The current financial challenges in the United States represent a unique opportunity to study public risk perception and risk-related behaviors in the midst of an on-going economic crisis that threatens the quality of life of a wide spectrum of Americans. Few emergencies within the U.S. have affected so many people. The current situation is a rich opportunity because it is occurring real-time, and is highly dynamic, involving many players and sectors of our economy. As a result, it allows a chance to compare financial threats with other disasters such as terrorism. The public?s perceptions and risk-related behaviors seem likely to change over time in response to media coverage and government and private sector actions.
The study will examine how people perceive and react to this crisis, what information they are attending to, whom they trust (or do not trust), and how this crisis is affecting future plans. One of the historical and central challenges of risk perception research has been the difficulty of examining how people?s attitudes and behavior in real-time emergencies change over time. The closest approximation is usually a series of cross-sectional surveys over time conducted by national polling organizations. This project will track a panel of respondents during this crisis at regular intervals and over a period of months. Theoretical links will be made between risk perception, social amplification of risk, the affect heuristic and numeracy.
The planned study investigates perceived threats from the financial crisis to jobs, savings, investments, retirement, future opportunities and quality of life. It also examines issues of trust, perceived control and predictability of the crisis?s consequences and emotions such as fear, anger, worry and sadness. Additionally, the questionnaire addresses reported behaviors people have taken, are taking, or plan to take in response to what they are learning from a variety of information sources. The study will examine the time people are devoting to acquire information about the crisis, and from what sources. Other phenomena will also be followed during this period such as the stock market, housing markets, media coverage, and pivotal events (e.g. rescue plan, presidential debates, major bank failures) to look for possible correlations of event occurrences with changes in public perceptions and behavior.
Business leaders, financial advisors, and administrators stand to directly benefit from a better understanding of the effects of their policies and practices. Researchers in areas such as risk assessment, risk communication, and risk perception will find the analysis of social amplification of risk, the affect heuristic and numeracy useful for their own investigations.
