Paul Slovic's research from 1999 on "Trust, Emotion, Sex, Politics, and Science: Surveying the Risk-Assessment Battlefield," reveals the many different interpretations of risk. Primarily, Slovic's argument revolves around how the public identifies risk - which is broader in nature, concerning mostly "uncertainty, dread, catastrophic potential, controllability..." - whereas the experts perceive risk as the probability of harm or death. In order to understand how people form their judgment about risk, Slovic notes that research points toward five primary causes: sex, emotions, trust, politics, and science to find the answers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sex: Who finds risk to be more problematic than not? Research says women typically perceive risk as more serious than men. It should be noted that the research present in this article is from 1999, so some speculations are not as widely accepted today as they may have been in the past. Nevertheless, Slovic says possible explanations for these results could be, in part, due to a women's ability to conceive, in which some say is the reason women are more passionate about maintaining life than men. Additionally, Slovic notes that society's perception of women as being weak  and intellectually inferior compared to men could also impact their increased perception of risk. The research concludes that women have more to fear because of their sex, therefore, their perception of risk is higher.

 

This conclusion was further supported after studying the group of men who found risk to be of lowest concern: white, highly educated, financially secure, conservative men. From this information, researchers observed that because these individuals have less to fear, due to their political, social, and economic security, their views of risk were far less extreme than those of women or minorities, the predominate groups of individuals who typically do not benefit from all new technology, laws, and economic change and activity.

 

Politics: When defining the term politics, Slovic predominately is referring to one's world views. Specifically, he is referring to world views about risk. For example, feeling as though you have little control over risk, or believing decisions of risk should be left in the hands of experts. He categorizes these feelings into popular world views about risk - naming fatalism, hierarchy, individualism, egalitarianism, and technological enthusiasm - and analyzes how individuals with these world views feel about nuclear power. From this analysis, he found that those who believe that if there is equality for all people, fewer problems will arise did not support nuclear power. Other worldviews like those who feel out of control in regard to risk, individualistic, and that risk should be determined by experts supported the use of nuclear power.

Emotions: Emotions are a guiding figure in how we process actions, memories, and information. Specifically the emotion of "affect" is used to help evaluate good or bad feelings toward an "external stimulus." One feels the emotion first toward a particular subject and assumes the amount of risk in relation to their feelings about the subject. The correlation between affect and risk perception is an inverse one: as more positive benefits are felt about a subject, the less risk is perceived. Likewise, the more negative consequences are felt about a subject, the more risk is perceived.

 

Trust: One of the most basic reasons for why the public and scientists differ in their definition of risk is because of trust. More often than not, the public does not trust scientific risk assessment. Most of this mistrust arises from basic human physiology. Most notably, negative events are often more noticeable than positive ones, and when the negative events are noticed, they carry more weight than positive events. Furthermore, negative events or news is often seen as "more credible" than positive news or events. It is for this reason that individuals don't usually believe animal testing helps inform humans about possible diseases or cures unless the tests explain possible illness or diseases like cancer. Once the negative news or event is confirmed it is only more easily reinforced.

 

Science: According to Justice Steven Breyer, the scientific reason - in addition to the scientific reasoning illustrated from psychology about trust - is because there is a lack of mathematical understanding. In order to solve this problem, there has been pressure on congress to require major regulations to be "justified" by risk assessment. This would then back risk with "sound science." However, as the previous data has illustrated, obtaining "sound science" about risk is impossible as risk is determined by emotions, world views, trust, and biological factors.

Slovic mentions that "to address risk controversies primarily with more science is, in fact, likely to exacerbate conflict."

Overall, this article explains that defining risk is purely a subjective task. Whoever is defining risk is working to obtain a certain amount of power in a situation. Those in politics who say risk is being observed and controlled by the government is a concrete example. This purpose of this article was to articulate that risk is not a black and white concept. Instead, there are many ways to interpret risk and we should be understanding of all factors.

 

References

Slovic, P. (1999). "Trust, Emotion, Sex, Politics, and Science: Surveying theRisk-Assessment Battlefield." Risk Analysis, 19(4), 689-701.