PSY2001 S2 W8 Risk perception Flashcards

Question

What is coping appraisal ?

Answer 1

considers the adaptive/protective behaviour Response efficacy (of the health behaviour for dealing with the threat) self-efficacy or confidence for beign able to engage in the behaviour response costs of the adaptive behaviour

Answer 2

Threat and coping appraisals interact to influence motivation for the protective behaviour. E.g. If people believe they can cope with the protective behaviour, then the greater the perceived threat, the greater their intentions for the protective behaviour. However, if people don’t believe they can cope, increases in perceived threat, decreases intentions for the protective behaviour

Answer 3

In line with PMT: + Increases in threat severity (d=0.48), threat vulnerability (d=0.21) of the risky behaviour, and o Increases in response efficacy (d=0.55), and self-efficacy (d=0.45) of the protective behaviour + Increased adaptive intentions or behaviors o Increases in risky behaviour rewards (d=0.52) and protective behaviour response costs (d=1.05) - decreased adaptive intentions or behaviors In general, coping variables showed slightly stronger relations with the adaptive behaviors than did the threat variables

Answer 4

Randomised controlled trial to test the effect of a PMT intervention on improving cervical screening attendance Questionnaire including PMT constructs and demographic variables. Experimental group:educational intervention based on PMT: 6 sessions covering topics such as epidemiology, signs and symptoms, risk factors, importance of early detection via cervical screening Results: Intervention had significant effects on the experimental groups’ PMT construct scores. Cervical screening attendance and health center enquiries about screening were significantly increased after 3 months in the experimental

Answer 5

Studies measure intentions rather tha behaviour. Measurement of intentions is often vague with no time frame. (People with more perceived vulnerability may intend to change their behaviour earlier than others) When behaviour is assessed, self-report measures are often used (social desirability and recall bias) Measurements of PMT constructs are often not validated/reliable (Norman et al. 2005)

Answer 6

Could be because threat appraisals are better predictors of behaviours intended to reduce specific health threats e.g., getting vaccinated. But less for behaviours that have a variety of health, social and economic consequences e.g. exercise, diet. Supported by Brewer et al. (2007) correlation between perceived vulnerability & vaccination intentions is stronger than behaviours with wider consequences

Answer 7

tending not to use mediation analyses to test if the impac to fthe intervention is due to change in the PMT constructs Follow up tend to be short

Answer 8

Risk perceptions are important, they affect behaviour, economy etc. But risk perceptions aren’t based on objective stats (e.g. think back to Slovic et al. 1981)

Answer 9

cultural theory Heuristics and biases psychometric paradigm of risk social amplification of risk

Answer 10

Risk perceptions are socially constructed by institutions, cultural values and ways of life (less about personal control). Individuals are expected to form perceptions of risk that reflect and reinforce their commitment to one or another “cultural way of life”. 4 ‘ways of life’ across the dimensions: Group and Grid o Fatalism, Hierarchy, Individualism and Egalitarianism

Answer 11

view life should be oranised through role differentiation based on sex, ethnicity, wealth

Answer 12

view life as a sense of community peopld depend on eac other

Answer 13

view life as competitive, people fend for themselves

Answer 14

view life should be equal where anyone can participate in any social role

Answer 15

feel regulated by social groups they do not belong to indifferent about risk -weak group +strong grid

Answer 16

fear things that obstruct their individual freedom -weak group +week grid

Answer 17

fear things that disrupt the natural order of society +strong grid +strong group

Answer 18

fear things tht increase inequalities amongst people +strong group -weak grid

Answer 19

Doesn’t allow for individual rational choice Empirical support based on studies using unreliable and non-validated measures of ‘the ways of life’ Respondents could and do rate high on more than one world view Only explain a small amount of variance in individual perceptions of risk, e.g. studies typically find about 5% of variance in risk judgments are explained by cultural theory measures

Answer 20

Cross-sectional telephone survey Measured associations between 3 ways of life (Hierarchy, Individualism, Egalitarianism) and societal risk concerns. Results: Hierarchy and individualism are related to concerns about social deviance and war, but individualism more concerned about market issues Egalitarianism is related to concerns about technology, the environment and breakdown of democracy Suggest that each cultural way of life is associated with different risk perceptions

Answer 21

Found that people use heuristics to evaluate informaiton. Especially likely to be used where time is short/self-efficacy for studying the facts is low Provide a way of arriving at a decision about risks where the information is incomplete, unfathomable or bewildering in terms of its possibilities

Answer 22

mental models on which to base judgements of risk Often useful shortcuts for thinking But may lead to inaccurate judgments in some situations>cognitive biases Based on experience

Answer 23

Draws attention to the way that feelings about a risk object are used by individuals to arrive at conclusions about levels of risk and their acceptability. If feelings towards a risk object are positive, there is a tendency to underestimate the potential harm and overestimate the benefits. Altering people’s emotions, often affects how they perceive a risk

