Risk Preferences,Probability Weighting,and Strategy Tradeoffs in Wildfire Management

Wildfires present a complex applied risk management environment, but relatively little attention has been paid to behavioral and cognitive responses to risk among public agency wildfire managers. This study investigates responses to risk, including probability weighting and risk aversion, in a wildfire management context using a survey‐based experiment administered to federal wildfire managers. Respondents were presented with a multiattribute lottery‐choice experiment where each lottery is defined by three outcome attributes: expenditures for fire suppression, damage to private property, and exposure of firefighters to the risk of aviation‐related fatalities. Respondents choose one of two strategies, each of which includes “good” (low cost/low damage) and “bad” (high cost/high damage) outcomes that occur with varying probabilities. The choice task also incorporates an information framing experiment to test whether information about fatality risk to firefighters alters managers' responses to risk. Results suggest that managers exhibit risk aversion and nonlinear probability weighting, which can result in choices that do not minimize expected expenditures, property damage, or firefighter exposure. Information framing tends to result in choices that reduce the risk of aviation fatalities, but exacerbates nonlinear probability weighting.     

The Effects of Expectation Disconfirmation on Appraisal,Affect, and Behavioral Intentions

People's risk perceptions can have powerful effects on their outcomes, yet little is known about how people respond to risk information that disconfirms a prior expectation. We experimentally examined the affective, cognitive, and behavioral consequences of expectation disconfirmation in the context of risk perceptions. Participants were randomly assigned and then prompted toward either a high or low personal risk estimate regarding a fictitious health threat. All participants then received the same risk feedback, which presented either a negative disconfirmation experience (i.e., worse than expected) in the high‐risk estimate condition or a positive disconfirmation experience (i.e., better than expected) in the low‐risk estimate condition. Participants who experienced the negative disconfirmation reported stronger intentions to prevent the threat in the future compared to participants who experienced the positive disconfirmation. This effect was mediated by both disappointment about the risk feedback and perceptions of the severity of the threat. These findings have implications for risk communication, suggesting that the provision of objective risk information may improve or diminish the likelihood of behavior change depending on people's initial expectations and their emotional and cognitive reactions to the information.     

Evaluating Risk Communication: Narrative vs. Technical Presentations of Information About Radon

This paper reports on an experiment to test the hypothesis that people respond better to risk communication that reflects more closely the conditions of their social and cultural lives. The experiment used the case of radon to determine whether technical or narrative forms of risk communication were more effective at drawing people's attention, imparting information, and modifying behavior. Two series of articles on radon were placed in the local newspapers of two Massachusetts communities. Homeowner attitudes, knowledge, and responses were monitored in baseline and follow-up telephone surveys. A third community was selected for comparison. The newspaper series were developed on the basis of previous research and six focus groups conducted with homeowners. The technical series presented authoritative, factual risk information, in the scientific style of the passive voice with generalized and impersonal language. The narrative series consisted of dramatized accounts of individuals making decisions about radon testing and mitigation, written in a more personal style. The findings from the focus groups confirm the results of previous studies, but the small size of the follow-up samples was a limiting factor in drawing definitive conclusions about the relative effectiveness of the two formats. The experiment demonstrates the difficulty of any risk communication effort on radon and underscores the need for good research design.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

You Have Been Framed! How Antecedents of Information Need Mediate the Effects of Risk Communication Messages

This study investigates the processes that mediate the effects of framing flood risks on people's information needs. Insight into the effects of risk frames is important for developing balanced risk communication that explains both risks and benefits of living near water. The research was inspired by the risk information seeking and processing model and related models. In a web‐based survey, respondents (n = 1,457) were randomly assigned to one of three communication frames or a control frame (experimental conditions). Each frame identically explained flood risk and additionally refined the message by emphasizing climate change, the quality of flood risk management, or the amenities of living near water. We tested the extent to which risk perceptions, trust, and affective responses mediate the framing effects on information need. As expected, the frames on average resulted in higher information need than the control frame. Attempts to lower fear appeal by stressing safety or amenities instead of climate change were marginally successful, a phenomenon that is known as a “negativity bias.” Framing effects were mediated by negative attributes (risk perception and negative affect) but not by positive attributes (trust and positive affect). This finding calls for theoretical refinement. Practically, communication messages will be more effective when they stimulate risk perceptions and evoke negative affect. However, arousal of fear may have unwanted side effects. For instance, fear arousal could lead to lower levels of trust in risk management among citizens. Regular monitoring of citizens’ attitudes is important to prevent extreme levels of distrust or cynicism.     

