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Judging Cumulative Risk 1
Author(s) -
Doyle James K.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1997.tb00644.x
Subject(s) - psychology , framing (construction) , cumulative risk , term (time) , hazard , context (archaeology) , social psychology , perception , actuarial science , medicine , economics , paleontology , chemistry , physics , structural engineering , organic chemistry , quantum mechanics , neuroscience , engineering , biology
The accuracy of young adults' perceptions of how cumulative risks to life, health, and property change over time was tested by asking subjects to judge the long‐term probabilities associated with different periods of exposure to risks that are very small in the short term. Process analyses revealed evidence that strategy choice and associated accuracy depended on context and framing variables. Subjects asked to judge conjunctive probabilities adopted a variety of strategies, all of which failed to yield consistently accurate long‐term probability judgments. However, subjects asked to judge disjunctive probabilities often reframed the probability questions into questions about the expected number of times the hazard would strike, which they could answer more accurately. Implications of the research for promoting public understanding of the long‐term implications of cumulative risks are discussed.