Risk Benefit Perception Research Articles

UV-Risikowahrnehmung in der Bevölkerung: Ergebnisse einer repräsentativen Umfrage in Deutschland

For public health promotion purposes it is important to know how the general public perceives the risk factor "UV exposure" and how UV risk perception is connected to health-related attitudes and beliefs. The aim of the study was to collect representative data about UV risk perception in Germany. A representative telephone survey using the ADM design was carried out among 1 501 German residents between May and July 2007. Variables related to UV risk knowledge, relevance of risk topics in every-day thinking and risk estimates were investigated. Data regarding a subjective benefit evaluation of UV exposition was also collected. The results suggest no essential gaps in the general knowledge about UV risks, except for the underestimation of UV-related cataracts. The respondents thought it extremely likely that UV exposure would cause health damage such as skin cancer, photoaging or sun burns. People were asked to report how often they had thought about a number of health risks including UV risks in the last two weeks. It was established that UV risks are present but not dominant in people's every-day thinking. Along with it, the risk evaluation proves to be rather moderate. The mean value for respondents' perceived personal risk is M=5.1, in the midsection of the given 10-point scale. The results show that perceived personal risk is not influenced by the serious UV health risks such as cancer or cataracts. The results also indicate that UV benefit and UV risk perception are not strongly related to one another. In summary, participants' perception and assessment of the various health risks of UV exposure seem to be realistic, but the UV risk assessment it is not related to the perception of personal risk. One must therefore assume that UV health risk information and education campaigns do not necessarily lead to a change in the perception of personal UV risk. Rather than addressing primarily risk knowledge, UV risk communication should focus more on motivational aspects and consider the role of UV benefit perception.

Public acceptance and risk-benefit perception of CO2 geological storage for global warming mitigation in Japan

CO2 geological storage will be one of the cost-effective options for global warming mitigation, and this technology is under development widely in the world. However, the technology may face the challenge of public acceptance before its implementation. In order to evaluate the public acceptance, questionnaire surveys were conducted among Japanese university students. A cognitive map of geological storage, together with other major global warming mitigation options, everyday life activities, etc., was constructed by means of a statistical analysis of the responses to the questionnaire. The risk-benefit cognitive map consists of the following factors: “risk perception,” “benefit perception,” and “public acceptance.” The risk perception is further disaggregated into “dread risk” and “unknown risk.” Additionally, a second survey was conducted after providing the students with additional information on global warming and CO2 geological storage, and the effects of the information on their perceptions were evaluated. The effects of risk and benefit perceptions on public acceptance were evaluated and discussed based on the cognitive maps representing the perceptions before and after providing the information. The analyses revealed that the benefit perception was more influential than the risk perception on the public acceptance of CO2 geological storage. The benefit perception increased greatly after providing the information; however, the unknown risk remained considerably large. Further, RD&D relating unknown risk, for example, the monitoring technology for stored CO2 and the risk assessment of CO2 leakage, and the supply of related information to the public would be beneficial for increasing the public acceptance.

Sufficient Grounds for Optimism?: The Relationship Between Perceived Controllability and Optimistic Bias

Evidence that perceived controllability is associated with optimistic bias is reviewed. There is sufficient evidence that people are optimistically biased about negative events they perceive to be controllable. More work is needed to establish whether this is also true of positive events. There is evidence also that people often hold beliefs of their personal superiority on control-related dimensions. More experimental studies testing hypotheses about the mechanisms linking perceived control and optimistic bias are required. Future work should also expand the sophistication with which control is treated conceptually and empirically and the range of potential mechanisms examined.

Judging risks and benefits in the small and in the large

Between April 1978 and October 1979 a large psychometric field study on personal judgments of divergent risky activities was carried out in and around the greater Rotterdam harbor area. Almost 700 adult women and men from three different age groups, and living at systematically varying distances from an area of heavy industries, were personally interviewed with the help of various psychometric judgment tasks. Here, a brief review is given of a theoretical scheme of “aspects of risky decision problems” underlying this empirical study. An account is given of the plan and methods for data collection and analysis. Multidimensional scaling analyses are reported which have resulted in three pairs of cognitive dimensions underlying sets of individual judgments of the “riskiness,” “beneficiality,” and “acceptability,” respectively, of a basic collection of 26 risky activities. “Riskiness,” for example, seems to have been conceptualized as depending upon the “size of potential accident” and the “degree of organized safety.” The various cognitive dimensions appeared to have a particular pattern of intercorrelations, and their interpretations were supported by several aspects of risky decisions, which had been explicitly judged in separate tasks. Respondents disagreed about the implicit weight given to secondary dimensions of “riskiness,” “beneficiality,” and “acceptability.” This could, to some extent, be traced back to systematic differences in group characteristics. The existence of such disagreement implies that average personal judgments of risk, benefit, and acceptability should be handled with extreme caution. Contrary to a classical thesis of risk analysts, no relation was observed between judgments of overall riskiness and those of overall beneficiality across the set of 26 activities. Scale values of the activities on “beneficiality” dimensions did, however, strongly correlate with dimension values of “acceptability.” This suggests that “riskiness” plays a secondary role in risk acceptance decisions. Some implications for understanding societal risk debates, as well as a few weaknesses of this and other risk perception studies, are mentioned. We finally discuss why, and how, risk—benefit perception studies could usefully serve risky decision makers.