Lesson 2: Risk Perception, Behavior and Acceptance
Topic 2: Risk Acceptance and Behavior
People can agree on the level of risk, but disagree on its acceptability. People’s behaviors toward risk are influenced by their perception of the risk and their evaluation of its acceptability. Evaluating whether or not a risk is acceptable generally involves the subjective balancing of the benefits of that activity with risk. When developing a risk communication campaign, it is important to understand these factors.
Objectives:
- Define the difference and understand the connection between risk perception, acceptability and risk behavior
- Identify characteristics that impact risk acceptability and behavior
In the book The Reality of Precaution: Comparing Risk Regulation in the United States and Europe, Jonathan Wiener describes some of the differences in the acceptability of risk between the United States and Europe:
“Today, travelers crossing the Atlantic may be struck by differences in cultural tolerances for risk—not a generic aversion or appetite for risk, but idiosyncrasies and particular reactions to the specific risks that people face in everyday life. Europeans coming to America may be shocked, for example, by genetically modified foods, large sport utility vehicles, inexpensive gasoline and high greenhouse gas emissions, a thinner safety net of social insurance, the prevalence of guns, and high rates of obesity. At the same time, Americans coming to Europe may be shocked by high speeds on the major auto routes and wild traffic in city centers, asbestos still being removed from public buildings, merry-go-rounds in parks, river quays without railings, metro (subway) doors that open while the train is still moving, motorcycles that drive on the sidewalk, choking hazards in food (like the prizes in Kinder Eggs and in Galettes de Rois), unpasteurized cheese (and in the land of Pasteur!), medicine bottles that lack childproof caps, nuclear energy, heat waves with no air conditioning, and high rates of tobacco smoking (especially in public places).”
Wiener, J.B., Rogers, M.D. Hammitt, J.K. Sand (2011).
The Reality of Precaution: Comparing Risk Regulation in the United States and Europe. Earthscan.
Why do Europeans and Americans view the acceptability of some risks so differently? The answer is that, like risk perception, our acceptance of risk and consequent behavior is greatly influenced by cultural norms, emotions, power relations, values, and personal experiences.
When evaluating risk, people consciously or subconsciously consider the following factors:
- Scientific risk:
- Chance for loss: How frequent or prevalent is the threat? What is the probability that a loss will occur?
- Magnitude of loss: What is the character of the loss? How many people will be impacted? How will it impact me directly?
- Benefit: Is there a benefit to the risk? Are there benefits for me personally?
- Choice: Is the risk voluntary or involuntary? Is it man-made or natural?
- Distribution of impacts: Are impacts distributed fairly? Are some groups more affected?
- Level of uncertainty: Can the uncertainty be changed or must it be accepted?
- Ability to manage: Can the risk be managed? What resources are available for managing the risk?
Experts evaluate these factors using objective criteria through formal risk assessments to determine whether a given risk is acceptable. Additionally, the scientific risk is often the most important factor for determining whether a particular risk is acceptable. However, non-technical audiences commonly base their evaluations on intuition. For the public, other factors might be more important in determining acceptability. The following table lists some factors that lead people to be more or less accepting of a given risk.
- Voluntary
- Under individual control
- Beneficial
- Natural
- Familiar
- Affects adults
- Fairly distributed
- Open, transparent and responsive risk management process
- Statistical and diffused over time and space
- Message generated by trustworthy, honest and concerned risk managers
- Forced or imposed
- Controlled by others
- No clear benefit, or benefits others
- Man-made
- Exotic
- Affects children
- Unfairly distributed
- Secretive or unresponsive process
- Catastrophic
Many of the factors listed above are emotional factors. Emotional factors illustrate the differences between scientific risk and intuitive risk, which were discussed in Topic 1. When groups develop risk assessments without considering perceptions of the local community, emotional factors help explain why that community may contest or reject technical risk assessments. The general public should not be viewed as passive receivers of expert information. It is better to see them as active participants who evaluate multiple sources of information, and who often have valid and useful perspectives concerning risk. When the general public is included in the risk assessment process, they are more likely to accept the results and modify their behavior appropriately. It takes time to understand the risk perceptions and perspectives of a community. A critical success factor of most risk management programs that rely on the support of the general public is the extent to which risk managers understand the culture and context in which they work.
The process of making a decision can be broken down into four steps:
- Perceiving the situation
- Considering possible courses of action
- Calculating which option is in your best interest
- Taking action
Usually, most attention is paid to the last three steps, but often the place that decisions go wrong is at the first step. If you have a faulty perception of how the system works, then you are unlikely to make the best choices.
Risk Behavior
The choices people make regarding risk are not between mutually exclusive options, in which a person chooses one level of risk over another. People do not choose among risks but among alternatives, each of which has many attributes and only some of which include risk. Think about a decision you made recently. For example, what route you took to work today. When you made that choice, did you think to yourself, “I choose this risk because…”? If you are like most people, the answer to that question is no. Instead, you simply picked an option, one that involved some level of risk among its consequences. You made that choice for many different reasons, only some of which had to do with the evaluation of the risk. In other words, you chose the option, not the risk.
When people make decisions and consider all the benefits and other (non-risk) factors, the option most acceptable to them is not necessarily the one with the least risk. Further, people always make risk decisions under some degree of uncertainty. The degree to which uncertainty factors into decision making varies depending on the circumstances, but it cannot be ignored when trying to predict how people will behave. For example, consider an elderly woman who decides to ignore an evacuation order for a hurricane because she is more afraid of the known health risks of evacuating to a shelter than the possibility of being hurt or killed by a hurricane.
Additionally, people often receive the message and clearly understand the scientific risk, but have more pressing issues to think about. Even when people understand the risk and understand their choices, they might not respond for a number of reasons, including:
- A personal tendency to be less afraid of risk
- Other priorities might be given more importance
- A dislike of following authority
- A lack of physical or mental capacity to respond
- A tendency not to be worried until they experience a negative outcome
Not surprisingly, the degree to which a particular risk situation is accepted is related to our assessment of that risk. However, risk acceptance is not the same thing as risk perception. Two people can agree on the degree of risk, but disagree on its acceptability. How we make decisions and behave in the face of risk involves the subjective balancing of that risk with its benefits.
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