Integrating Risk Perception Measures, Antecedents, and Outcomes

风险认知自产生以来就一直是风险分析的核心，但如何定义和衡量“风险认知”会极大地影响学者对风险认知来源或结果的把握。不幸的是，在多个领域内和跨多个领域（例如，健康行为）。引人注目的是，四个关键主题-如何衡量风险感知;风险感知如何塑造行为意图和政策支持等结果;以及风险感知的来源-通常被单独研究，尽管明显的相互影响：例如，风险认知是否以及如何受到其他变量的影响，或影响其他变量，可能取决于如何衡量这些变量。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。时间变化更好地测试与纵向面板设计，但即使（很少）使用，更关注的是观察到的迹象的关联，而不是其幅度或符号是否随时间变化。我们也不知道这些关联是否或如何在危险中变化。通过更系统地评估多个感知指标、危险和时间之间的关联，关于相似性和差异性的发现可以改善风险沟通和风险管理工作。这些改进将减少对人类及其价值的伤害。拟议的研究使用焦点小组和美国全国代表性的横截面和纵向面板调查。这是第一次系统地尝试同时模拟风险感知措施，前因和结果（行为意图，政策支持）提供了一个机会，整合分散在这四个相关主题和多个学科领域。这项工作旨在提供一个基础，可以扩展到特定领域和主题领域，并可能扩展到美国以外的其他社会。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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.