Domain Effects and Financial Risk Attitudes

We investigated whether financial risk preferences are dependent on the financial domain (i.e., the context) in which the risky choice options are presented. Previous studies have demonstrated that risk attitudes change when gambles are framed as gains, losses, or as insurance. Our study explores this directly by offering choices between identical gambles, framed in terms of seven financial domains. Three factors were extracted, explaining 68.6% of the variance: Factor 1 (Positive)—opportunity to win, pension provision, and job salary change; Factor 2 (Positive‐Complex)—investments and mortgage buying; Factor 3 (Negative)—possibility of loss and insurance. Inspection of the solution revealed context effects on risk perceptions across the seven scenarios. We also found that the commonly accepted assumption that women are more risk averse cannot be confirmed with the context structure suggested in this research; however, it is acknowledged that in the students’ population the variance across genders might be considerably less. These results suggest that our financial risk attitude measures may be tapping into a stable aspect of “context dependence” of relevance to real‐world decision making.     

When Precaution Creates Misunderstandings: The Unintended Effects of Precautionary Information on Perceived Risks,the EMF Case

In the past decade, growing public concern about novel technologies with uncertain potential long‐term impacts on the environment and human health has moved risk policies toward a more precautionary approach. Focusing on mobile telephony, the effects of precautionary information on risk perception were analyzed. A pooled multinational experimental study based on a 5 × 2 × 2 factorial design was conducted in nine countries. The first factor refers to whether or not information on different types of precautionary measures was present, the second factor to the framing of the precautionary information, and the third factor to the order in which cell phones and base stations were rated by the study participants. The data analysis on the country level indicates different effects. The main hypothesis that informing about precautionary measures results in increased risk perceptions found only partial support in the data. The effects are weaker, both in terms of the effect size and the frequency of significant effects, across the various precautionary information formats used in the experiment. Nevertheless, our findings do not support the assumption that informing people about implemented precautionary measures will decrease public concerns.     

Insights into Flood‐Coping Appraisals of Protection Motivation Theory: Empirical Evidence from Germany and France

Protection motivation theory (PMT) has become a popular theory to explain the risk‐reducing behavior of residents against natural hazards. PMT captures the two main cognitive processes that individuals undergo when faced with a threat, namely, threat appraisal and coping appraisal. The latter describes the evaluation of possible response measures that may reduce or avert the perceived threat. Although the coping appraisal component of PMT was found to be a better predictor of protective intentions and behavior, little is known about the factors that influence individuals’ coping appraisals of natural hazards. More insight into flood‐coping appraisals of PMT, therefore, are needed to better understand the decision‐making process of individuals and to develop effective risk communication strategies. This study presents the results of two surveys among more than 1,600 flood‐prone households in Germany and France. Five hypotheses were tested using multivariate statistics regarding factors related to flood‐coping appraisals, which were derived from the PMT framework, related literature, and the literature on social vulnerability. We found that socioeconomic characteristics alone are not sufficient to explain flood‐coping appraisals. Particularly, observational learning from the social environment, such as friends and neighbors, is positively related to flood‐coping appraisals. This suggests that social norms and networks play an important role in flood‐preparedness decisions. Providing risk and coping information can also have a positive effect. Given the strong positive influence of the social environment on flood‐coping appraisals, future research should investigate how risk communication can be enhanced by making use of the observed social norms and network effects.     

