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Risk perceptions

As engineers, going from the esoteric back to the practical, we want to know how to manage the actual risks in our system. How do we allocate resources The risk assessment process addresses this issue. Before this can be done, however, here are a few thoughts on risk perception. [Pg.343]

Montooth (1984) stated in Public Epidemiology. The Tylenol killings claimed seven lives. .. a one-time event, over a 1-week period. The public was outraged. The pharmaceutical industry has. .. re-tooled at [a cost of almost] 225 million. Annually, 50,000 people die on our highways. About half of those deaths are preventable by inexpensive means, which are already at hand, bnt complacency prevails. Risk perceptions. .. are reactions, are not rational.  [Pg.343]

Much research has been conducted in trying to nnderstand people s concept of risk. What makes one individual (or country) take more risks Why do people feel that the risk of dying in a car crash is lower than the risk of flying in a commercial jetliner Slovic et al. (1979) have defined a nnmber of factors that affect the way people perceive a risk. These factors have already become standard bearers for risk perception. Not everyone may agree with the risk perception factors. For some, involuntary risks are not important for others, they may carry much weight. [Pg.343]

One factor is whether the risk is voluntary or not. The siting of a hazardons waste facility in someone s town would be considered involuntary and therefore conld be perceived to carry more risk. People feel that risks faced voluntarily are weU known and controlled. For example, the risk of skydiving could be considered low to the individual who does it because he chooses to. [Pg.343]

Another important factor in perceiving risk is whether the consequences of an accident are chronic or catastrophic. Perceived catastrophic consequences raise the risk concern. Some people feel that flying in an airplane is riskier than driving in a car because more people die at one time when there is an airplane crash. [Pg.343]

Another instructive comparison can be made by comparing fatalities in different activities. Here we use the Fatal Accident Rate index (FAR) that gives the number of fatalities for 108 hours of exposure to the hazard [3, 4]. Some activities are compared in Table 1.2. This shows that even with better statistics in terms of fatali- [Pg.5]


To conclude, this sampling of the literature of risk perception, the comments of Covello, 1981 may be summarized. Surveys have been of small specialized groups - generally not representative of the population as a whole. There has been little attempt to analyze the effects of ethnicity, religion, sex, region age, occupation and other variables that may affect risk perception. People respond to surveys with the first thing that comes to mind and tend to stick to this answer. They provide an answer to any question asked even when they have no opinion, do not understand the question or have inconsistent beliefs. Surveys are influenced by the order of questions, speed of response, whether a verbal or numerical respon.se is required and by how the answer is posed. Few Studies have examined the relationships between perceptions of technological hazards and behavior which seems to be influenced by several factors such as positive identification with a leader, efficacy of social and action, physical proximity to arenas of social conflict. [Pg.13]

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. [Pg.490]

Simpson (1988) reviewed studies which considered individual differences in risk perception and the effects of these differences on behavior. A study by Verhaegen et al. (1985) looked at three groups of workers in wire mills. The first group comprised those who had been directly involved in events which led to the accident (the "active" group). The second group ("passive") were those who had only been involved indirectly ("innocent bystanders") and the third group were a control group who had not been involved in accidents at all. [Pg.137]

Simpson, G. C. (1988). Hazard Awareness and Risk Perception. In A. S. Nicholson J. E. Ridd (Eds.). Health Safety and Ergonomics. Stoneham, MA Butterworth-Heine-mann. [Pg.375]

Lay people and experts disagree on risk estimates for many eiivironincntal problems. This creates a problem, since die public generally does not trust the experts. This chapter concentrates on how the public views risk and what the future of public risk perception will be. The reader should note that much of diis material, as with die previous Section, applies to liazard risk assessment- a topic that is treated in Chapter 19, Ptirt IV. [Pg.408]

There are various reasons for the differences in risk perception. Govermiient regulators and industry officials look at different aspects in assessing a given risk diaii w ould members of the community. [Pg.409]

Ritson C and Kuznesov S (2006) Food consumption, risk perception and alternative production technologies , in Eilenbery J and Hokkanen HMT, An Ecological and Societal Approach to Biological Control, Springer, Dordrecht Chapter 3. [Pg.93]

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. [Pg.6]

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) ... [Pg.104]

An important theme to this review is that people respond to food crises differently. We can still, however, achieve a reasonable degree of predictability by segmenting them into somewhat homogeneous groups based—not on demographics—but on a person s risk perceptions and risk attitude. For every crisis there will be accountable, concerned, conservative, and alarmist segments of consumers. Knowing their relative size will enable us to better predict the effectiveness of different interventions. [Pg.105]

