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.     

Social Amplification of Wildfire Risk: The Role of Social Interactions and Information Sources

Wildfire is a persistent and growing threat across much of the western United States. Understanding how people living in fire‐prone areas perceive this threat is essential to the design of effective risk management policies. Drawing on the social amplification of risk framework, we develop a conceptual model of wildfire risk perceptions that incorporates the social processes that likely shape how individuals in fire‐prone areas come to understand this risk, highlighting the role of information sources and social interactions. We classify information sources as expert or nonexpert, and group social interactions according to two dimensions: formal versus informal, and generic versus fire‐specific. Using survey data from two Colorado counties, we empirically examine how information sources and social interactions relate to the perceived probability and perceived consequences of a wildfire. Our results suggest that social amplification processes play a role in shaping how individuals in this area perceive wildfire risk. A key finding is that both “vertical” (i.e., expert information sources and formal social interactions) and “horizontal” (i.e., nonexpert information and informal interactions) interactions are associated with perceived risk of experiencing a wildfire. We also find evidence of perceived “risk interdependency”—that is, homeowners’ perceptions of risk are higher when vegetation on neighboring properties is perceived to be dense. Incorporating social amplification processes into community‐based wildfire education programs and evaluating these programs’ effectiveness constitutes an area for future inquiry.     

The Risk Perception Paradox—Implications for Governance and Communication of Natural Hazards

This article reviews the main insights from selected literature on risk perception, particularly in connection with natural hazards. It includes numerous case studies on perception and social behavior dealing with floods, droughts, earthquakes, volcano eruptions, wild fires, and landslides. The review reveals that personal experience of a natural hazard and trust—or lack of trust—in authorities and experts have the most substantial impact on risk perception. Cultural and individual factors such as media coverage, age, gender, education, income, social status, and others do not play such an important role but act as mediators or amplifiers of the main causal connections between experience, trust, perception, and preparedness to take protective actions. When analyzing the factors of experience and trust on risk perception and on the likeliness of individuals to take preparedness action, the review found that a risk perception paradox exists in that it is assumed that high risk perception will lead to personal preparedness and, in the next step, to risk mitigation behavior. However, this is not necessarily true. In fact, the opposite can occur if individuals with high risk perception still choose not to personally prepare themselves in the face of a natural hazard. Therefore, based on the results of the review, this article offers three explanations suggesting why this paradox might occur. These findings have implications for future risk governance and communication as well as for the willingness of individuals to invest in risk preparedness or risk mitigation actions.     

Psychometric and Demographic Predictors of the Perceived Risk of Terrorist Threats and the Willingness to Pay for Terrorism Risk Management Programs

A 2009 national telephone survey of 924 U.S. adults assessed perceptions of terrorism and homeland security issues. Respondents rated severity of effects, level of understanding, number affected, and likelihood of four terrorist threats: poisoned water supply; explosion of a small nuclear device in a major U.S. city; an airplane attack similar to 9/11; and explosion of a bomb in a building, train, subway, or highway. Respondents rated perceived risk and willingness to pay (WTP) for dealing with each threat. Demographic, attitudinal, and party affiliation data were collected. Respondents rated bomb as highest in perceived risk but gave the highest WTP ratings to nuclear device. For both perceived risk and WTP, psychometric variables were far stronger predictors than were demographic ones. OLS regression analyses using both types of variables to predict perceived risk found only two significant demographic predictors for any threat—Democrat (a negative predictor for bomb) and white male (a significant positive predictor for airline attack). In contrast, among psychometric variables, severity, number affected, and likelihood were predictors of all four threats and level of understanding was a predictor for one. For WTP, education was a negative predictor for three threats; no other demographic variables were significant predictors for any threat. Among psychometric variables, perceived risk and number affected were positive predictors of WTP for all four threats; severity and likelihood were predictors for three; level of understanding was a significant predictor for two.     

人称指示在汉语、英语中的语用对比分析

本文通过对英语、汉语中的人称指示语在语用上的差异特征进行了对比分析,揭示了指示语在语用上的复杂性。     

浅析库利"意象"论对歌唱学习的影响

歌唱学习者成长的道路问题是一个认知能力的把握问题,这种认知能力把握水平的高低决定了他们的定位。在歌唱学习过程中合理把握自我知觉与群体评价的和谐关系,全面参照现实形象与角色形象,保持同一性,度衡自尊性,是自我意象在当前的歌唱学习大潮中所衍生的重要要求,更是歌唱学习健康发展的必要保障。     

当代家族小说的性别审视

在家族小说创作中,当代作家以现代意识与人道同情表现出对女性命运与妇女解放问题关注的热情,但由于受到男权社会文化传统与性别立场的影响,他们对女性不幸命运的同情之中又存在着性别上的隔膜,无论是对女性躯体的描写,男女两性关系模式的建构,叙述者与人物的性别话语,还是在性际关系价值评判中的厚此薄彼,都从不同的侧面流露出作家男权意识的传统积淀,都是男性对女性一厢情愿的想象性书写。     

《历代微型小说选》词语札记

导致古代文学作品译注“望文生训”的原因之一,是在选择与确定词的语义时脱离了交际的语言环境,所以,《列异传》中的“生人气”、“略无”和《列女传》中的“便利”不应是“陌生人的气息”、“略微没有”和“方便”之义,而应该是“活人的气息”、“全无”和“有利可图”之义。     

腐败的主观测评方法——以腐败感知指数为例

腐败测评是反腐败研究的重要组成部分,中国的腐败测评体系亟待发展。腐败测评有主观测评法和客观测评法两种研究思路。从统计机理和统计应用情况看,腐败的主观测评方法处于腐败测评研究的主流地位。本文介绍了腐败主观测评方法的基本思路、研究进展,并以腐败感知指数为例对其理论与应用情况进行了说明。     

Efficacy,Action, and Support for Reducing Climate Change Risks

A growing body of research demonstrates that believing action to reduce the risks of climate change is both possible (self‐efficacy) and effective (response efficacy) is essential to motivate and sustain risk mitigation efforts. Despite this potentially critical role of efficacy beliefs, measures and their use vary wildly in climate change risk perception and communication research, making it hard to compare and learn from efficacy studies. To address this problem and advance our understanding of efficacy beliefs, this article makes three contributions. First, we present a theoretically motivated approach to measuring climate change mitigation efficacy, in light of diverse proposed, perceived, and previously researched strategies. Second, we test this in two national survey samples (Amazon's Mechanical Turk N = 405, GfK Knowledge Panel N = 1,820), demonstrating largely coherent beliefs by level of action and discrimination between types of efficacy. Four additive efficacy scales emerge: personal self‐efficacy, personal response efficacy, government and collective self‐efficacy, and government and collective response efficacy. Third, we employ the resulting efficacy scales in mediation models to test how well efficacy beliefs predict climate change policy support, controlling for specific knowledge, risk perceptions, and ideology, and allowing for mediation by concern. Concern fully mediates the relatively strong effects of perceived risk on policy support, but only partly mediates efficacy beliefs. Stronger government and collective response efficacy beliefs and personal self‐efficacy beliefs are both directly and indirectly associated with greater support for reducing the risks of climate change, even after controlling for ideology and causal beliefs about climate change.