Designing Graphs to Communicate Risks: Understanding How the Choice of Graphical Format Influences Decision Making

Previous research suggests that the choice of graphical format for communicating risk information affects both understanding of the risk magnitude and the likelihood of acting to decrease risk. However, the mechanisms through which these effects work are poorly understood. To explore these mechanisms using a real‐world scenario, we examined the relative impact of two graphical displays for depicting the risk of exposure to unexploded ammunition during potential land redevelopment. One display depicted only the foreground information graphically (a bar graph of the number of people harmed), and a second depicted the foreground and background graphically (a stacked bar graph representing both the number harmed and at risk). We presented 296 participants with either the foreground‐only or the foreground and background graphical display and measured a broad set of outcome variables, examining (1) the graphical display effect on each of the outcome measures and (2) the pathways by which any display effects work to influence decision making. We found that the foreground‐only graphical display increased perceived likelihood and experienced fear, which produced greater worry, which in turn increased risk aversion. In addition, a positive evaluation of the communication materials increased support for policies related to land redevelopment, whether those policies were risk taking or risk mitigating. Finally, the foreground‐only graphical display decreased understanding of the risk magnitude, showing that approaches to accomplish one risk communication goal (promoting risk‐averse decisions) may do so at the expense of another goal (increasing understanding).     

Workers’ Risk Tolerance and Occupational Injuries

This study explores the relationship between individuals’ risk tolerance and occupational injuries. We analyze data from a national representative survey of U.S. workers that includes information about injuries, risk tolerance, cognitive and noncognitive attributes, and risky behaviors. We measure risk tolerance through questions regarding individuals’ willingness to gamble on their lifetime income. We estimate zero‐inflated count models to assess the role played by such measures on workers’ recurrent injuries. We discuss some implications of our results for future research and occupational safety policies. Our results highlight the concurrent and changing role played by individual, work, and environmental factors in explaining recurrent incidents. They show that risk tolerance affects recurrent injuries, although not in the direction that proponents of the concept of proneness would expect. Our measure of risk aversion shows that individuals who are somewhat more risk tolerant have fewer recurrent injuries than those who are risk averse. But the estimated relationship is U‐shaped, not monotonic and, therefore, not easy to predict. At the same time, we find that individuals’ “revealed risk preferences”—specific risky behaviors—are related to higher injury probabilities. Demanding working conditions, measures of socioeconomic status, health, and safety problems experienced by workers during their youth remain among the most important factors explaining the phenomena of recurrent injuries. So our results contribute also to the important debate about the relationship between health and socioeconomic status.     

Who is a Distracted Driver? Associations between Mobile Phone Use while Driving,Domain‐Specific Risk Taking,and Personality

Mobile phone use while driving (MPUWD) is an increasingly common form of distracted driving. Given its widespread prevalence, it is important for researchers to identify factors that may predict who is more likely to engage in this risky behavior. The current study investigates associations between MPUWD risk behaviors, domain‐specific risk perceptions, and broad personality dimensions. An Italian community sample (n = 804) completed a survey regarding MPUWD risk perceptions and engagement in MPUWD, in addition to the HEXACO‐PI‐R, a broad six‐factor personality inventory (honesty‐humility, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to experience), and the DOSPERT, a six‐factor domain‐specific self‐report risk‐taking measure (health/safety, recreational, social, ethical, gambling, and investment). With respect to domain‐specific risk taking, greater frequency of SMS use while driving most strongly was associated with greater risk taking for the health/safety, gambling, and ethical risk domains. Further, greater honesty‐humility and conscientiousness, two traits related to cognitive control and risk behaviors, and to a lesser extent openness to experience, were associated with less frequent MPUWD, and positively associated with MPUWD risk perceptions. With growing public safety concern surrounding MPUWD, understanding associated personality factors is not only important for identifying psychological mechanisms underlying risk behavior, but also for more effective prevention and intervention programs.     

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.     

