RISK PERCEPTION The Psychology of Risk

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RISK PERCEPTIONThe Psychology of Risk

• Ortwin Renn
• University of Stuttgart and
• DIALOGIK gGmbH

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• Risk Perception
• What Do We Know?

Janus face roman god of ambivalence/ambiguity
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Principles of Risk Perception

• Human behavior depends on perceptions, not on
  facts
• Perceptions are a well-studied subject of social
  science research they differ from expert
  assessments, but they follow consistent patterns
  and rationales
• There are four genuine strategies to cope with
  threats fight, flight, plying dead,
  experimentation

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Qualitative Risk Characteristics

• with respect to the nature of risk
• dread
• familiarity
• personal experience (perceptible by human senses)
• natural versus artificial risk source
• with respect to the consumption situation
• voluntariness
• controllability
• fair distribution of risks and benefits
• confidence in risk management

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Five dominant risk perception clusters

• Emerging danger randomness as threat
• Creeping danger confidence or zero-risk
• Surpressed danger myth of cycles
• Weighing risks only with betting
• Desired risks personal challenge

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Risk Cluster Pending Danger

• Technical facilities with high disaster
  potential
• Very low probability that disaster will occur
• Little room for mitigation or personal action
  once the disaster has occurred (lack of agency)
• Randomness of occurrence main threat
• Lowering probability of damage has no effect on
  acceptance
• Concerns may be lowered by reducing catastrophic
  potential or widening mitigation options

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Risk Cluster Creeping Danger

• Danger cannot be perceived by human senses
• Reliability on information by third party
• Long delay between exposure and outbreak of
  danger
• Key Variable Trust
• If trust is given balance of risks and benefits
• If trust is not given people demand zero risk
• If trust is contested importance of peripheral
  cues

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Example Novel Food

• Characteristics
• Complex risks and benefits
• Scientific uncertainty
• Benefit for consumer contested
• Possibility of mixing foods and drugs
• Problems
• Risks socially amplified
• Threat to traditional food knowledge and
  authority
• Potential for high social mobilization

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Perception of Novel Food

• Public perception Representative of Cluster
  Creeping danger
• concern about long-term impacts (risks and
  benefits)
• Key variable trust
• If yes risk-benefit balancing
• If no request for zero risk regardless of
  benefit
• If maybe orientation on external criteria
• Decisive criterion artificial or natural
• High sensibility for symbolic aspects of food
  (risks and benefits)

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Integrative Approach(Rohrmann/Renn)
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Summary

• People behave according to perceptions not facts
• Perceptions follow consistent patterns, but their
  expression may vary from culture to culture
• There are dominant perception clusters that
  govern the intuitive evaluation of risks
• Within the cluster of creeping dangers, trust
  and confidence in risk management are key to risk
  acceptance
• Policy making needs to address perceptions

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Quote

• What man desires is not knowledge but certainty
• Bertrand Russel
• Science and scientific mediators cannot produce
  certainty but can help people to develop coping
  mechanisms to deal prudently with the necessary
  uncertainty that is required for societies to
  progress