This is an ambitious proposal to investigate new approaches to analyzing and interpreting data on risk perception. Fifteen years of empirical research on perceptions of risk have led to a number of useful insights and conclusions. However, most of this research has used a rather narrow set of analytic methods for data analysis. This project proposes to apply powerful but rarely used analytic methods to five existing sets of data on perceived risk. Such analyses should provide new insights into individual differences in risk perception, changes in perceptions over time, and taxonomic representations of hazards and perceptions. In addition, explicit theories of risk perception will be developed and tested with these new methods. The principal investigators are recognized leaders in the field of risk perception and risk communication. They have been highly productive in their past research efforts and are ideally situated to conduct the proposed research. The approach is technically sound with a high potential for contributing both to risk analysis and to behavioral decision theory.
