Anthony Leiserowitz: Climate and Risk Perception
August 17, 2009 05:21AM
From "Climate Change Risk Perception and Policy Preferences: The Role of Affect, Imagery, and Values," (pdf) a 2006 study by Anthony Leiserowitz:
Americans paradoxically seem concerned about global warming, yet view it as less important than nearly all other national or environmental issues. What explains this paradox? ...
[A] critical finding of recent research on risk perception is that public perceptions are influenced not only by scientific and technical descriptions of danger, but also by a variety of psychological and social factors, including personal experience, affect and emotion, imagery, trust, values and worldviews – dimensions of risk perception that are rarely examined by opinion polls (Slovic, 2000). ...
Environmental scientists, decision makers and risk communicators are increasingly aware, however, that simply providing more detailed and accurate information, while important, is not sufficient to generate appropriate public concern for some risks or to allay public fears about others. ...This study thus found that there is both individual and social psychology at work in public risk perceptions and policy preferences regarding global climate change. ...
[R]isks are not perceived, assessed and responded to in a socio-cultural vacuum by atomized, purely utility-maximizing individuals. Global warming and the policies proposed to mitigate or adapt to it occur within a rich and complex sociopolitical context, in which groups of individuals are socio-politically predisposed to select, ignore and interpret risk information in different ways. Risk perceptions are thus socially constructed, with different groups predisposed to attend to, fear and socially amplify some risks, while ignoring, discounting or attenuating others. ...[E]fforts to describe the potential national, regional and local impacts of climate change and communicate these potential impacts to the public are critical (e.g,. see National Assessment Synthesis Team, 2001). ...
[T]his research demonstrates that messages about climate change need to be tailored to the needs and predispositions of particular audiences; in some cases to directly challenge fundamental misconceptions, in others to resonate with strongly held values.
Update, See also:
The 2008 Six Americas survey, on which Leiserowitz was lead author.
Kari Marie Norgaard: Cognitive and Behavioral Challenges.
Tom Crompton: Working on Bigger-Than-Self Problems.
