The Different Dynamics of Personal and General Risk

Abstract

Risk perception is often studied without further specifying to whom the risk is supposed to pertain—the risk target. Such specification is important, in particular as to whether the risk pertains to the respondents themselves (personal risk) or to other people (general risk). In the present study, participants judged the personal and general risk of a large number of hazards. Average personal risk was judged as smaller than general risk, often much smaller, and the two sets of risk judgments did not have the same rank order. Furthermore, they had different correlates. Gender differences in perceived risk were found to be much more pronounced for general than for personal risk. For personal risk, gender differences were most pronounced for hazards where there was a small perceived capacity of protection, while gender differences tended to be more constant for general risk. Economic vulnerability had an effect on both personal and general risk, but a stronger effect on general risk. Similar effects of economic vulnerability were found for men and women, refuting the parallel with a ‘white male effect’. Demand for risk mitigation in most cases was more strongly related to general than to personal risk, but the present results also showed this trend to be weakened or even reversed in cases where personal risk was perceived to be at the same level as general risk; hazards where this was the case included nuclear technology and depletion of the ozone layer. In a second study it was found that nonspecific risk ratings (no risk target specified) were most closely related to general rather than personal risk, and that one's own responsibility for risk management was regarded as much lower than governmental responsibility. Implications for risk communication are discussed.