ABSTRACT
Risk analysts have increasingly focused on sources of trust in institutional risk managers because trust seems critical to how people perceive hazards (although see Poortinga and Pidgeon, 2005), and risk managers want their messages about risk magnitudes and risk management actions to be credible. Much confusion persists about such sources since few studies have explicitly tested alternative hypotheses and determining how to do so properly is difficult (Johnson, 1999). Yet, understanding bases for trust could be critical in developing effective strategies for cooperative risk management (see, for example, Siegrist et al, 2003, on crisis management).
