Psychological Drivers of Individual Differences in Risk Perception: A Systematic Case Study Focusing on 5G

Abstract

What drives people’s perceptions of novel risks, and how malleable are such risk perceptions? Psychological research has identified multiple potential drivers of risk perception, but no studies have yet tested within a unified analytic framework how well each of these drivers accounts for individual differences in large population samples. To provide such a framework, I harnessed the deployment of 5G—the latest generation of cellular network technology. Specifically, I conducted a multiverse analysis using a representative population sample in Switzerland (Study 1; N = 2,919 individuals between 15 and 94 years old), finding that interindividual differences in risk perceptions were strongly associated with hazard-related drivers (e.g., trust in the institutions regulating 5G, dread) and person-specific drivers (e.g., electromagnetic hypersensitivity)—and strongly predictive of people’s policy-related attitudes (e.g., voting intentions). Further, a field experiment based on a national expert report on 5G (N = 839 individuals in a longitudinal sample between 17 and 79 years old) identified links between intraindividual changes in psychological drivers and perceived risk, thus highlighting potential targets for future policy interventions.