Information and Risk Perception: A Dynamic Adjustment Process

It is common in catastrophic food-contamination events that consumers fail to adjust instantaneously to a normal consumption level. One explanation is that consumers only gradually accept new positive information as being trustworthy. The gradual establishment of the trustworthiness of the released information depends on both positive and negative media coverage over time. We examine the individual "trust" effects by extending the prospective reference theory (Viscusi, 1989) to include a dynamic adjustment process of risk perception. Conditions that allow aggregation of changes in risk perceptions across individuals are described. The proposed model describes a general updating process of risk perceptions to media coverage and can be applied to explain the temporal impact of media coverage on consumption of a broad range of goods (food or nonfood). A case study of milk contamination is conducted to demonstrate consumer demand adjustment process to a temporarily unfavorable shock. The results suggest that effects of positive and negative information to adjustment of consumption and risk perception are asymmetric over time.     

Trust in Risk Regulation: Cause or Consequence of the Acceptability of GM Food?

Although there is ample empirical evidence that trust in risk regulation is strongly related to the perception and acceptability of risk, it is less clear what the direction of this relationship is. This article explores the nature of the relationship, using three separate data sets on perceptions of genetically modified (GM) food among the British public. The article has two discrete but closely interrelated objectives. First, it compares two models of trust. More specifically, it investigates whether trust is the cause (causal chain account) or the consequence (associationist view) of the acceptability of GM food. Second, this study explores whether the affect heuristic can be applied to a wider number of risk-relevant concepts than just perceived risk and benefit. The results suggest that, rather than a determinant, trust is an expression or indicator of the acceptability of GM food. In addition, and as predicted, "affect" accounts for a large portion of the variance between perceived risk, perceived benefit, trust in risk regulation, and acceptability. Overall, the results support the associationist view that specific risk judgments are driven by more general evaluative judgments The implications of these results for risk communication and policy are discussed.     

Effects of Context and Feelings on Perceptions of Genetically Modified Food

Recently, there has been a surge of interest in the role of feelings in framing perceptions and decisions about risk, yet no study has specifically examined the impact of feelings on perceptions/judgments about biotechnology. This exploratory study investigated current perceptions of genetically modified (GM) food to examine (1) the effects of context (making judgments about GM food at the same time as rating other current areas of concern), and (2) the effect of feelings of dread (integral affect) and background feelings of stress (negative incidental affect) on risk judgments about GM food. An established psychometric method (semantic differential task) used with a sample of 126 adults (recruited "topic-blind," mostly from a student population) showed that, when rated in the context of other current concerns such as human cloning and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), there was less concern about GM food than might have been anticipated. Participants were recruited "topic-blind" in order to ensure that they were unaware that the focus of the research was on GM food specifically (and thus preventing biased recruitment to the study). Relative to 19 other current concerns GM food was "not dreaded," not viewed as "unethical," was judged as "controllable," and was seen as the least "risky" of all the issues studied. GM food was viewed as a "hot topic," a new risk, and as relatively unnatural (although it was not the highest rated concern on this scale). Ratings of risks across concerns by individuals experiencing high levels of negative incidental affect (stress) did not differ significantly from those reporting low stress.     

Psychological Determinants of Willingness to Taste and Purchase Genetically Modified Food

Decreasing acceptance of biotechnologies over time has been reported in Europe. Studies claim that attitudes are negative, even hostile, and that people are very worried about genetic engineering in food and medicine. However, such studies are mostly based on surveys and these have significant methodological problems, such as low response rates, which may indicate that only those with strong views respond, thus biasing the sample. Here an alternative method, involving "topic-blind" recruitment of participants and a behavioral measure (food tasting), was used. We show that in a topic-blind sample of 100 individuals, 93% willingly tasted and ate what they believed to be genetically modified (GM) food in an experimental setting, and 48% said they would buy GM food in the future, results that are surprising in the context of other reports about attitudes and intentions toward GM food. Purchasers and nonpurchasers differed in their attitudes toward GM food on key risk-related scales (particularly on a dread-not dread scale--a measure of integral affect--and an ethical-unethical scale). Despite these differences, however, and despite their negative attitude, most nonpurchasers (85.7%) still tasted the GM apple. Incidental affect (state stress and trait worry) was not found to influence risk-related judgments about GM food. Integral affect (dread of GM plants and animals used for food) and concerns about the future risks of GM animals in food were found to be key predictors of willingness to purchase GM food.     

