Sociopolitical Determinants of Perceived Risk

许多研究发现，在广泛的危险中，女性的感知风险水平高于男性。对这一发现提出了许多解释，主要集中在生物因素、社会化和对风险的认识上的差异。然而，弗林、斯洛维奇和默茨最近的一项研究发现，男性和女性之间的差异主要是因为白人男性表现出非常低的感知风险水平。在非白人的人群中，男性和女性之间没有差异。此外，非白人对风险的看法与白人女性相似。这些结果和其他发现导致了Flynn等人。假设社会政治因素，如地位、权力、疏离和信任在感知和接受风险方面发挥重要作用。本研究验证了这一假设。研究计划包括开发一种调查工具，旨在评估社会政治结构，如权力、控制、影响、疏远、社会阶层和信任，以及其他预测风险认知的变量(如世界观)。还将获得与种族、性别、年龄、职业和收入有关的人口统计信息。受访者将是不同种族、性别和社会地位的目标群体的成员。将使用标准的多变量分析和结构建模来确定种族和性别对风险认知的影响在多大程度上可以通过调查中测量的社会政治结构来解释。发现社会政治因素在决定对社会风险的感知和接受方面发挥着重要作用，这将对风险沟通和风险管理产生巨大影响。在交流方面，这将表明为什么以翻译和传播技术信息为基础的传统方法收效甚微。任何形式的“框定”信息都不可能克服疏远和不信任。在管理方面，最近的一些提案呼吁更好的技术风险评估和专家监督，以此作为减少冲突和更好的风险管理的关键。然而，由于价值观不相容、普遍的不信任、疏远和其他社会和政治因素造成的冲突不太可能通过技术分析来减少。事实上，试图用更多的科学来解决此类风险争议，很可能会加剧冲突。

Numerous studies have found that the level of perceived risk is higher for women than for men, across a wide range of hazards. Many explanations for this finding have been proposed, focusing upon biological factors, socialization, and differences in knowledge about risk. A recent study by Flynn, Slovic, and Mertz found, however, that the difference between men and women was primarily due to white males, who exhibited very low levels of perceived risk. Among persons who were not white, there was no difference between men and women. Moreover, nonwhite persons held perceptions of risk that were similar to those of white women. These results and other findings lead Flynn et al. to hypothesize that sociopolitical factors such as status, power, alienation, and trust play a major role in perception and acceptance of risks. The present research tests this hypothesis. The research plan includes the development of a survey instrument designed to assess sociopolitical constructs such as power, control, influence, alienation, social class, and trust, along with other variables predictive of risk perceptions (such as worldviews). Demographic information pertaining to race, gender, age, occupation and income will also be obtained. Respondents will be members of targeted groups varying on race, gender, and social status. Standard multivariate analyses and structural modeling will be used to determine the extent to which the effects of race and gender on risk perception can be explained by the sociopolitical constructs measured in the survey. Finding that sociopolitical factors play a major role in determining perception and acceptance of societal risk would have enormous implications for risk communication and risk management. On the communication side, it would indicate why traditional approaches based on translating and disseminating technical information have had so little success. No form of message `framing` is likely to overcome alienation and distrust. On the management side, a number of recent proposals have called for better technical risk assessment and expert oversight as the key to conflict reduction and better risk management. However, conflicts due to incompatible values, pervasive distrust, alienation, and other social and political factors would be unlikely to be reduced by technical analysis. Trying to address such risk controversies with more science, in fact, would be likely to exacerbate conflict.