In communicating information about a food scare, there is recent evidence that the media might be more influential than one-on-one interactions. Empirical research conducted in April 1998 indicated that mass media had a negative impact on consumer risk perceptions, health concerns, and attitude and behavior toward meat. Compared to alarming reports of the press, personal communication (through butchers for meat products, for example) had only a small effect on consumer decision making (Verbeke et al., 1999). [Pg.110]

Behavior related to food crises is based on risk perceptions and on risk attitudes related to the crisis (Wildavsky and Dake, 1990). This section focuses on how these can be combined to influence behavior. When examining how people form attitudes, it is useful to examine biotechnology. It can best illustrate how attitudes are formed under conditions of uncertainty (Tait, 1988). [Pg.115]

Risk perceptions refer to a consumer s estimate of how likely they will be exposed to the content of the risk ( I have a 1 in 100,000 chance of contracting a BSE-related disease if I eat beef ). Risk attitude reflects a consumer s general predisposition to risk in a consistent way. It is important to emphasize that risk attitude and risk perception are two different concepts. Whereas risk attitude deals with a consumer s interpretation of the content of the risk and how much he or she dislikes it, risk perception deals with a consumer s interpretation of the likelihood of being exposed to the content of the risk. [Pg.119]

While both a consumer s risk attitudes and risk perceptions individually influence their behavior, it has been shown—in the context of BSE—that it is the combination of risk attitude and risk perception that has the biggest influence on behavior (Pennings et al., 2002). That is, regardless of one s risk attitude, there will be no change in one s behavior if a person perceives no risk in a situation. However, if a person does believe a behavior has some risk involved (such as eating beef during the BSE scare), it is their attitude toward risk (it is worth the risk to eat beef vs. it is not worth the risk) that eventually determined their behavior and not simply their assessment of the risk itself. [Pg.119]

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. [Pg.119]

It has been claimed that people s perceptions of risk and benefit associated with particular products and applications will determine acceptance (Frewer et al., 1998 Slovic, 1987, 1993). This is not the case the acceptance of a product is determined by a combination of both risk perceptions and risk attitudes. [Pg.119]

By decoupling risk response behavior into the separate components of risk perception and risk attitude, a more robust conceptualization and prediction of consumer reactions are possible. The insights that result from decoupling risk perceptions and risk attitudes can yield important implications. Consider the two following outcomes from a program of research by Pennings et al. (2002) ... [Pg.119]

Outcome 1. Suppose that risk perception is the main driver of a consumer s reaction to a food safety scare. This would suggest that communicating research information effectively is a powerful tool in changing behavior. That is, providing and communicating the true probabilities of being exposed to the risk (when possible) will be a useful way to respond to consumers concerns. [Pg.119]

Germany Netherlands United States FIG. 8 Risk perceptions related to BSE vary dramatically across countries. [Pg.120]

FIG. 9 Risk perceptions drive Dutch consumption of beef, but risk attitudes drive German consumption of beef. [Pg.121]

The low-risk aversion-low-risk perception profile corresponds to consumers who are risk seekers. They view themselves as accountable for their own behavior and what results from it. They ignore any available information... [Pg.122]

FIG. 10 Four profiles of consumers according to risk perception and risk aversion levels. [Pg.123]

This is the low-risk aversion-high-risk perception segment. The concerned segment has the risk of most behaviors in perspective. Because they are not risk averse to begin with, their behavior is dictated primarily by their perception of risk. As their perception of the riskiness of an action increases, they will eventually get to a point where they will not participate in the action at all. [Pg.123]

This consists of high-risk aversion-low-risk perception consumers. The conservative segment is composed of cautious, risk-averse consumers who do not take any unnecessary risks. They can also be seen as being the silent majority in many ways (Miller, 1985). [Pg.123]

This high-risk aversion-high-risk perception profile corresponds to risk-averse consumers. This alarmist segment is composed of people who are prone to overreacting to many situations (Radovanovic, 1995). They are also the most assertive in their tendency to become politically involved or to actively attempt to influence others. [Pg.123]

Consumer segment risk aversion/risk perception Passive vs aggressive responses Irrational vs rational responses Short- vs long-term responses... [Pg.125]


See other pages where Risk perceptions is mentioned: [Pg.56]    [Pg.56]    [Pg.57]    [Pg.58]    [Pg.90]    [Pg.332]    [Pg.1369]    [Pg.137]    [Pg.138]    [Pg.20]    [Pg.19]    [Pg.27]    [Pg.103]    [Pg.104]    [Pg.105]    [Pg.108]    [Pg.108]    [Pg.118]    [Pg.118]    [Pg.120]    [Pg.121]    [Pg.122]    [Pg.125]   
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See also in sourсe #XX -- [ Pg.228 ]

See also in sourсe #XX -- [ Pg.83 ]

See also in sourсe #XX -- [ Pg.95 , Pg.100 ]




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