Consumer Responses to Integrated Risk‐Benefit Information Associated with the Consumption of Food

The risk analysis of the health impact of foods is increasingly focused on integrated risk‐benefit assessment, which will also need to be communicated to consumers. It therefore becomes important to understand how consumers respond to integrated risk‐benefit information. Quality‐adjusted‐life‐years (QALYs) is one measure that can be used to assess the balance between risks and benefits associated with a particular food. The effectiveness of QALYs for communicating both positive and negative health effects associated with food consumption to consumers was examined, using a 3 × 2 experiment varying information about health changes in terms of QALYs associated with the consumption of fish (n = 325). The effect of this information on consumer perceptions of the usefulness of QALYs for describing health effects, on risk and benefit perceptions, attitudes, and intentions to consume fish was examined. Results demonstrated that consumers perceived QALYs as useful for communicating health effects associated with food consumption. QALYs communicated as a net effect were preferred for food products associated with negative net effects on health, while separate communication of both risks and benefits may be preferred for food products associated with positive or zero net health effects. Information about health changes in terms of QALYs facilitated informed decision making by consumers, as indicated by the impact on risk and benefit perceptions as intended by the information. The impact of this information on actual food consumption choices merits further investigation.     

Perceived Risks of Conventional and Organic Produce: Pesticides, Pathogens, and Natural Toxins

Public risk perceptions and demand for safer food are important factors shaping agricultural production practices in the United States. Despite documented food safety concerns, little attempt has been made to elicit consumers' subjective risk judgments for a range of food safety hazards or to identify factors most predictive of perceived food safety risks. In this study, over 700 conventional and organic fresh produce buyers in the Boston area were surveyed for their perceived food safety risks. Survey results showed that consumers perceived relatively high risks associated with the consumption and production of conventionally grown produce compared with other public health hazards. For example, conventional and organic food buyers estimated the median annual fatality rate due to pesticide residues on conventionally grown food to be about 50 per million and 200 per million, respectively, which is similar in magnitude to the annual mortality risk from motor vehicle accidents in the United States. Over 90% of survey respondents also perceived a reduction in pesticide residue risk associated with substituting organically grown produce for conventionally grown produce, and nearly 50% perceived a risk reduction due to natural toxins and microbial pathogens. Multiple regression analyses indicate that only a few factors are consistently predictive of higher risk perceptions, including feelings of distrust toward regulatory agencies and the safety of the food supply. A variety of factors were found to be significant predictors of specific categories of food hazards, suggesting that consumers may view food safety risks as dissimilar from one another. Based on study findings, it is recommended that future agricultural policies and risk communication efforts utilize a comparative risk approach that targets a range of food safety hazards.     

Effects of Knowledge on Attitude Formation and Change Toward Genetically Modified Foods

In three waves, this study investigates the impact of risk and benefit knowledge on attitude formation toward genetically modified (GM) foods as well as the moderating effect of knowledge level on attitude change caused by receiving information. The data in Wave 1 (N = 561) demonstrate that both benefit and risk knowledge either directly contribute to attitude formation or indirectly affect attitudes through the mediating roles of benefit and risk perceptions. Overall, benefit and risk knowledge affect consumer attitudes positively and negatively, respectively. In Wave 2, 486 participants from Wave 1 were provided with information about GM foods, and their attitudes were assessed. Three weeks later, 433 of these participants again reported their attitudes. The results indicate that compared with the benefit and mixed information, risk information has a greater and longer lasting impact on attitude change, which results in lower acceptance of GM foods. Furthermore, risk information more strongly influences participants with a higher knowledge level. The moderating effect of knowledge on attitude change may result from these participants’ better understanding of and greater trust in the information. These findings highlight the important role of knowledge in attitude formation and attitude change toward GM foods as well as the necessity of considering the determinants of attitude formation in attitude change studies.     

Perceived risk,emotions, and stress in response to COVID-19: The interplay of media use and partisanship

Relationships between risk perceptions, emotions, and stress are well-documented, as are interconnections between stress, emotion, and media use. During the early COVID-19 pandemic, the public responded psychologically to the threat posed by the pandemic, and frequently utilized media for information and entertainment. However, we lack a comprehensive picture of how perceived risk, emotion, stress, and media affected each other longitudinally during this time. Further, although response to the pandemic was highly politicized, research has yet to address how partisan affiliation moderated relationships between risk, emotion, stress, and media use over time. This three-wave (N = 1021) panel study assessed the interplay of risk, emotion, stress, and media use for Americans with different political affiliations between March and May of 2020. Findings indicate that perceived risk, emotion, and stress at Time 1 predicted media use at Time 2, with predictors varying by type of media. Use of entertainment media and social/mobile media predicted later stress (Time 3), but news consumption did not. Later risk perceptions (Time 3) were not influenced by media use at Time 2. The predictors and consequences of different types of media use were notably different for Republicans and Democrats. In particular, risk perceptions predicted greater news use among Democrats but greater entertainment media use among Republicans. Moreover, social/mobile media use resulted in perceiving the risks of COVID-19 as less serious for Republicans while increasing stress over time for Democrats.     

