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Risk‐Perception Studies and Policy Priorities
Author(s) -
O'Riordan Timothy
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
risk analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.972
H-Index - 130
eISSN - 1539-6924
pISSN - 0272-4332
DOI - 10.1111/j.1539-6924.1982.tb01370.x
Subject(s) - risk perception , psychology , honesty , perception , competence (human resources) , social psychology , social risk , personality psychology , fidelity , cognition , faith , applied psychology , risk analysis (engineering) , personality , business , engineering , epistemology , philosophy , neuroscience , electrical engineering
The current fascination with risk acceptability, risk benefit analysis and other devices for relating risk to social gain is a manifestation of the loss of faith amongst certain groups in modern western society with the honesty and competence of those who assess and finally make judgements about public safety. The problem lies as much in a suspicion over the motives of leading personalities and the fidelity of assessment procedures as it does with the collective psychology of individual beliefs and judgements. “Real world” studies involving carefully sampled households monitored over a period of time may well reveal better information on the complexities of risk cognition and evaluation than laboratory investigation of the views of individuals responding in isolation.