Perception perceived risk

Thomas, K., 1981, Comparative Risk Perception How the Public Perceives the Risks and Benefits of Energy Systems in The Assessment and Perception of Risk, Royal Society, Gordon pp 35-50. 

The risk asses sment may include an evaluation of what the risks mean in practice to those effected. This will depend heavily on how the risk is perceived. Risk perception involves peoples beliefs, attitudes, judgements and feelings, as well as the wider social or cultural values that people adopt towards hazards and their benefits. The way in which people perceive risk is vital in the process of assessing and managing risk. Risk perception will be a major determinant in whether a risk is deemed to be acceptable and whether the risk management measures imposed are seen to resolve the problem. 

On the use of metrics for indicating safety, likelihood and consequence have a principal role and they form the two basic dimensions. When indicating risks, from historical facts and figures, simulations and knowledge, the likelihood and consequences can be established. The actual likelihood and consequence can never be derived exactly and they will always be based on perceptions of risks as discussed in Chapter 1. This perception of risks will in this Chapter be referred to as the perceived risks , which is the defined as the (perceived) likelihood and the perceived consequences of an event. The Sis attempt to indicate this perceived safety related risk in terms of the perceived likelihood and the perceived safety-related consequence of an event. For reasons of clarity the term risk will refer to the perceived safety related risk and consequences will refer to the perceived safety related consequences in the remainder of this Chapter. The consequences are always based on people s perception of how great the damage to people, environment, or assets might be. The likelihood of an event will sometimes be estimated (perceived). 

The study of risk perception has been punctuated with controversy, conflict, and paradigm shifts. Despite more than three decades of research, scientists understanding of risk assessment remains fragmented and incoherent. Until recently, eating food has been viewed as a low-risk activity and perceived risk was primarily related to matters of hygiene. Recently, however, the safety of food supplies has been called increasingly in to question. Consider a recent chronology of food scares (Scholderer, 2002) ... 

In their study of biotechnology, Frewer et al. (2001) found that while overall prior attitude and food neophobia influenced both the perception of a source s expertise and trustworthiness, no source-related factor had any increased effect on the perceived benefit or perceived risk of consuming the product (see Figure 6). This finding is important because it directly contradicts the conventional belief that these benefits and risks are influenced by an information source. In some cases, they seem to be influenced more by prior views than by the messenger. 

When risk-averse consumers perceive risk, they will exhibit risk management behavior (behavior that decreases risk exposure). However, when riskseeking consumers perceive risk, they will exhibit risky behavior or seek out ways to increase their risk (because of the corresponding payoff). The interaction between risk attitude and risk perception represents how one intends to cope with risks in the channel combined with the risks their actions generate. 

Risk may be perceived differently across societal groups, and how consumers cope with perceived risk will depend on their risk attitude. Before a person is able to respond to risk, risk must first be perceived (Trimpop, 1994). Stone et al. (1994) modeled the identification of risks as a cognitive process of identification, storage, and retrieval. The level of risk that a food-related behavior provides depends on the consumer s risk perception (Sparks et al., 1995). 

While it is clear that some people will not accept a definition of safety that is relative, it appears that most people feel safe when they are convinced that risks to their well-being are sufficiently low, even if not completely absent. (There are some dramatic and important qualifications on this conclusion, as we shall see in the later section concerning people s perceptions of risk. While for the most part people accept that the condition of safety is not equivalent to the condition of being completely risk-free, most people do not perceive risk as simply a matter of probability, as do the experts. This intriguing and well-documented fact complicates greatly the public dialogue on matters of risk.)... 

Public Individual rights and interests Recipients of communication with limited knowledge of risk assessment and focus on perceived risk perceptions of risk based on personal experiences... 

Perception of risk in adults is usually described, or interpreted, with reference to health belief models (HBMs) (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980 Janz and Becker, 1984). Individuals are more likely to engage in health behaviors if they perceive vulnerability to health threats that the consequences are severe that treatment or preventive measures will be successful. Although there are variants to the framework, the different models share many of the same elements. In effect, theories assume that individuals rationally weigh benefits and costs and act according to the outcome of this analysis. Subsequent modifications to the models include the addition of perceived social or monetary barriers to the adaptive response. A cue to action which can be internal (e.g., symptoms) or external (e.g., health communication) is hypothesized to trigger these... 

True risks are often different than perceived risks. Due to human curiosity, the desire to sell new s and current trends, some folks have a distorted sense of risks. Some thoughts on risk and the perception of risk are provided by a variety of authors [22-29]. 

It is obvious that societal concerns play a major role in how the consumer perceives risks and benefits (Tables 1 and 2). Furthermore, consumers do not distinguish between food safety risks and diet-related risks. Their risk perception depends on different traditions and perceived benefits. It also depends on demographic characteristics such as age, sex, or education, as well as psychological characteristics such as knowledge, experiences, or... 

