Definition
Risk perceptions are personal opinions about risks. A risk is the chance that a specific threat will cause a specific harm. Threats may be natural (hurricanes), human-made (pesticides), or both (flooding amplified by anthropogenic climate change). Anything that people care about can be “at risk” – or threatened with harm – including one’s life; mental or physical health; the lives, health, or livelihoods of others; one’s reputation or property; biodiversity; lifestyle; or values such as freedom, justice, or democracy.
Individuals’ risk perceptions can conflict with experts’ assessments and lead to conflicts. For instance, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports include expert assessments that the risks from climate change are very high. However, some individuals may agree that the risks are high but still give low priority to the issue. Because risk perceptions are subjective, it is not possible to know if people are representing their opinions truthfully or not. For instance, oil company executives who downplay the risks of climate change may privately believe the risks to be high but cannot publicly say it. Or their perception of risk from climate change may be genuinely biased because they are simultaneously focusing on risks to the oil and gas industry. People’s risk perceptions may also differ from experts’ because people value things that were not included in risk assessments. For example, while experts assess the risks of industrial agricultural products as low, people may rate them high because of a concern for social justice for farmworkers or impacts on pollinators. In other instances, risk perceptions differ because people have local knowledge about risks that experts were not aware of (see Food Sovereignty). For instance, experts warn against drinking unpasteurized milk, but local people may know and trust local farmers to produce safe raw milk.
History
In the 1970s Paul Slovic and colleagues began to measure people’s perceptions of risk using surveys. They had lay people and risk experts rank the risks of 30 different threats and found significant differences. For instance, people thought the risk of nuclear power was very high, while experts calculated it to be relatively low. At the same time, people thought the risk of driving a car was low while experts rated it high. These results pointed to the most important finding of risk perception research: to non-experts, risk is more than a calculation. Lay people also care about things that technical risk assessors do not or cannot measure. Table 23.1 summarizes factors that shape risk perceptions.
Risk perception is a product of logical reasoning and emotions. Fear, anxiety, and dread can magnify the perceived severity of risks. Conversely, optimism bias can lead us to underestimate certain risks, fostering a false sense of security.
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When confronted with a problem and a solution, people will likely compare their perceived risks of the problem to those of the solution. For instance, when policymakers propose to mitigate the driving forces of climate change by decarbonizing the global energy system or promoting high-density housing, some fear the solutions more than the problem.
Different Perspectives
Many have pointed out that it is difficult for people to wrap their heads around systemic risks such as climate change or the risks associated with changing to a zero-growth economy. When uncertainty is high, some people imagine the worst, others the best. Confirmation bias also comes into play. Even small changes such as buying an electric vehicle present uncertainty (consider the hype over “range anxiety”) that leads people to perceive the risks of switching to EVs as very high.
Why do some people fear policies to address climate change or mitigate consumption? The science of risk perception has something to say about this. Opinions about risk are formed in the minds of individuals; hence they are shaped by experiences, hopes, fears, knowledge, and worldviews. To begin with, some people focus only on themselves and their closest family members. They do not believe they have a responsibility to help others. Others see themselves as part of a large community of extended family, friends, and neighbors. This simple difference leads to strong conflict over fundamental beliefs such as the role of government to limit people’s choices or behavior (see Choice Editing and Freedom of Choice).
Psychologists have also found patterns (aka heuristics) in people’s perception processes that help explain why risk perceptions differ. For instance, the availability heuristic is a common trait. It simply means that recent events have more impact on your perception of a risk than do older events. For example, if it was extremely hot last week, you will be more attentive to a message about global warming than if the weather had been unusually cool.
We also know that people tend to be more concerned about risks than benefits. Given a choice of installing heat pumps in their home or continuing to use fossil fuels for heating, people tend to focus on the fear that heat pumps may not work sufficiently well on a few extremely cold days, even if on the vast majority of days they work perfectly well and save energy, reduce costs, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Application
Differing risk perceptions complicate policymaking about the critical issues of our time. Convincing people to support policies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions through lifestyle changes is a challenge in part because many people resist change (see Attitude-Behavior Gap and Behavior Change). It is further complicated by industries that amplify fears. For instance, attempts by some states to encourage homeowners to replace gas stoves with electric induction stoves were met with a public relations campaign by the gas industry.
A major debate is how risks should be regulated (see Co-Benefits of Climate Policy). Should regulatory officials make decisions based on what people perceive the risks to be, or should they base decisions on technical risk assessments? In a democratic society, one could make the case for using public resources to address the concerns of voters, even if experts rate those concerns as low. But others point out that spending tax revenue to reduce small risks is irresponsible.
The concept of risk perception encompasses a multifaceted interplay of cognitive, emotional, cultural, and societal factors. Risk is not merely about the objective assessment of probabilities and potential outcomes but also about how these assessments are subjectively interpreted, weighted, and acted upon.
Further Reading
Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
Kasperson, R.E., Renn, O., Slovic, P., Brown, H.S., Emel, J., Goble, R., Kasperson, J., & Ratick, S. (1988). The social amplification of risk: A conceptual framework. Risk Analysis, 8(2), 177–187. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539–6924.1988.tb01168.x.
Lee, T.M., Markowitz, E.M., Howe, P.D., Ko, C.-Y., & Leiserowitz, A.A. (2015). Predictors of public climate change awareness and risk perception around the world. Nature Climate Change, 5, S. 1014–1020. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2728.
Slovic, P. (1987). Perception of risk. Science, 236(4799), 280–285. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.3563507.
Sunstein, C. (2009). The cost-benefit state: The future of regulatory protection. American Bar Association.