Perceived risk and tampering with nature

It is proposed that risk perception is partly driven by notions of what is seen as unnatural and immoral activities of modern technology, e.g. nuclear technology. The dimension of tampering with nature is found, in two large-scale survey studies of the general public and, in one case, of politicians involved in the environmental field, to be an important predictor of perceived risk. In one study, the perceived risk of nuclear waste was investigated, and in the other the perceived risk of a potential nuclear disaster of the Chernobyl kind. It was found that tampering with nature was a much stronger predictor of perceived risk than the traditional psychometric model dimensions, and that it absorbed most or all of the predictive power of these dimensions when entered in a common regression equation. Policy implications of these findings are discussed.

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