Perceived risk, defined as the average public perception of the severity of a given risk. 

Another important social issue that influences risk communication is environmental justice and the perceived fairness of the risk to a community or subculture. For example, the perceived risk of adverse health effects from a landfill may depend on whether the waste deposited there is generated locally or transported from somewhere else. Similarly, the perception of risks associated with locating new... 

Familiarity with a risk also skews the perception. Unfamiliar risks are not as acceptable and tend to be perceived to be as higher risks than familiar ones. The public tends to overestimate the risks of seldom occurring events and underestimate the risks of common, everyday risks. For example, the perceived risk of being in an automobile crash is perceived to be low compared to the risk of being in an airplane crash. In an automobile, the individual has a feeling of control, which allows the individual to feel safer than in an airplane where someone else is in control. 

Trust and accuracy are two very important factors in risk perception and risk communication. If the public does not trust the experts, the perceived level of risk may be high. To build this trust, accurate information must be given to the public. No potentially important information should be left out and the public should not perceive the experts as hiding... 

When diagnosing stakeholder value it is important to understand that perceptions can be as important as scientific facts. For example, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) producers defend PVC on the basis of scientific arguments such as energy efficiency, low biomass accumulation, and product safety in normal use. Customers such as Nike, Sony, and Shaw Industries that have committed to eliminating PVC in their products as a precaution for their customers due to perceived health and environmental risks, are unlikely to change their perspective based on additional scientific facts provided by the chemical industry. As in the PVC case, manufacturers are vulnerable to value loss as a result of their customers perceptions of risks. 

Most studies on parental perception have been carried out within 72 hours of research participation decisions (Zupancic et al., 1997 Hoehn et al., 2005) others are retrospective or prospective questionnaire studies (van Stuijvenberg et ah, 1998). Factors that influence parental decisions are societal benefit, personal benefit, risk perception and perceived lack of harm. The logistic factors that influence parental perception of risks are the amount of information given, the trust in the institution and the time required for the decision-making. Parents who perceived benefit, either personal or societal, were more likely to participate than if they perceived risk (Tait et al., 2004 Hoehn et al., 2005). Societal benefit is the most frequently cited reason for participation in clinical research. Parents with a critically ill child have an altruistic view to help future children in similar conditions (Langley et ah, 1998 van Stuijvenberg et ah, 1998 Schmidt et ah, 1999 Mason and Allmark, 2000 Hoehn et ah, 2005). 

The major factor that influences parental decisions is the perceived risk of the research. It is important to distinguish the risks perceived when considering participation from the risk appreciated while participating in the study. In one study, 74% of parents when asked about hypothetical enrolment of their newborn into a clinical trial refused to participate because of the perceived risk of side effects and the unproved efficacy of the trial medication (Autret et al., 1993). Even the perception of minor risk such as painful procedures may sway parents choice on participation (Langley et al., 1998). 

Those who chose to participate in a research study perceived that there was no risk of harm associated with participation. Parental age affects perceptions of risk parents who were older (over 30 years) assessed the risks as significantly lower than their younger counterparts (Tait et al., 2004). Furthermore, those who had experience of participation in clinical research had a more positive outlook than those did not have research experience. Sociological factors may have some influence on parental participation in clinical studies. One study has indicated that parents with a higher socioeconomic status and more social support were less motivated to contribute to medical research (Harth and Thong, 1990). 

Kraus, N. N., and Slovic, P. (1988), Taxonomic Analysis of Perceived Risk Modeling Individual and Group Perceptions within Homogenous Hazards Domains, Risk Analysis, Vol. 8, pp. 435-455. 

The research findings in relationship to training shown in Table 6.1 can also be explained by Wilde s risk homoeostasis theory (RHT) (see Glendon et al. 1996 Wilde et al. 2002 Simonet and Wilde 1997). RBTT predicts that as safely features are added to a system, individuals will increase their risk-taking. It is easy to see how perceptions that prestart training will make a new employee work more safely can be associated with a reduction in perceived risk from the new employee, and result in employees taking more risks around them than are justified by their status as a new employee. While the research reported above (e.g., Burt et al. 2009 Burt and Stevenson 2009 Burt and Hislop 2013) did not question employees about socialization processes, it seems reasonable to predict that similar attitudes might form about socialization processes. As such, the next section briefly examines research on new employee socialization. 

Rundmo, T. (1992) Risk perception and safety on offshore petroleum platforms. Part II Perceived risk, job stress and accidents . Safety Science, 15 53-68. 

Also, in communicating with decision makers, it would be well to understand their perceptions and tolerance of risk, and appreciate that perceived risks as well as elements of employee and public fear and dread, along with client interests, may impact on risk decisions. 

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