Exploring the Structure of Attitudes Toward Genetically Modified Food

Although it is often thought that the British public is opposed to genetically modified (GM) food, recent qualitative work suggests that most people are ambivalent about GM food and crops. In this article we explore the structure of attitudes in order to examine whether attitudinal ambivalence can be captured by more quantitative methods. Based on the finding that the perceived risks and benefits of GM food can be treated as independent dimensions, we propose a four-way typology of attitudes, consisting of a positive, negative, indifferent, and ambivalent group. This study showed that the differences between the four groups could best be described by three main dimensions: (1) a general evaluative dimension, (2) an involvement dimension, and (3) an attitudinal certainty dimension. While these different attitudinal dimensions have generally been studied in isolation, we argue that they should be studied collectively.     

Trust, the Asymmetry Principle, and the Role of Prior Beliefs

Within the risk literature there is an ongoing debate on whether trust is vulnerable or enduring. Previous research on nuclear energy by Slovic in 1993 has shown that negative events have much greater impact on self-reported trust than do positive events. Slovic attributes this to the asymmetry principle: specifically, that trust is much easier to destroy than to create. In a questionnaire survey concerning genetically modified (GM) food in Britain (n= 396) we similarly find that negative events have a greater impact on trust than positive events. Because public opinion in Britain is skewed in the direction of opposition toward GM food, the pattern of results could either be caused by the fact that negative information is more informative than positive information (a negativity bias) or reflect the influence of people's prior attitudes toward the issue (a confirmatory bias). The results were largely in line with the confirmatory bias hypothesis: participants with clear positive or negative beliefs interpreted events in line with their existing attitude position. However, for participants with intermediate attitudes, negative items still had greater impact than the positive. This latter finding suggests that, congruent with the negativity bias hypothesis, negative information may still be more informative than positive information for undecided people. The study also identified the labeling of GM products, consulting the public, making biotechnology companies liable for any damage, and making a test available to detect GM produce as being particularly important preconditions for maintaining trust in the regulation of agricultural biotechnology.     

When Evolution Works Against the Future: Disgust's Contributions to the Acceptance of New Food Technologies

New food technologies have a high potential to transform the current resource‐consuming food system to a more efficient and sustainable one, but public acceptance of new food technologies is rather low. Such an avoidance might be maintained by a deeply preserved risk avoidance system called disgust. In an online survey, participants (N = 313) received information about a variety of new food technology applications (i.e., genetically modified meat/fish, edible nanotechnology coating film, nanotechnology food box, artificial meat/milk, and a synthetic food additive). Every new food technology application was rated according to the respondent's willingness to eat (WTE) it (i.e., acceptance), risk, benefit, and disgust perceptions. Furthermore, food disgust sensitivity was measured using the Food Disgust Scale. Overall, the WTE both gene‐technology applications and meat coated with an edible nanotechnology film were low and disgust responses toward all three applications were high. In full mediation models, food disgust sensitivity predicted the disgust response toward each new food technology application, which in turn influenced WTE them. Effects of disgust responses on the WTE a synthetic food additive were highest for and lowest for the edible nanotechnology coating film compared to the other technologies. Results indicate that direct disgust responses influence acceptance and risk and benefit perceptions of new food technologies. Beyond the discussion of this study, implications for future research and strategies to increase acceptance of new food technologies are discussed.     

Recollection Bias and Its Underpinnings: Lessons from Terrorism Risk Assessments

Recollection bias is the phenomenon whereby people who observe a highly unexpected event hold current risk beliefs about a similar event that are no higher than their recollection of their prior beliefs. This article replicates and extends the authors’ previous study of recollection bias in relation to individuals’ perceptions of the risks of terrorism attacks. Over 60% of respondents in a national U.S. sample of over 900 adults believe that the current risk of a future terrorist attack by either an airplane or in a public setting is no higher than they recall having believed, respectively, before the 9/11 attack and before the Boston Marathon bombing. By contrast, a rational Bayesian model would update to a higher currently assessed risk of these previously uncontemplated events. Recollection bias is a persistent trait: individuals who exhibited this bias for the 9/11 attack exhibited it for the Boston Marathon bombing. Only one‐fifth of respondents are free of any type of recollection bias. Recollection bias is negatively correlated with absolute levels of risk belief. Recollection bias in relation to highly unexpected terrorist events—the belief that perceived risks did not increase after the surprise occurrence—dampens support for a variety of anti‐terrorism measures, controlling for the level of risk beliefs and demographic factors. Persistent recollection bias for both 9/11 and the Boston Marathon bombing is especially influential in diminishing support for protective policy measures, such as surveillance cameras in public places. Given that public attitudes influence policy, educating the public about risk is critical.     

