The amplification of risk in experimental diffusion chains
The amplification of risk in experimental diffusion chains
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.1421883112
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发表时间：
2015-05-05
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Gaissmaier, Wolfgang
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Moussaid, Mehdi;Brighton, Henry;Gaissmaier, Wolfgang
了解人们如何形成和修改他们对风险的看法是设计有效的风险沟通方法，引发风险意识，避免公众不必要的焦虑的核心。然而，公众对气候变化、传染病爆发和恐怖主义威胁等危险事件的反应是复杂和难以预测的现象。虽然许多心理因素影响的风险认知已经确定在过去，它仍然不清楚如何风险的看法变化时，从一个人传播到另一个人，什么影响的反复社会传播的风险感知在人口规模。在这里，我们通过分析详细介绍有争议的抗菌剂的益处和危害的信息在10名受试者的实验扩散链中从一个人传递到下一个人时如何发生变化，来研究风险认知的社会动态。我们的分析表明，当消息通过扩散链传播时，它们往往会变得更短，逐渐不准确，并且链之间的差异越来越大。相反，由于参与者操纵消息以符合他们的先入之见，因此对风险的感知以更高的保真度传播，从而影响后续参与者的判断。实现这种简单影响机制的计算机模拟表明，即使注入的信息与预先设想的风险判断相矛盾，小的判断偏差也会变得更加极端。我们的研究结果为风险感知的社会放大提供了定量见解，并可以帮助政策制定者更好地预测和管理公众对新兴威胁的反应。
Understanding how people form and revise their perception of risk is central to designing efficient risk communication methods, eliciting risk awareness, and avoiding unnecessary anxiety among the public. However, public responses to hazardous events such as climate change, contagious outbreaks, and terrorist threats are complex and difficult-to-anticipate phenomena. Although many psychological factors influencing risk perception have been identified in the past, it remains unclear how perceptions of risk change when propagated from one person to another and what impact the repeated social transmission of perceived risk has at the population scale. Here, we study the social dynamics of risk perception by analyzing how messages detailing the benefits and harms of a controversial antibacterial agent undergo change when passed from one person to the next in 10-subject experimental diffusion chains. Our analyses show that when messages are propagated through the diffusion chains, they tend to become shorter, gradually inaccurate, and increasingly dissimilar between chains. In contrast., the perception of risk is propagated with higher fidelity due to participants manipulating messages to fit their preconceptions, thereby influencing the judgments of subsequent participants. Computer simulations implementing this simple influence mechanism show that small judgment biases tend to become more extreme, even when the injected message contradicts preconceived risk judgments. Our results provide quantitative insights into the social amplification of risk perception, and can help policy makers better anticipate and manage the public response to emerging threats.