ABSTRACT
Perceived risk can best be characterized as a battleground marked by strong and conflicting views about the nature and seriousness of the risks of modern life. The paradox for those who study risk perception is that, as people have become healthier and safer on average, they have become more — rather than less — concerned about risk, and they feel more and more vulnerable to the risks of modern life. Studies of risk perception attempt to understand this paradox and to understand why it is that our perceptions are so often at variance with what the experts say we should be concerned about. We see, for example, that people have very great concerns about nuclear power and chemical risks (which most experts consider acceptably safe) and rather little concern about dams, alcohol, indoor radon, and motor vehicles (which experts consider to be risky).
Perceptions of risk appear to exert a strong influence on the regulatory agenda of government agencies. In 1987, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) task force of 75 experts ranked the seriousness of risk for 31 environmental problems. The results showed that (1) the EPA’s actual priorities differed in many ways from this ranking and (2) their priorities were much closer to the public’s concerns than to the experts’ risk assessments. In particular, hazardous waste disposal was the highest priority item on EPA’s agenda and the area of greatest concern for the public as well, yet this problem was judged only moderate in risk by the experts.
It is important to understand why the public is so greatly concerned today about risks from technology and its waste products. This author does not have the answer, but has several hypotheses about factors that might contribute to the perceptions that such risks are high and increasing. One hypothesis is that we have greater ability 234than ever before to detect minute levels of toxic substances. We can detect parts per billion or trillion or even smaller amounts of chemicals in water and air and in our own bodies. At the same time, we have considerable difficulty understanding the health implications of this new knowledge. Second, we have an increasing reliance on powerful new technologies that can have serious consequences if something goes wrong. When we lack familiarity with a technology, it is natural to be suspicious of it and cautious in accepting its risks. Third, in recent years, we have experienced a number of spectacular and catastrophic mishaps, such as Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Bhopal, the Challenger accident, and the chemical contamination at Love Canal. These events receive extensive media coverage which highlights the failure of supposedly “fail-safe” systems. Fourth, we have an immense amount of litigation over risk problems, which brings these problems to public attention and pits expert against expert, leading to loss of credibility on all sides. Fifth, the benefits from technology are often taken for granted. When we fail to perceive significant benefit from an activity, we are intolerant of any degree of risk. Sixth, we are now being told that we have the ability to control many elements of risk, for example, by wearing seatbelts, changing our diets, getting more exercise, and so on. Perhaps the increased awareness that we have control over many risks makes us more frustrated and angered by those risks that we are not to be able to control, such as when exposures are imposed on us involuntarily (e.g., air and water pollution). Seventh, psychological studies indicate that when people are wealthier and have more to lose, they become more cautious in their decision making. Perhaps this holds true with regard to health as well as wealth. Finally, there may be real changes in the nature of today’s risks. For example, there may be greater potential for catastrophe than there was in the past, due to the complexity, potency, and interconnectedness of technological systems (Perrow 1984).
