14-1190b-innovation-managing-risk-evidence

The impact of intuition on responses to local proposals
for hazardous technologies can be seen in relation to more
positive responses to nuclear facilities in different locations
in the United States. These responses have been identified
as corresponding with local experience of alternative energy
sources (no direct contact with alternatives leads to higher
tolerance), and even experience of related nuclear industries
that bring economic advantage locally 10 .
Finally, direct occupational experience of acute harm
from chemical exposures has been seen to interrupt the
potential for workers to understand less visible and more
chronic risks such as cancer. Furthermore, the learning that
occurs between workers (particularly in small companies)
tends to compound this bias in understanding. Such
evidence confirms that notions of hazard and risk must be
communicated more directly and personally in the specific
work context rather than relying solely on generic safety
information 11 .
The Status Quo and Surrogacy
A common feature of many cultures is our preference
for the status quo, which is a strong support to intuitive
responses. Keeping with what you know and are familiar
with is generally the easier, less stressful option in life.
Overriding the status quo requires commitment to change.
Generally, change takes effort and may offer uncertain
benefits 12 . Denial of potential risks can serve to protect
feelings of security and lower anxiety, both in low- and highrisk
areas (for example, in relation to flooding 13 ).
It is well known that ‘Not in My Back Yard’ (‘Nimby’)
responses to potentially hazardous facilities and
technologies are strongly driven by a preference for the
status quo (such as preserving the same view from your
window, the same level of background noise, the same visual
amenity, protection of the value of your property, and so
on). But this innate desire to protect the current and the
personal can be a difficult argument to put or defend in
contentious decision processes. Evidence from multiple
cases in different locations in the United Kingdom of
proposals for waste facilities suggests that arguments around
statistically assessed risks are sometimes used as a form
of surrogate for very local and personal concerns about
impact on amenity and the status quo, as well as concern
about the robustness of the risk control institutions and
regulation, and the extent to which public interests are
protected. Subjective notions of distrust or locally-important
ways of life and amenity can be more difficult to argue in
expert-led decision processes. Therefore, local residents
can find it easier to focus attention on scientific weakness
and statistical uncertainties and assessments of risk to
vulnerable populations 14 . Fundamentally, Nimby attitudes to
siting and new technologies need to be more productively
understood as reflecting public demands for greater
involvement in decision-making, and not regarded as risk
battles between the public and experts that merely require
better communication to correct perceived deficits of lay
knowledge.
Risk is so intricately embedded in its social context
Notions of hazard and risk
must be communicated
more directly and
personally in the specific
work context.
that it is difficult, if not impossible, to identify it a priori.
One intriguing example of the often unexpected power
of context was the responses to multiple house fires in a
small town in the French Jura. More than a dozen apparently
spontaneous house fires occurred over the period
November 1995 to January 1996, destroying property and
killing two people. While eventually understood as arson, a
form of psychological defence mechanism became evident
amongst residents who sought to blame a buried highvoltage
cable. Repressed and highly-localized concerns about
this ‘technological installation’ were privileged as reasoning
rather than the more likely but perhaps banal explanation
of arson. This search for a surrogate — which might allow
people to more readily attach blame to an institution —
prompted detailed expert and official investigations, and
became a major national media story 15 .
Ideology and Values
Risk responses are often attenuated by context, rather than
amplified — people do not appear to be concerned about
hazards that experts regard as significant. In seminal work,
involving a large comparative consideration of 31 ‘hidden
hazards’ including handguns, deforestation, pesticides and
terrorism 16 , ideological and value-threatening reasons were
identified as two explanations for the failure of hazards to
raise political and social concern. Handguns are one example
of an ideological hazard: despite the rising annual toll of
death, being able to bear arms to defend oneself and one’s
family has remained an inalienable American right. Contrast
this with the opposite ideology in Britain.
The same study also identified ideological impacts on
risk regulation. At the time, there were differences in
the approaches to protect public health compared with
occupational health. Public health standards for airborne
toxic substances were tighter than occupational protection
in 13 industrialized countries; the same was true in socialist
states, which ideologically tended to be less permissive of
industry (see below).
Responses to genetically modified (GM) crops illustrate
the power of fear of threats to basic values. People respond
negatively to GM crops not primarily because they fear the
risks, but because genetic modification drives to the heart
of concerns about ‘mucking around with nature’. Media
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