Integrating Risk Perception Measures, Antecedents, and Outcomes

风险感知从一开始就是风险分析的核心，但我们如何定义和测量“风险感知”会极大地影响学者们对其来源或结果的把握。不幸的是，在多个领域内和跨多个领域(例如，健康行为)，风险感知措施的使用一直是不系统的。引人注目的是，四个关键主题--如何衡量风险认知；风险认知如何塑造行为意图和政策支持等结果；以及风险认知的来源--通常被单独研究，尽管它们之间存在明显的相互影响：例如，风险认知是否以及如何受到其他变量的影响，可能取决于它们的衡量方式。关于这些主题的大多数定量研究都使用了横断面调查设计，不足以检验大多数关键假设。纵向面板设计能更好地测试时间变化，但即使在很少使用的情况下，人们也会更多地关注观察到的关联迹象，而不是它的大小或标志是否随着时间的推移而变化。我们也对这些关联是否或如何在各种危险中变化知之甚少。通过更系统地评估多个感知指标、风险和时间之间的关联，关于异同的发现可以改进风险沟通和风险管理工作。这些改进将减少对人类的伤害和他们所重视的东西。这项拟议的研究使用了焦点小组和具有美国全国代表性的横断面和纵向小组调查。首次系统地尝试同时对风险感知措施、前置因素和结果(行为意图、政策支持)进行建模，为整合这四个相关主题和多个学术学科中的一个领域提供了机会。这一努力旨在提供一个基础，可以扩展到特定领域和主题领域，并可能扩展到本研究项目中产生的美国数据以外的其他社会。新的知识是关于风险感知模式在多大程度上概括人类和情况。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Risk perception has been central to risk analysis since it began, but how we define and measure “risk perception” can greatly affect scholars’ grasp of its sources or outcomes. Unfortunately, use of risk perception measures has been unsystematic, within and across multiple fields (e.g., health behavior). Strikingly, four critical topics—how to measure risk perception; how risk perception shapes outcomes such as behavioral intentions and policy support; and sources of risk perceptions—usually are studied separately, despite obvious mutual implications: e.g., whether and how risk perceptions are affected by, or affect, other variables might depend on how they are measured. Most quantitative research on these topics has used cross-sectional survey designs, inadequate to test most critical hypotheses. Temporal changes are better tested with longitudinal panel designs, but even when (rarely) used, far more attention is paid to the observed sign of the association than to whether its magnitude or sign varies over time. We also know little about whether or how these associations vary across hazards. By more systematically assessing associations across multiple perception measures, hazards, and time, the findings about similarities and differences can improve risk communication and risk management efforts. These improvements will reduce harms to humans and what they value. The proposed research uses focus groups and U.S. nationally representative cross-sectional and longitudinal panel surveys. This first systematic attempt to simultaneously model risk perception measures, antecedents, and outcomes (behavioral intentions, policy support) offers a chance to integrate a field splintered across these four related topics and multiple scholarly disciplines. This effort aims to provide a foundation that can be extended to both specific fields and topic areas, and potentially to other societies beyond the U.S. data generated in this research project. The new knowledge is about the degree to which risk perception patterns generalize across humans and situations.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.