Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of boxes
- List of figures
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 A psychological framework for analysing risk
- 2 Hazard perception
- 3 Individual and group differences in risk perception
- 4 Decision-making about risks
- 5 Risk and emotion
- 6 Risk communication
- 7 Errors, accidents and emergencies
- 8 Risk and complex organisations
- 9 Social amplification and social representations of risk
- 10 Changing risk responses
- References
- Index
5 - Risk and emotion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 December 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of boxes
- List of figures
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 A psychological framework for analysing risk
- 2 Hazard perception
- 3 Individual and group differences in risk perception
- 4 Decision-making about risks
- 5 Risk and emotion
- 6 Risk communication
- 7 Errors, accidents and emergencies
- 8 Risk and complex organisations
- 9 Social amplification and social representations of risk
- 10 Changing risk responses
- References
- Index
Summary
Chapter preview
This chapter examines the role of emotions in risk perception and decision-making. The traditional dominance of cognitive models in explaining risk estimates and risk-taking is challenged. Instead, the possibility that there are dual processes at work is explored – one of which is embedded in an intuitive, experiential, affective base, while the other is embedded in formal propositional information processing. This proposition has led to research on the affect heuristic. The affect heuristic states that representations of objects and events are tagged to varying degrees with affect, and people refer to this when they make risk judgements. In addition, the evidence that the emotional state of the individual directly influences risk perceptions and actions is examined. The role of worry in risk estimations and the significance of the ‘worried well’ is described. Anticipated regret is also shown to have an impact in risk decisions. The relationship of fear, anger and outrage with risk judgements is considered. The way terror and panic may operate with regard to behaviour in disasters is outlined. It is concluded that an analysis of risk perception and decision-making that fails to consider the affect attached to a hazard or the emotional state of the individual is inevitably flawed. It is not appropriate to talk about the global primacy of either cognitive or affective components in the determination of risk reactions. A model of risk appreciation that incorporates both streams of influence and which details how they interact is necessary – if not yet available.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Psychology of Risk , pp. 109 - 129Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007