Making Sense of Risk—A Sociological Perspective on the Management of Risk

This article describes how risk has been conceptualized in the business and organizational literature through four distinct transformations: from the techno‐scientific perspective to the cognitive, the social‐cultural, and, finally, to the constructionist perspective. Each domain conceptualizes risk in different ways, as organizations have found it difficult to understand and mitigate using the risk management tools available. Conceptualizing risk as sensemaking becomes relevant due to the complexity of information available to the risk manager, and, coupled with time constraints, this means that risk managers increasingly rely on making sense of possible threats rather than on the accuracy of the information received. This shift presents four contributions to the current literature. First, it suggests that the role of risk management is shifting from being technical in nature to being about risk sensemaking, where the manager engages with the social and physical environment with the aim of acquiring cues that could indicate how future events will unfold. Second, a sensemaking perspective implies a shift in the use of risk management systems from being “containers” of knowledge about past risk events to lending legitimacy to the plausibility of the success of future decisions. Third, the role of the risk manager in managing individual risks changes and becomes one of managing everything using the social networks and systems available as indicators of future risk events. Finally, the risk manager and the systems he or she relies upon are regarded as a source of risk in themselves as both act as gatekeepers for organizational risk decision making.     

Risk‐Taking and the Media

In recent years, media formats with risk‐glorifying content, such as video games that simulate illegal street racing (“bang and crash” games), films about extreme sports, and risky stunts have emerged as top sellers of the media industry. A variety of recent studies conducted by several researchers revealed that exposure to risk‐glorifying media content (e.g., video games that simulate reckless driving, smoking and drinking in movies, or depictions that glorify extreme sports) increases the likelihood that recipients will show increased levels of risk‐taking inclinations and behaviors. The present article (1) reviews the latest research on the detrimental impact of risk‐glorifying media on risk‐taking inclinations (cognitions, emotions, behaviors), (2) puts these findings in the theoretical context of recent sociocognitive models on media effects, and (3) makes suggestions to science and policymakers on how to deal with these effects in the future.     

Why Near‐Miss Events Can Decrease an Individual's Protective Response to Hurricanes

Prior research shows that when people perceive the risk of some hazardous event to be low, they are unlikely to engage in mitigation activities for the potential hazard. We believe one factor that can lower inappropriately (from a normative perspective) people's perception of the risk of a hazard is information about prior near‐miss events. A near‐miss occurs when an event (such as a hurricane), which had some nontrivial probability of ending in disaster (loss of life, property damage), does not because good fortune intervenes. People appear to mistake such good fortune as an indicator of resiliency. In our first study, people with near‐miss information were less likely to purchase flood insurance, and this was shown for both participants from the general population and individuals with specific interests in risk and natural disasters. In our second study, we consider a different mitigation decision, that is, to evacuate from a hurricane, and vary the level of statistical probability of hurricane damage. We still found a strong effect for near‐miss information. Our research thus shows how people who have experienced a similar situation but escape damage because of chance will make decisions consistent with a perception that the situation is less risky than those without the past experience. We end by discussing the implications for risk communication.     

When Opportunity Matters: Comparing the Risk‐Taking Attitudes of Prisoners and Recently Released Ex‐Prisoners

Risk‐taking tendencies and environmental opportunities to commit crime are two key features in understanding criminal behavior. Upon release from prison, ex‐prisoners have a much greater opportunity to engage in risky activity and to commit criminal acts. We hypothesized that ex‐prisoners would exhibit greater risk‐taking tendencies compared to prisoners who have fewer opportunities to engage in risky activity and who are monitored constantly by prison authorities. Using cumulative prospect theory to compare the risky choices of prisoners and ex‐prisoners our study revealed that ex‐prisoners who were within 16 weeks of their prison release made riskier choices than prisoners. Our data indicate that previous studies comparing prisoners behind bars with nonoffenders may have underestimated the risk‐taking tendencies of offenders. The present findings emphasize the central role played by risk‐taking attitudes in criminal offending and highlight a need to examine offenders after release from prison.     

The Effect of Early Cognitive Ability on Earnings Over the Life‐Cycle

This paper utilizes information on cognitive ability at age 10 and earnings information from age 20 to 65 to estimate the return to ability over the life‐cycle. Cognitive ability measured at an early age is not influenced by the individual's choices of schooling. We find that most of the unconditional return to early cognitive ability goes through educational choice. The conditional return is increasing for low levels of experience and non‐increasing for experience above about 15–25 years. The return is similar for men and women, and highest for individuals with academic education. Only a small part of the return can be explained by higher probability of having a supervisory position.     

