Literature Risk Communication
Lecture 1 + 2
Slovic, P (1999). Trust, emotion, sex, politics, and science: Surveying the risk-assessment
battlefield. Risk Analysis , 19 , 689-701
Defining risk is an exercise in power. If risk is defined one way, then one option will rise to the top as
the most cost-effective or the safest. If it is defined another way, one will likely get a different
ordering of action solutions.
The public is not irrational. Their judgements about risk are influenced by emotion and affect in a
way that is both simple and sophisticated. The same holds true for scientists. Public views are also
influenced by worldviews, ideologies and values, so are scientists’ views.
The dominant conception views risks as the change of injury, damage or loss. The probabilities and
consequences of adverse events are assumed to be produced by physical and natural processes in
ways that can be objectively quantified by risk assessment.
The concept of risk is like the concept of a game. Games have time limits, rules of play, opponents,
criteria for winning and losing, but none of these attributes is essential to the concept of a game, nor
is any of them characteristic of all games. There is no universal set of rules for games, and there is
neither a universal set of characteristics for describing risk.
Factors that are strongly correlated with risk judgements:
Gender Men tent to judge risks as smaller and less problematic than do women. Women have
been characterized as more concerned about human health and safety, physically more vulnerable to
violence and this may sensitize them to other risks. Women are discouraged from studying science
and there are relatively few women scientists and engineers.
Race White men tent to judge risks as smaller than do non-White males.
Political worldviews The influence of social, psychological, and political factors can also be seen in
studies examining the impact of worldviews on risk judgement. Some worldviews: fatalism,
hierarchy, individualism, egalitarianism, technological enthusiasm.
Affiliation ??
Emotional affect Research suggests that emotion is also an orienting mechanism that directs
fundamental psychological processes such as attention, memory, and information processing.
Trust an reason why the public often rejects scientists’ risk assessments is lack of trust. Trust in
risk management, like risk perception, has been found to correlate with gender, race, worldviews
and affect.
1. Negative events are more visible or noticeable than positive events.
2. When events are well-defined and do come to our attention, negative events carry much greater
weight than positive events.
Adding fuel to the fire of asymmetry is yet another idiosyncrasy of human psychology – sources of
bad news tend to be seen as more credible than sources of good news.
4. Distrust, once initiated, tends to reinforce and perpetuate distrust.
Risk governance, Chapter 1 (pp. 1-8, until ‘Why risk governance?’)
All concepts of risk have one element in common: the distinction between possible and chosen
action. At any time, an individual, an organization or a society, as a whole, faces several options for
taking action (including doing nothing), each of which is associated with potential positive or
negative consequences.