Public Perceptions of the Potential Hazards Associated with Food Production and Food Consumption: An Empirical Study

Although public perceptions of food-related hazards receive much media comment and debate, the research literature on such perceptions is sparse and piecemeal. In the reported study, 216 people completed a questionnaire relating to their perceptions of the "risk characteristics" of potential hazards associated with various aspects of food production and food consumption. Responses were examined via principal-components analysis to obtain a structural representation of risk perception of the kind provided by Fischhoff, Slovic, and their colleagues in their seminal psychometric work.^(1,2) A three-component solution accounting for 87% of the variance was obtained, with the dimensions labeled as "severity,""unknown," and "number of people exposed." The findings also yielded information pointing to evidence of the phenomenon of unrealistic optimism. We conclude that our findings offer a useful base upon which further in-depth research integrating different perspectives on risk perception with respect to food-related hazards may be developed.     

How Anxiety Leads to Suboptimal Decisions Under Risky Choice Situations

The current research proposes that situationally activated anxiety—whether incidental or integral—impairs decision making. In particular, we theorize that anxiety drives decisionmakers to more heavily emphasize subjective anecdotal information in their decision making, at the expense of more factual statistical information—a deleterious heuristic called the anecdotal bias. Four studies provide consistent support for this assertion. Studies 1A and 1B feature field experiments that demonstrate the role of incidental anxiety in enhancing the anecdotal bias in a choice context. Study 2 builds on these findings, manipulating individuals’ incidental anxiety and showing how this affects the anecdotal bias in the context of message evaluations. Study 2 also provides direct evidence that only high‐arousal negative emotions such as anxiety/worry enhance the anecdotal bias, not just any negative emotion (e.g., sadness). While the first three studies examine how incidental anxiety impacts choice, the last study demonstrates the effect of integral anxiety on decision making, manipulating anxiety by intensifying participants’ perceived risk. Our results show that—consistent with findings from our first three studies—the anecdotal bias is enhanced when anxiety is heightened by individuals’ perception of risk.     

The Role of Similarity Cues in the Development of Trustin Sources of Information About GM Food

In evaluating complex new technologies, people are usually dependent on information provided by others, for example, experts or journalists, and have to determine whether they can trust these information sources. This article focuses on similarity as the basis for trust. The first experiment ( N  = 261) confirmed that a journalist writing about genetically modified (GM) food was trusted more when his attitude was congruent with that of his readers. In addition, the experiment showed that this effect was mediated by the perceived similarity of the journalist. The second experiment ( N  = 172) revealed that trust in a journalist writing about the focal domain of GM food was even influenced by him expressing a congruent attitude in an unrelated domain. This result supports a general similarity account of the congruence effect on trust, as opposed to a confirmatory bias account.     

Disentangling the Influence of Value Predispositions and Risk/Benefit Perceptions on Support for Nanotechnology Among the American Public

Using nanotechnology as a case study, this article explores (1) how people's perceptions of benefits and risks are related to their approval of nanotechnology, (2) which information‐processing factors contribute to public risk/benefit perceptions, and (3) whether individuals’ predispositions (i.e., deference to scientific authority and ideology) may moderate the relationship between cognitive processing and risk perceptions of the technology. Results indicate that benefit perceptions positively affect public support for nanotechnology; perceptions of risk tend to be more influenced by systematic processing than by heuristic cues, whereas both heuristic and systematic processing influence benefit perceptions. People who are more liberal‐minded tend to be more affected by systematic processing when thinking about the benefits of nanotechnology than those who are more conservative. Compared to less deferent individuals, those who are more deferent to scientific authority tend to be less influenced by systematic processing when making judgments about the benefits and risks of nanotechnology. Implications are discussed.     