Mental Models in Risk Assessment: Informing People About Drugs

One way to communicate about the risks of drugs is through the use of package inserts. The problems associated with this medium of informing patients have been investigated by several researchers who found that people require information about drugs they are using, including extensive risk information, and that they are willing to take this information into account in their usage of drugs. But empirical results also show that people easily misinterpret the information given. A conceptual framework is proposed that might be used for better understanding the cognitive processes involved in such a type of risk assessment and communication. It is based on the idea that people develop, through experience, a mental model of how a drug works, which effects it might produce, that contraindications have to be considered, etc. This mental model is "run" when a specific package insert has been read and a specific question arises such as, for example, whether certain symptoms can be explained as normal or whether they require special attention and action. We argue that the mental model approach offers a useful perspective for examining how people understand package inserts, and consequently for improving their content and design. The approach promises to be equally useful for other aspects of risk analysis that are dependent upon human judgment and decision making, e.g., threat diagnosis and human reliability analysis.     

Framing Effects in Narrative and Non‐Narrative Risk Messages

Narrative messages are increasingly popular in health and risk campaigns, yet gain/loss framing effects have never been tested with such messages. Three experiments examined framing in narrative messages. Experiment 1 found that only the character's decision, not framing, influenced judgments about characters in a narrative derived from a prospect theory context. Experiment 2 found that a framing effect that occurred when presented in a decision format did not occur when the same situation was presented as a narrative. Using a different story/decision context, Experiment 3 found no significant difference in preference for surgery over radiation therapy in a narrative presentation compared to a non‐narrative presentation. The results suggest that health and risk campaigns cannot assume that framing effects will be the same in narrative messages and non‐narrative messages. Potential reasons for these differences and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Probability Information in Risk Communication: A Review of the Research Literature

Communicating probability information about risks to the public is more difficult than might be expected. Many studies have examined this subject, so that their resulting recommendations are scattered over various publications, diverse research fields, and are about different presentation formats. An integration of empirical findings in one review would be useful therefore to describe the evidence base for communication about probability information and to present the recommendations that can be made so far. We categorized the studies in the following presentation formats: frequencies, percentages, base rates and proportions, absolute and relative risk reduction, cumulative probabilities, verbal probability information, numerical versus verbal probability information, graphs, and risk ladders. We suggest several recommendations for these formats. Based on the results of our review, we show that the effects of presentation format depend not only on the type of format, but also on the context in which the format is used. We therefore argue that the presentation format has the strongest effect when the receiver processes probability information heuristically instead of systematically. We conclude that future research and risk communication practitioners should not only concentrate on the presentation format of the probability information but also on the situation in which this message is presented, as this may predict how people process the information and how this may influence their interpretation of the risk.     

Using a Familiar Risk Comparison Within a Risk Ladder to Improve Risk Understanding by Low Numerates: A Study of Visual Attention

Previous experimental research provides evidence that a familiar risk comparison within a risk ladder is understood by low‐ and high‐numerate individuals. It especially helps low numerates to better evaluate risk. In the present study, an eye tracker was used to capture individuals’ visual attention to a familiar risk comparison, such as the risk associated with smoking. Two parameters of information processing—efficiency and level—were derived from visual attention. A random sample of participants from the general population (N= 68) interpreted a given risk level with the help of the risk ladder. Numeracy was negatively correlated with overall visual attention on the risk ladder (r_s=?0.28, p= 0.01), indicating that the lower the numeracy, the more the time spent looking at the whole risk ladder. Numeracy was positively correlated with the efficiency of processing relevant frequency (r_s= 0.34, p < 0.001) and relevant textual information (r_s= 0.34, p < 0.001), but not with the efficiency of processing relevant comparative information and numerical information. There was a significant negative correlation between numeracy and the level of processing of relevant comparative risk information (r_s=?0.21, p < 0.01), indicating that low numerates processed the comparative risk information more deeply than the high numerates. There was no correlation between numeracy and perceived risk. These results add to previous experimental research, indicating that the smoking risk comparison was crucial for low numerates to evaluate and understand risk. Furthermore, the eye‐tracker method is promising for studying information processing and improving risk communication formats.