Book chapter
Risk Perception and the Perceived Public
The Social Response to Environmental Risk, pp.57-74
Recent Economic Thought Series, v. 24, Kluwer Academic Publishers
1992
DOI: 10.1007/978-94-011-2954-1_3
Abstract
The popular press has a fondness for stories about the risks of life. Death and destruction, pollution and pestilence, murder and mayhem: the more the merrier. So it has always been. Recently, however, reporters have uncovered a new kind of threat. According to numerous psychological experiments, it now seems likely that lay people do not understand statistics well enough to make intelligent use of all this information about death and destruction, pollution and pestilence, murder and mayhem. As a writer for the Saturday Evening Post recently summed matters up, “when it comes to risk, we are idiots” (Bryson, 1988, p. 31).
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Risk Perception and the Perceived Public
- Creators
- Lola L. Lopes - University of Iowa
- Contributors
- Daniel W. Bromley (Editor)Kathleen Segerson (Editor)
- Resource Type
- Book chapter
- Publication Details
- The Social Response to Environmental Risk, pp.57-74
- Series
- Recent Economic Thought Series; v. 24
- DOI
- 10.1007/978-94-011-2954-1_3
- ISSN
- 0924-199X
- Publisher
- Kluwer Academic Publishers; Boston
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 1992
- Academic Unit
- Management and Entrepreneurship ; Psychological and Brain Sciences
- Record Identifier
- 9984963189302771
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