Assessing the Effects of Information About Global Population Growth on Risk Perceptions and Support for Mitigation and Prevention Strategies

The human population is forecast to increase by 3–4 billion people during this century and many scientists have expressed concerns that this could increase the likelihood of certain adverse events (e.g., climate change and resource shortages). Recent research shows that these concerns are mirrored in public risk perceptions and that these perceptions correlate with a willingness to adopt mitigation behaviors (e.g., reduce resource consumption) and preventative actions (e.g., support actions to limit growth). However, little research has assessed the factors that influence risk perceptions of global population growth (GPG). To contribute to this important goal, this article presents three studies that examined how risk perceptions of GPG might be influenced by textual‐visual representations (like those in media and Internet articles) of the potential effects of GPG. Study 1 found that a textual narrative that highlighted the potential negative (cf. positive) consequences of GPG led to higher perceived risk and greater willingness to adopt mitigation behaviors, but not to support preventative actions. Notably, the influence of the narratives on perceived risk was largely moderated by the participant's prior knowledge and perceptions of GPG. Contrary to expectations, studies 2 and 3 revealed, respectively, that photographs depicting GPG‐related imagery and graphs depicting GPG rates had no significant effect on the perceived risk of GPG or the willingness to embrace mitigation or preventative actions. However, study 3 found that individuals with higher “graph literacy” perceived GPG as a higher risk and were more willing to adopt mitigation behaviors and support preventative actions.     

Media Exposure to Terrorism and Perception of Immigrants as a Threat: The Role of Emotional Intelligence and Psychophysiological Self-Regulation

To better understand how media exposure to terrorism-related images can lead to perceiving immigrants as more threatening, in the present study we manipulated participants’ exposure to media coverage of terrorist attacks and investigated how this may influence people's perception of Arab immigrants. Considering the important role of regulatory abilities when facing stressful events like terrorist attacks, we measured individual differences in both trait emotional intelligence and resting heart rate variability (HRV). Results showed that participants perceived Arab immigrants as more threatening in the media exposure condition than in the control condition. Importantly, there were moderating effects of both trait emotional intelligence and HRV. People with lower trait emotional intelligence or lower HRV at rest felt more threatened in the media exposure condition compared to the control condition, whereas this effect was not observed among participants with higher trait emotional intelligence or higher resting HRV. The present study highlights some of the complexities related to how media exposure to terrorism-related images influences people's reactions to, and evaluations of, an outgroup that is related to the perpetrators of the attacks.     

Values and Risk Perceptions: A Cross‐Cultural Examination

This article examines the relationship between values and risk perceptions regarding terror attacks. The participants in the study are university students from Turkey (n = 536) and Israel (n = 298). Schwartz value theory (1992, 1994) is applied to conceptualize and measure values. Cognitive (perceived likelihood and perceived severity) and emotional (fear, helplessness, anger, distress, insecurity, hopelessness, sadness, and anxiety) responses about the potential of (i) being personally exposed to a terror attack, and (ii) a terror attack that may occur in one's country are assessed to measure risk perceptions. Comparison of the two groups suggests that the Turkish participants are significantly more emotional about terror risks than the Israeli respondents. Both groups perceive the risk of a terror attack that may occur in their country more likely than the risk of being personally exposed to a terror attack. No significant differences are found in emotional representations and perceived severity ratings regarding these risks. Results provide support for the existence of a link between values and risk perceptions of terror attacks. In both countries, self‐direction values are negatively related to emotional representations, whereas security values are positively correlated with emotions; hedonism and stimulation values are negatively related to perceived likelihood. Current findings are discussed in relation to previous results, theoretical approaches (the social amplification of risk framework and cultural theory of risk), and practical implications (increasing community support for a course of action, training programs for risk communicators).     

Food safety in the aging population: Qualitative findings on what to communicate and how

The present study investigated older adults’ risk perception, beliefs, and self-perception in the field of kitchen hygiene and food safety. A qualitative study with semi-structured focus groups was conducted. A total of 37 older adults (60–80 years of age) from Germany participated in four focus groups that were stratified by gender. Focus groups covered older adults’ food-handling practices, their perceptions of vulnerability, and their informational needs in the field of food safety. A thematic analysis approach was adopted. The coding categories and subcategories were developed inductively by the researchers based on the data. The coded data were then used to identify overarching themes and subthemes. Main results showed that older adults had confidence in their knowledge and skills with regard to food safety, perceived their post-war generation overall to be resistant and other so-called at-risk groups to be more vulnerable. Moreover, they expressed low informational needs in the area of food safety. The results suggest that age-specific aspects play a role in older adults’ risk perception and highlight the need to develop age-specific risk communication strategies that take into account older adults’ beliefs, knowledge, and informational needs.