Risk and Responsibility
When a risk materializes, it is common to ask the question: who is responsible for the risk being taken? Despite this intimate connection between risk and responsibility, remarkably little has been written on the exact relation between the notions of risk
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The Role of Feelings in Perceived Risk Melissa L. Finucane
Abstract This chapter provides an overview of key conceptualizations of and evidence for the role of feelings in perceived risk. Influence from feelings in judgment and decision making was first recognized nearly three decades ago. More recent work has developed models that generalize the mechanisms by which feelings operate. Feelings may play multiple roles in judgment and decision processes, including providing information, enabling rapid information processing, directing attention to relevant aspects of the problem, facilitating abstract thought and communication, and helping people to determine social meaning and to act morally. Feelings may be anticipated or experienced immediately and either integral (attached) to mental representations of the decision problem or incidental (unrelated), arising from moods or metacognitive processes. A rich repertoire of psychological concepts related to risk, such as appraisal and memory, can be used to help explain the mechanisms by which affect and analysis might combine in judgment and decision making. Phenomena such as psychophysical numbing, probability neglect, scope insensitivity, and the misattribution of incidental affect all provide empirical support, albeit fragmented, for the important influence of feelings. Future research needs to utilize multiple dependent variables and methodological approaches to provide convergent evidence for and development of more sophisticated descriptive and predictive models. An additional direction for future research is to develop tools that help risk communicators and risk mangers to address complex, multidimensional risk problems.
M. L. Finucane (&) East–West Center, Honolulu, HI, USA e-mail: [email protected]
S. Roeser et al. (eds.), Essentials of Risk Theory, SpringerBriefs in Philosophy, DOI: 10.1007/978-94-007-5455-3_3, Ó The Author(s) 2013
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M. L. Finucane
Introduction The study of the role of feelings in risk judgments began with a focus on regret and disappointment theories within an economic framework (Bell 1982; Loomes and Sugden 1982) and experimental manipulations of mood (Johnson and Tversky 1983; Isen and Geva 1987). Nearly three decades later, researchers have amassed considerable evidence recognizing the importance of feelings in shaping risk perceptions. Numerous approaches have been used to capture and explicate feelings-based processes in a wide variety of domains. Research has moved on from establishing that feelings play a role, to developing models that generalize the mechanisms by which risk perceptions are influenced (Pham 2007; Slovic 2010). This chapter provides an overview of key conceptualizations of and evidence for the role of feelings in risk judgments. An intentionally wide-ranging use of the term ‘‘feelings’’ is employed to include studies of affect, emotion, and mood, reflecting the diverse theories and methods that comprise this field of research.
Conceptualizations Dual-Process Theories: Recognizing Reliance
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