PUBLIC RISK PERCEPTION – A PRIMER

Here is what happened. As I was writing all of this and told people what I was up to (since it seemed like I disappeared), they asked for copies of this. It is appearing (in part) in the form in a grant submission. I will write it up into an article but that will need to follow two chapters for my new book I have promised my agent.

By the way I have new articles in Nanotechnology Perceptions (Collegia Basilea) coming out on the "Magic Nano" fiasco and another in Nanotechnology Law and Business Journal on a regulatory alternative to Davies' comprehensive reform [there is an interesting top third of that article on risk perception as well] and there is a chapter in Patrick Lin's edited volume I did with NYU Law student Chris Dickson on "Rhetoric of Stakeholding." So I wasn't slacking off.

Enough of all that, here is the Primer on Risk Perception in the 21st Century in 4 Parts.



Part one

PUBLIC RISK PERCEPTION – A PRIMER

Kahan, Slovic, Braman, and Gastil made the case for risk perception research this year. “The study of risk perception [is] a policy science of the first order…. [N]o one who aspires to devise procedures that make democratic policymaking responsive to such information can hope to succeed without availaing [themselves] of the insights this field has to offer” (pp. 1071 & 1072).

“Danger is real, but risk [about chemicals] is socially constructed” (Slovic 1999, p. 689) and the public is anxious and confused. They believe contamination is greater now than even and many believe it can never be too expensive to reduce the risks associated with chemicals (Kraus, Malmfors & Slovic 1992, p. 220).

Scholarship in this area has been divided into two main camps: a psychometric approach (Fischoff, Slovic, Lichtenstein, & Combs 1978) and a cultural approach (Douglas & Wildavsky 1982). The cultural approach includes a world views approach associated with Douglas and Wildavsky and an indeological views approach with Dake (1991), elite groups approach with Rothman and Lichter (1987), and a cultural cognition approach (Kahan, Slovic, Braman & Gastil 2006). Others, especially Sjöberg, claim none of these theories can adequately explain risk determinations and variance (1998) and a combination of these theories may explain best the phenomenon of risk perception.

According to Sjöberg, “[r]isk perception by the public can be said to be built upon a kind of meta-judgment of risk, i.e. their judgment of what the experts say” (1999a, p. 6). The information is decoded by the public using an algorithm that was not used by the experts when encoding the information. Research tends to support the conclusion that the public has a more multidimensional risk perception when many qualitative factors enter into their determinations.

Chauncey Starr (1969) found that voluntariness of exposure was the key mediator in risk perception with other characteristics such as familiarity, equity, level of knowledge, risks to future generations, etc. important as well. The primary variables relate to personal and scientific knowledge but also include a set of heuristics and biases. Individual characteristics, such as past experience with the hazard or specific technical knowledge can affect the importance of some dimensions and result in quite different judgment of risks (Salvadori et al 2004). Other studies on public risk perception have identified biases such as catastrophic potential, vividness of the effects, personal susceptibility (Slovic, Fischhoff, & Lichtenstein 1979, Flynn, Slovic, & Mertz 1993, Sparks & Shepherd 1994, and Kletz 1996). Other factors include outrage, stigma, dread, and a list of biases such as affect, availability, loss aversion, status quo partiality, post-decisional regret aversion, etc.

Alhakami & Slovic (1994) found acceptability generally increased with increased benefit unless the risk was low (p. 1091) leading one to conclude “…it might be possible to change perceptions of risk by changing perceptions of benefits…” (p, 1096). This has led to public relations like campaign touting the benefits of nanotechnology. Festooned with hyperbole and establishing false expectations coupled with the release of hardly sensational applications, such as pants and bowling balls, this approach is proving overly optimistic.

Experts complain: “The greatest risk to the public’s health may be it own risk assessment…. The same mechanisms that cause members of the public to form exaggerated perceptions of risk will also prevent them from processing scientifically sound information in a rational way” (Kahan, Slovic, Braman & Gastil citing Sunstein 2006, pp. 1080 & 1081).

People interpret a given set of facts about risk with a host of variables. They are not irrational to them. This matrix of variables, axiologies of values and beliefs, are supplemented by biases, epiphanies, prior experience, and so forth. Slovic attributes the public’s reaction to risks “…to a sensitivity to technical, social, and psychological qualities of hazards that were not well-modeled in technical risk assessments” (1993, p. 675) and a revolution in risk assessment design does not seem forthcoming at this time.

Realistically, most citizens do not have access to scientific information upon which to make risk decisions. Others do not have the inclination. This has led some experts to advance public science education as a solution. Aggressive public science education, white meritorious for many reasons, remains insufficient. “Scientific literacy and public education are important, but they are not central to risk controversies” (Slovic 1999, p. 689) because the public does not seem to accord extraordinary weight to technical analyses (Jenkins-Smith & Silva, 1998). While there may be a subtle link between the two, “…the link between technical knowledge and perceived risk [by the public] is at best variable” (Johnson 1992).

Moreover, the public seems particularly vulnerable to the maximin or minimax bias (Berube 2000). Low-probability-high-consequence events are exaggerated. For example, events associated with mortality or morbidity occurring within a few days and were thus more noticeable are assumed more risky than the same or more instances spread over a longer period of time. This phenomenon has been associated with probability neglect whereby the public focuses on the worst case scenario. These scenarios can be exaggerated by the media. “Many studies have found that this public perception is heading weighted in favor a catastrophic accidents. However, this is largely due to news media coverage, which gives infinitely more attention to low-probability-high-consequence events than to frequently occurring, unspectacular or even undetectable events which accumulatively do must more damage to human health” (Cohen 1985, p. 2). The consequences of this set of biases lead “citizens…to support expensive preventative measures, however remote the risk and however cost-ineffective the abatement procedures” (Kahan, Slovic, Braman & Gastil 2006, p. 1077).

Furthermore, tampering with nature which includes such aspects as immoral risk, human arrogance, and interference with the processes of nature seems to be a dominant bias as well (Sjöberg 1999a, Sjöberg 2002) in risk estimation. In general, this ecological fallacy is demonstrated when the same chemical appearing in nature is assumed more risky when produced by an industrial process (Slovic et al 1995, McDaniels 1997). Tampering with nature seemed to be very relevant in terms of biotechnology and food related risk perception (Slovic et al 1995, p. 662) for many reasons not the least of which are dependency on food, noxious food hazards may not be apparent, unfamiliarity with scientific labels, and so forth (Frewer, Howard, & Shepherd, 1997, Fife-Schaw & Rowe, 1996).