies of risk perception. In addition, detailed ratings were made that probed respondents' beliefs about the possible causal effects of EMF exposure. The findings suggest that naive beliefs about the potential of EMF exposure to cause harm were highly influenced by specific content elements of the brochure. The implications for using risk-communication approaches based on communicating scientific uncertainty are discussed.

The Polarizing Impact of Science Literacy and Numeracy on Perceived Climate Change Risks

Seeming public apathy over climate change is often attributed to a deficit in comprehension. The public knows too little science, it is claimed, to understand the evidence or avoid being misled. Widespread limits on technical reasoning aggravate the problem by forcing citizens to use unreliable cognitive heuristics to assess risk. An empirical study found no support for this position. Members of the public with the highest degrees of science literacy and technical reasoning capacity were not the most concerned about climate change. Rather, they were the ones among whom cultural polarization was greatest. This result suggests that public divisions over climate change stem not from the public’s incomprehension of science but from a distinctive conflict of interest: between the personal interest individuals have in forming beliefs in line with those held by others with whom they share close ties and the collective one they all share in making use of the best available science to promote common welfare.

Reference Point Effects in Eliciting Values of Environmental Goods, 1988-1990: [Oregon]

Introduction

The past twenty-five years have seen considerable social science research on the risks of technologies and economic activities, and an even lengthier legacy of studies on natural hazards. This work has generated a substantial knowledge base from which to interpret such issues as the sources and causes of changing risks and the ways in which various groups and different societies assess, view, and cope with those risks. In particular, risk perception researchers have investigated in depth how judgments about perceived risks and their acceptability arise, and how such judgments are related to risk “heuristics” (e.g. the memorability, representativeness, and affective qualities of risk events) and the qualitative characteristics of risk (e.g. voluntariness or catastrophic potential). Patterns of risk perception have also been found to relate to both group and cultural affiliations. Meanwhile, dramatic events such as the Chernobyl disaster, the BSE (“mad cow”) and the genetically modified crops controversies in Europe, the September 11th attacks in the United States, and the prospect of global climate change have driven home to responsible authorities and corporate managers the extensive intertwining of technical risk with social considerations and processes. As Kai Erikson (1994) succinctly puts it, modern disasters present us with a “new species of trouble.”

Nuclear Power and the Public

This study is an attempt to understand attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors with respect to nuclear power and several other technological risk sources. A unique feature of the study is a comparison between public views in the United States, where nuclear energy is...

Judgment under uncertainty: Causality and attribution

No abstract is provided for this article.

Intuitive Toxicology II: Studies of Expert and Lay Judgments of Chemical Risk, 1994

Acknowledgments

This book would not have been pos si ble

Discrimination, Vulnerability, and Justice in the Face of Risk

Recent research finds that perceived risk is closely associated with race and gender. In surveys of the American public a subset of white males stand out for their uniformly low perceptions of environmental health risks, while most nonwhite and nonmale respondents reveal higher perceived risk. Such findings have been attributed to the advantageous position of white males in American social life. This article explores the linked possibility that this demographic pattern is driven not simply by the social advantages or disadvantages embodied in race or gender, but by the subjective experience of vulnerability and by sociopolitical evaluations pertaining to environmental in justice. Indices of environmental (in)justice and social vulnerability were developed as part of a U.S. National Risk Survey ( n = 1,192) in order to examine their effect on perceived risk. It was found that those who regarded themselves as vulnerable and supported belief statements consistent with the environmental justice thesis offered higher risk ratings across a range of hazards. Multivariate analysis indicates that our measures of vulnerability and environmental (in)justice predict perceived risk but do not account for all of the effects of race and gender. The article closes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for further work on vulnerability and risk, risk communication, and risk management practices generally.

Overcoming Tunnel Vision: Redirecting the U.S. High-Level Nuclear Waste Program

(1997). Overcoming Tunnel Vision: Redirecting the U.S. High-Level Nuclear Waste Program. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development: Vol. 39, No. 3, pp. 6-11.

Reversals of Preference Between Bids and Choices in Gambling Decisions

Subjects in 3 experiments chose their preferred bet from pairs of bets, and later bid for each bet separately.In each pair, one bet had a higher probability of winnirig.(Pbet); the other offered more to win (S bet).Bidding method (selling vs. buying) and payoff method (realplay vs. hourly wage) were varied.Results showed that when the P bet was chosen, the$ bet o~en received a higher bid.These inconsistencies violate every risky decision model, but can be understood via informationprocessing considerations.In bidding, S starts with amount to win and adjusts it downward to account for other attributes of the bet.In choosing, there is no natural starting point.Thus amount to win dominates , bids but not choices.One need not call this behavior irrational, but it casts doubt on the descriptive validity of expected utility models of risky decision making.

Political ideology shapes risk and benefit judgments of COVID‐19 vaccines

In April 2021, the use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine was paused to investigate whether it had caused serious blood clots to a small number of women (six out of 6.8 million Americans who had been administered that vaccine). As these events were unfolding, we surveyed a sample of Americans (N = 625) to assess their reactions to this news, whether they supported the pausing of the vaccine, and potential psychological factors underlying their decision. In addition, we employed automated text analyses as a supporting method to more classical quantitative measures. Results showed that political ideology influenced the support for the pausing of the vaccine; liberals were more likely to oppose it than conservatives. In addition, the effect of political ideology was mediated by the difference between perceived benefit and risk and the language style used to produce reasons in support (or against) the decision to pause the vaccine. Liberals perceived the benefit of vaccines higher than the risk, used a more analytic language style when stating their reasons, and had a more positive attitude toward the vaccine. We discuss the implications of our findings considering vaccine hesitancy and risk perception during the COVID-19 pandemic.