Risk Communication under Conflicting Information: The Role of Confidence in Subjective Risk Assessment

Takashi Ishida,Shinichi Kurihara,Atsushi Maruyama

doi:10.5539/jfr.v11n1p1

Abstract

In this study, we develop a model of food consumption with a focus on the subjectively assessed risk of consumers and their degree of confidence in their risk assessment and use it to examine consumer behavior in the chaotic situation created by the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011. The data were collected in March 2012 using a mail survey for 1300 Japanese women, the primary food purchasers. The respondents were asked to evaluate the cancer risk of eating agricultural products, which were assumed to be grown in the affected area, despite meeting national regulatory standards for radioactive materials, as a measure of their risk assessment and willingness to purchase Fukushima beef. The results show that the effect of confidence in a consumer&rsquo;s risk assessment on their behavior depends on the stated risk level: when stated risk is below an estimated critical value, termed the switching point, the risk perceived by a consumer without confidence exceeds that of one with confidence. On the other hand, perceived risk is inversely related to confidence when the stated risk exceeds the switching point.

Highlights

1.1 Introduce the ProblemThe public often perceives risk to be higher than its scientifically estimated level (Riddel et al, 2003) and this overestimated risk can result in economic loss through the decreasing demand for related goods
The results show that the effect of confidence in a consumer’s risk assessment on their behavior depends on the stated risk level: when stated risk is below an estimated critical value, termed the switching point, the risk perceived by a consumer without confidence exceeds that of one with confidence
This means that when the stated risk is below the level of risk associated with that between smoking and drinking, the risk perceived by a consumer without confidence exceeds that of one with confidence, whereas the perceived risk inversely relates to confidence when the stated risk exceeds the switching point

Summary

Introduction

1.1 Introduce the ProblemThe public often perceives risk to be higher than its scientifically estimated level (Riddel et al, 2003) and this overestimated risk can result in economic loss through the decreasing demand for related goods. We cannot know the exact probability of natural disasters and climate change because of scientific limitations In such cases, risk information is ambiguous and usually reported as a range of risk estimates. Individuals place greater weight on high-risk information when facing conflicting or ambiguous risk information (Viscusi et al, 1991; Ghosh and Ray, 1997; Viscusi, 1997). This holds even when the source of the negative information is something like a consumer advocacy group and written in a nonscientific manner (Fox et al, 2002; Hayes et al, 2002)

Objectives

Results

Conclusion