730 publications from this institution
The concept of exposure is central to chemical risk assessment and plays an important role in communicating to the public about the potential health risks 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 about chemical 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's beliefs about chemical exposure (and its risks) are based on two broad categories of inferences. One category of inferences relates to the nature in which contact with a chemical has taken place, including the amount of a chemical involved and its potential health consequences. A second category of inferences about chemical exposure relates to the pragmatics of language interpretation, 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 lead to conflicting conclusions on the part of the public about chemical safety.
How much information should be provided to patients about prescription drug side effects? What determines the perceived seriousness of a drug side effect and how does seriousness relate to the need to inform patients about that effect? This study explored these questions in a survey of laypersons, physicians, and pharmacists. The results indicated that pain, effect on one's ability to carry out everyday activities, and threat to life were the key determinants of a side-effect's seriousness. Laypeople tended to judge most side effects as more serious than did pharmacists and physicians. Whereas the health professionals tended to want minor side effects listed only if they occur quite frequently, laypeople tended to want all potential effects listed, no matter how rarely they occur or how minor they are. The practical and political implications of these findings are discussed.
Public perceptions of risk are a focal point of many debates about the management of hazardous technologies. Different views about what the public knows and wants often lead to quite different beliefs about what policies should be adopted and even about how society's policy-making processes should be structured. Often these views about the public are based on speculation or anecdotal observation. In the interests of having better informed debates, the present paper reviews existing empirical evidence about public risk perceptions. In doing so, it reaches a number of interim conclusions and draws forth their implications for the respective roles of technical experts and lay people in technology management.
Four studies demonstrated robust within‐ and between‐subject differences in willingness‐to‐pay (WTP) and willingness‐to‐accept (WTA) measures of the value of lottery tickets. Buyers and sellers attended to different numerical cues and interpreted the same numbers differently when setting these two kinds of monetary values. Affective influences appeared to guide the valuation process. Buyers with stronger positive feelings about owning a ticket were willing to pay more for a ticket; sellers with stronger negative feelings about no longer having a ticket required a greater minimum payment in exchange for their ticket. In addition, the WTA/WTP disparity tended to be greater for more affectively‐laden lottery tickets. The results suggest that WTA and WTP prices are constructed using salient numerical cues and affective feelings. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
No abstract is provided for this article.
Very often the risks of driving are expressed in terms of the total number of deaths that occur yearly as the result of motor vehicle operation. Yet, despite the thousands of people who die each year in automobiles in the U.S. alone, driving behavior seems relatively unresponsive to statistical portrayals of risk. Research in risk perception suggests that this apparent unresponsiveness is rooted in the manner by which risks are psychologically evaluated and judged. In general, perceptions of controllability of a hazard are a prime factor in personal assessments of its riskiness. Unfortunately, drivers appear to have an exaggerated sense of their personal control over driving situations and hazard potential, leaving them unrealistically optimistic about their chances of avoiding harm. However, emerging market countries seeking to develop better motor-vehicle risk management are cautious about drawing too heavily upon risk perception research conducted in industrialized countries with mature risk management institutions - risk as a concept appears highly conditioned on the cultural context within which it is experienced. Thus, emerging nations are encouraged to develop risk management approaches within their own cultural matrix, relying on a base of research stimulated by cross-cultural collaboration.
Descriptions of safety engineering defects of the kind that compel automobile manufacturers to initiate a recall campaign were evaluated by individuals on a set of risk characteristic scales that included overall vehicle riskiness, manufacturer's ability to anticipate the defect, importance for vehicle operation, severity of consequences and likelihood of compliance with a recall notice. A factor analysis of the risk characteristics indicated that judgments could be summarized in terms of two composite scales, one representing the uncontrollability of the damage the safety defect might cause and the other representing the foreseeability of the defect by the manufacturer. Motor vehicle defects were found to be highly diverse in terms of the perceived qualities of their risks. Location of individual defects within the factor space was closely associated with perceived riskiness, perceived likelihood of purchasing another car from the same manufacturer, perceived likelihood of compliance with a recall notice, and actual compliance rates.
Subjects were asked to estimate the answers to 16 questions concerning uncertain quantities like, How many people are employed by hospitals in the U.S.? under five different aiding conditions. The most-aided group (Full Algorithm) was given a complete algorithm and asked to make estimates for the parts of the algorithm and to combine the parts as indicated to arrive at an estimate of the desired quantity. The second group (Partial Algorithm) was given the same algorithm without indications of how to combine the parts. After making estimates of the parts, these subjects then estimated the desired quantity. The third group (List & Estimate) was asked to list components or factors they thought were relevant, make an estimate of each item on their list, and then estimate the desired quantity. The fourth group (List) was asked to make such a list, but they were not asked to make estimates of each item before making an estimate of the desired quantity. The fifth group received no aid. The results generally showed improved performance in terms of both accuracy and consistency across subjects with increasing structure of the aid. Generalization of these results to practical estimation situations is possible but limited by the need, in real situations, for the estimator to develop the algorithm, a task that was done here by the experimenters.
No abstract is provided for this article.
A series of four studies explored how the ability to comprehend and transform probability numbers relates to performance on judgment and decision tasks. On the surface, the tasks in the four studies appear to be widely different; at a conceptual level, however, they all involve processing numbers and the potential to show an influence of affect. Findings were consistent with highly numerate individuals being more likely to retrieve and use appropriate numerical principles, thus making themselves less susceptible to framing effects, compared with less numerate individuals. In addition, the highly numerate tended to draw different (generally stronger or more precise) affective meaning from numbers and numerical comparisons, and their affective responses were more precise. Although generally helpful, this tendency may sometimes lead to worse decisions. The less numerate were influenced more by competing, irrelevant affective considerations. Analyses showed that the effect of numeracy was not due to general intelligence. Numerical ability appears to matter to judgments and decisions in important ways.
This chapter sketches a portrait of top-level decision making in the face of humanitarian crises that we believe is deeply problematic. It draws from research on values and preferences to explore what may be a systematic bias leading to the discounting of humanitarian objectives in major foreign-policy decisions. The chapter points to the need for systematic structuring and assessment of objectives and values in ways. It argues that the prominence effect may underlie the apparent discrepancy between expressed and revealed values regarding whether or not to act to protect large numbers of civilian lives under attack in foreign countries. They hypothesizes that national security is the more prominent dimension in the context of deliberations among high-level government policy makers. Decision making characterization applies to most decisions concerning genocide prevention but it also applies to a host of other tough public policy choices facing governments such as responses to climate change, storage of high-level nuclear wastes, or prevention of terrorism.
Perceived risk can be characterized as a battleground marked by strong and conflicting views about the nature and seriousness of the risks of modern life. The paradox for those who study risk perception is that, as people in many industrialized nations have become...
No abstract is provided for this article.
No abstract is provided for this article.
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‐posttest 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.
Through the domain of medical errors, the role of worry and perceived risk in precautionary behaviors was examined in a convenience sample (N = 195, mean age = 42 years, 71% female). Worry was linked to fatality estimates. A model of the antecedents and consequences of worry also was tested. Risk characteristics such as dread and preventability, negative reactivity, and vulnerability to medical errors appeared to motivate worry about medical errors. Worry about medical errors was a better predictor of intentions to take precautionary actions than were risk perceptions. An understanding of how worry influences preventive efforts will help in building communication strategies to the public and in effectively engaging patients in the role of vigilant partner in care.
