Worry and Risk Perception

TLDR

Risk perception is often assessed via worry judgments or direct risk ratings, but these constructs differ and are not strongly correlated. The study proposes distinguishing cognitive abstract hazards from concrete sensory hazards to explain the relationship between worry and perceived risk. Results show a weak correlation between perceived risk and worry, and cluster analysis identified groups with distinct risk–worry dynamics.

Abstract

Risk perception is sometimes measured by means of judgments about worry, sometimes as perceived risk more directly. However, perceived level of risk calls for a more intellectual judgment and worry tends to refer to emotional reactions. These two are therefore not the same and need not be strongly correlated. Results reported here show that perceived risk and worry are indeed weakly correlated, both for generalized worry and for more specific measures of worry matched with the same hazard as risk ratings. A distinction is suggested between cognitive, abstract hazards and concrete, sensory hazards, with implications for the worry‐perceived risk relationship. It was furthermore found by means of cluster analysis that there were groups of subject displaying different dynamics of risk and worry.