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

equity of risk distribution, the perceived unnaturalness of
the hazard, observability of the risk and so on. Box 1 shows
some of the characteristics which make risks more or less
acceptable to people. As a result, a new and unfamiliar risk
that people feel that they have little control over, as in the
driverless train in the Docklands Light Railway case study,
may require special actions and communications to be in
place to reassure people of safety measures. Subsequent
to this early work, we also know that the way people think
about and judge risks is influenced by the way they respond
to the affective resonances and feelings that it evokes, and
analytic information 6, 7 .
While it is tempting to view affect, or emotion, as an
irrational process that only afflicts people who differ in
view from us, we also know that rational decision-making
requires elements of both analysis and affect. For example,
without emotional commitment in decision-making we
would not remain committed to important choices 8 . Benefits
also matter to people, as risk is more acceptable if it holds
perceived benefits that are equitably distributed, as does
trust in risk managers and institutions, an issue to which we
return below.
The early psychometric studies provided a model for an
extensive research programme and literature 3, 5, 9 . However,
while the basic approach of psychometric risk perceptions
research provided extensive empirical descriptions of the
psychology of risk perceptions, it did not initially yield
substantive theoretical progress towards explaining those
beliefs, or people’s behaviour in the face of risks.
Values, Culture and the Risk Society
Social and cultural factors are important to risk perception
because the perceiver of risk is rarely an isolated individual,
but a ‘social being’ defined through a range of relationships
with others 10 , raising the question of how societal values
shape risk perceptions. The best known socio-cultural
approach to risk, that of Douglas and Wildavsky 11 , develops
the worldview idea in conceptual terms, positing that
human attitudes towards risk and danger vary systematically
according to four cultural biases: individualist, fatalist,
hierarchist and egalitarian.
These biases are held to reflect modes of social
organization, thought and value, all of which serve the
Contemporary
investigations of energy
issues and climate
change show how deeper
values are bound up with
our risk perceptions.
US conservatives were
more favourable towards
environmental messages
when these focused
on pollution, and the
‘purity’ of the natural
environment, rather than
arguments about a moral
responsibility to avoid
harm.
function of defending individuals’ favoured institutional
arrangements and ways of life, and in particular who to
blame when those arrangements become threatened from
outside 12 . Risk perception becomes central to the process
of institutional defence, with cultural biases orienting
people’s selection of which dangers to accept or to avoid,
the fairness of distribution of risks across society, and
who to blame when things do go wrong. Cultural theory
has also been valuable in stressing the neglect, within the
early psychometric studies, of a concern for the political
dimensions of risk, although it suffers from the fact that its
categories of worldview are top-down in nature, and from
difficulties in measurement 13 .
More recent work on ‘cultural cognition’, however,
draws on this thinking to demonstrate why certain risk
issues (handguns, abortion) have become deeply polarized
across US society 14 . Contemporary investigations of energy
issues 15,16 , and climate change 17 also show how deeper values
are bound up with our risk perceptions. We know that
individuals with political affiliations to right-leaning political
parties tend to identify with less egalitarian and more
individualistic values, and as a result are more likely to be
sceptical about the claims of climate change scientists and
risks 18 . However, this work also suggests how some values
that are widely endorsed can be incorporated as important
components of narratives about risk (see case study on
climate change narratives). For example, recent research
with US conservatives found that they were more favourable
towards environmental messages when these focused on
pollution, and the ‘purity’ of the natural environment, rather
than the more conventional set of arguments about a moral
responsibility to avoid harm 19 .
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