Decision Processes, Rationality and Adjustment to Natural Hazards * Cognitive Processes and Societal Risk Taking * Preference for Insuring Against Probable Small Losses: Insurance Implications * Accident Probabilities and Seat Belt Usage: A Psychological Perspective * How Safe Is Safe Enough? A Psychometric Study of Attitudes Toward Technological Risks and Benefits * Rating the Risks * Weighing the Risks: Which Risks are Acceptable? * Facts and Fears: Understanding Perceived Risk * Response Mode, Framing and Information-processing Effects in Risk Assessment * The Nature of Technological Hazard * Informing and Educating the Public about Risk * Perception of Risk from Automobile Safety Defects * Perception of Risk * The Social Amplification of Risk: A Conceptual Framework * The Perception and Management of Therapeutic Risk * Perception of Risk from Radiation * Perceived Risk, Trust and the Politics of Nuclear Waste * Intuitive Toxicology: Expert and Lay Judgments of Chemical Risks * Perceived Risk, Trust and Democracy * Adolescent Health-threatening and Health-enhancing Behaviors: A Study of Word Association and Imagery * Technological Stigma * Probability, Danger and Coercion: A Study of Risk Perception and Decision-making in Mental Health Law * Do Adolescent Smokers Know the Risks? * Insensitivity to the Value of a Human Life: A Study of Psychophysical Numbing * Trust, Emotion, Sex, Politics and Science: Surveying the Risk-assessment Battlefield * The Affect Heuristic in Judgments of Risks and Benefits*
No abstract is provided for this article.
No abstract is provided for this article.
Fake news about climate change refers to fabricated information that mimics the appearance of legitimate reporting but is intended to mislead consumers. In light of concerns about fake news regarding climate change and other topics, researchers and media providers have been searching for ways to limit its spread and influence. This study tested the effect of two simple interventions, both of which primed critical thinking, on individuals’ evaluation of the credibility of real and fake news about climate change on Facebook. Through an online experiment (n = 2,750 participants), participants either read a series of guidelines for evaluating news online, or read and then rated the importance of each guideline; a control group was not exposed to guidelines of any type. We found that participants exposed to both types of guidelines reported a reduced likelihood to trust, like, and share fake news about climate change on Facebook. Importantly, exposure to these guidelines did not diminish individuals’ likelihood to trust, like, or share legitimate climate news. The effect sizes for both types of intervention were small. However, because of the scale and speed at which social media operates, even a small reduction in users’ likelihood to trust, like, and share fake news could be meaningful and impactful.
This study extends the current body of work on dehumanization by evaluating the social, psychological, and demographic correlates of blatant disregard for immigrants. Participants (N = 468) were randomly assigned to read a scenario where (1) an immigrant or (2) an immigrant and their child were caught illegally crossing the southern border of the United States, and then rated how long they should spend in jail if convicted. Participants reported that they would sentence the immigrant to more jail time than the immigrant and child. Those who sent immigrants to jail for more time also viewed them as socially distant, less human, described immigration in impersonal terms, and endorsed other social harms unrelated to immigration (e.g., the death penalty for convicted murderers). Crucially, endorsed social harms accounted for explained variance beyond simply holding conservative views. We position these data within the current literature on dehumanization theory and immigration issues.
A particularly important aspect of risk is its cumulative nature, when exposure to a hazard occurs repeatedly over time. The degree to which people understand cumulative risk has important theoretical and social implications. The latter play a role in disputes about whether those who smoke cigarettes know the risks of that activity. Proponents of the view that cigarette smoking reflects rational choices made by people well informed about the risks assume that knowledge of smoking risks is adequately assessed in terms of perceptions of the long-term risks. However, there is reason to question this assumption. The risks of smoking cumulate, one cigarette at a time. The present study demonstrates that a high percentage of adolescent smokers see no health risk from smoking the next cigarette or even from smoking regularly for the 'first few years'. This denial of 'short-term' risks, coupled with a tendency observed in other studies for young smokers to underestimate the addictive properties of tobacco, indicates that many young people do not really understand the risks from smoking cigarettes. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Traditionally, the principal focus of research on judgment and decision making has been largely cognitive and rationalistic. More recently, however, decision-making researchers have acknowledged the role of noncognitive factors and have offered limited accounts of how affect and imagery influence processes associated with judgment and choice. The present paper extends this direction by offering evidence from three studies conducted in widely diverse contexts that support the view that the concepts of mental imagery and affect can provide a powerful framework for predicting both intended and actual behavior from relatively simple image-elicitation techniques. The implications of this evidence are discussed in terms of their significance for imagery and affect to act as organizing principles in theories of judgment and decision making.
This research explores the use of psychometric techniques to improve understanding of psychological mechanisms underlying judgment of excreta as fertilizer in agriculture including other excreta-related activities. Participants consisted of environmental health students, smallholder farmers, and traders in rural and urban Rwanda and Uganda. The finding reveals an inverse relationship between risk and benefit judgments. This relationship holds for the three groups of participants with significant risk and benefit correlations of p < .0001. This finding is consistent with other studies in showing that affect plays a key role in risk perception, judgment, and decision-making. Building on this finding, we conclude that individuals with high risk and low benefit judgment for excreta-related practices would eschew them or emphasize strict standards. Individuals with a high benefit and low risk judgment would engage in excreta management practices regardless of the actual risks involved. This finding is relevant for risk communication and risk management as it indicates that individuals do not rely only on risk management information they receive concerning excreta and related risks but also depend, to an extent, on their feelings about these substances when making judgments and decisions regarding the purpose for using excreta as fertilizer and the level of exposure they can tolerate and manage.
(1979). Weighing the Risks: Risks: Benefits which Risks are Acceptable? Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development: Vol. 21, No. 4, pp. 17-38.
The concept of exposure is central to chemical risk assessment and plays an important role in communicating to the public about the potential healthrisks of chemicals. Research on chemical risk perception has found some indication that the model lay people use to judge chemical exposure differs from that of toxicologists, thereby leading to different conclusions aboutchemical safety. This paper presents the results of a series of studies directed toward developing a model for understanding how lay people interpret the concept of chemical exposure. The results indicate that people'sbeliefs about chemical exposure (and its risks) are based on two broad categories of inferences. One category of inferences relates to the nature inwhich contact with a chemical has taken place, including the amount of a chemical involved and its potential health consequences. A second category ofinferences about chemical exposure relates to the pragmatics of languageinterpretation, leading to beliefs about the motives and purposes behind chemical risk communication. Risk communicators are encouraged to consider how alternative models of exposure and language interpretation can leadto conflicting conclusions on the part of the public about chemical safety.
A nationwide survey of 776 U.S. residents, divided approximately equally between teenagers and adults, smokers and nonsmokers, assessed public understanding of the illnesses caused by smoking. When respondents were asked what illnesses are caused by smoking, lung cancer was the only illness that could be identified by a clear majority of respondents. Roughly half mentioned emphysema. A much smaller percentage of respondents were able to mention any cardiovascular disease or any kind of cancer other than lung cancer. People also underestimated the death rate from lung cancer and overestimated survival duration. Only a minority realized that emphysema is incurable. Large portions of the sample said they knew only a little about the pain and suffering experienced by individuals with these illnesses. The results demonstrated that even though people recognize that smoking can lead to adverse health consequences, they do not have even a basic understanding of the nature and severity of these consequences.