Answer 24

Hsee & Kunreuther (2000): What would you pay to insure this clock a. If it was a gift from your grandparents b. If it had no real sentimental value Reuslts: People were willing to pay twice as much for object with sentimental value Yamagishi (1997): What’s worse, a disease that kills… a. 1,286 out of every 10,000 people it affects, b. or one that kills 24.14% of people? Results: People most often chose option a, even though option b has a higher risk of death (12% vs 24%)

Answer 25

Risk perceptions (RP) depend on how easily someone can see the risk as happening. RP based on how easily one can think of an example of a risky situation happening; Direct and indirect suffering explains most of the variance in risk judgements Intro of the mass media causes problems: Rare causes of death tend to be overestimated because they hit the media Common causes of death tend to be underestimated because they don’t

Answer 26

Keller et al. 2006 - PTT askd to imagine that they were planning on buy a house and received some information about probability of flood. Availability heuristic based on direct experience affected risk perceptions: PTT with experience of flooding, rated the riskiness of living in the house much higher than those with no previous experience Facione (2002) - cancer screening behaviour and perceived risk of developing breast cancer. Availability heuristics based on direct or indirect experience influenced risk perceptions: Women with history of benign breast disease, with a female relative with breast cancer, or both overestimated their risk

Answer 27

bad things happen to other people. Risk of my spouse being affected is higher than the risk of me being affected. Optimism bias -> more likely to engage in risky behaviours

Answer 28

Defensive denial – protects from worry Downward comparison – “compared to people really at risk...” Egocentricism – “Ah, but I take precautions!” [and others don’t?]

Answer 29

Dejoy 1989 - College-age drivers compared their risk of being involved in a variety of traffic accidents relative to their peers. Optimism bias: Believed in almost all situations they would be at less risk than other drivers Weinstein et al. (2005) - telephone survey of current smokers, asked about their own risks of cancer vs the risk of the average smoker. Optimism bias: Believed they had a lower risk of developing lung cancer than the average smoker. Perceived risk of cancer did not increase proportionally with the number of cigarettes smoked per day. Agreement with several myths, e.g. that exercise undoes most smoking effects

Answer 30

Suggests risks perceptions are based on a range of dimensions. The aim is to unveil the dimensions that determine risk perceptions in order to create a taxonomy for hazards that can be used to understand and predict estimates of risk. 1- PTT rate ‘riskiness’ of a range of hazards (alcoholic beverages-nuclear power) 2- PTT rate each hazard on a range of dimensions (novelty, severity, knowledge...) Look at correlations between rated riskiness and dimension scores

Answer 31

Change depending on exact paper you look at - not all used in every study. Early studies looked at nine: Voluntary vs involuntary Chronic vs catastrophic Common vs dreaded Certain not fatal vs definitely fatal Known to those exposed vs unknown Immediate effects vs delayed Known to science vs not known to science Not controllable vs controllable New vs old

Answer 32

Factor analysis of dimensions typically identifies two factors: Dread (e.g. lack of control, fatal, risk increasing, involuntary) Unknown (e.g. new, unknown to science/those exposed, effect delayed) Dread: shows strongest correlations with global estimates of risk

Answer 33

UK sample rated 11 old and new food hazards on a total of 12 risk dimensions (e.g newness, severity, immediacy). Results: Principal components analysis identified two main components: ‘dread’ and ‘knowledge’ explained 80.8% of the variance in perceptions

Answer 34

Basic gist of psychometric paradigm replicated many times. Different dimensions matter in different situations, but agreement that Dread and Unknown are important. Factor structure is pretty stable and account for risk perceptions pretty well, studies in the tradition of the psychometric paradigm typically explain 70% or even more of the variance in risk perceptions

Answer 35

Works best on aggregate level data (i.e., comparing different risks among groups). Poorer associations at individual level or for individual risks. Replication of correlations and factors could be due to artefacts in the question wording (they are pretty similar) “Risk” is often targetless – risk to me? to my family? to non-specific others? Different properties, and different dimensions, seem to matter in different studies - Where are the testable predictions?

Answer 36

Brings together previous fragmented theories to better understand how risk information is disseminated and changed through different actions and interactions. Outlines how communications of risk events pass from the sender through intermediate stations to a receiver explaining how risks are amplified or attenuated. SARF states that risk events interact with individual psychological, social and other cultural factors in ways that either increase or decrease public perceptions of risk

Answer 37

investigated effect of increased media reporting about the risk associated with genetically modified food on publice attitudes to the technology 1- survey Feb (98) before media attention to genetic modification peaked 2- survey March (99) when media coverage was at its peak 3- survey July (2000) level of meda attention was subsiding perception of risk associated with genetically modified food increased during the highest levels of media coverage but risk perceptions subsequently reduce as coverage diminished

PSY2001 S2 W8 Risk perception Flashcards

(62 cards)