Risk Perception in Community Context: A Case Study

Abstract

This chapter takes a holistic, contextual, and community-based approach to understanding social construction of risks. Our research utilizes community settings as arenas in which actual localized risks are perceived and addressed. The case study approach enables us to examine the dynamics of risk perception, concentrating on overt expressions and reactions over time, rather than on individual perceptions at a single point in time. This naturalistic in situ approach reveals factors influencing risk perception that may be obscured in studies in which individual respondents are asked to rank hypothetical risks without regard for the complicating factors and actual consequences that exist in ongoing community life (see, for contrast, the psychometric research of Slovic et al. 1980, 1984).  The central thesis in this chapter is that risk perception is a complex and dynamic process that is influenced by the local context in which the risk is embeddded and by the manner in which the risk is addressed.