Cultural Cognition as a Conception of the Cultural Theory of Risk

Cultural cognition refers to the tendency of individuals to form beliefs about societal dangers that reflect and reinforce their commitments to particular visions of the ideal society. Cultural cognition is one of a variety of approaches designed to empirically test the cultural theory of risk associated with Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky. This commentary discusses the distinctive features of cultural cognition as a conception of cultural theory, including its cultural worldview measures; its emphasis on social psychological mechanisms that connect individuals' risk perceptions to their cultural outlooks; and its practical goal of enabling self-conscious management of popular risk perceptions in the interest of promoting scientifically sound public policies that are congenial to persons of diverse outlooks.

[1]  P. Hedström,et al.  Social mechanisms : an analytical approach to social theory , 1999 .

[2]  Carol L. Silva,et al.  The Precautionary Principle in Context: U.S. and E.U. Scientists' Prescriptions for Policy in the Face of Uncertainty* , 2007 .

[3]  Rosemary J. Day,et al.  Public Perceptions of Health Risks from Polluted Coastal Bathing Waters: A Mixed Methodological Analysis Using Cultural Theory , 2000, Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis.

[4]  D. Kahan,et al.  More Statistics, Less Persuasion: A Cultural Theory of Gun-Risk Perceptions , 2003 .

[5]  R. Nisbett.  The geography of thought : how Asians and Westerners think differently--and why , 2003 .

[6]  Karl Dake.  Orienting Dispositions in the Perception of Risk , 1991 .

[7]  Virginie Mamadouh,et al.  Grid-group cultural theory: an introduction , 1999 .

[8]  James Grimmelmann,et al.  Modeling Facts, Culture, and Cognition in the Gun Debate , 2005 .

[9]  Lennart Sjöberg,et al.  Explaining risk perception: an empirical evaluation of cultural theory , 1997 .

[10]  M. Douglas,et al.  Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology. , 1970 .

[11]  L. Steg,et al.  Cultural Theory and Individual Perceptions of Environmental Risks , 2000 .

[12]  K. G. Herron,et al.  Rock and a Hard Place: Public Willingness to Trade Civil Rights and Liberties for Greater Security , 2009 .

[13]  S. Lohmann,et al.  Clumsy solutions for a complex world : the case of climate change , 2006 .

[14]  R. J. Bord,et al.  Rating Threat Mitigators: Faith in Experts, Governments, and Individuals Themselves to Create a Safer World , 1998, Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis.

[15]  Geoffrey L. Cohen,et al.  Party over policy: The dominating impact of group influence on political beliefs. , 2003, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[16]  L. Ross,et al.  Biased Assimilation and Attitude Polarization: The Effects of Prior Theories on Subsequently Considered Evidence , 1979 .

[17]  M. Douglas,et al.  Risk and culture : an essay on the selection of technical and environmental dangers , 1983 .

[18]  M. Thompson,et al.  Clumsy Solutions for a Complex World: Governance, Politics and Plural Perceptions , 2006 .

[19]  R. Ellis,et al.  Culture and the Environment in the Pacific Northwest , 1997, American Political Science Review.

[20]  C. K. Mertz,et al.  Culture and Identity-Protective Cognition: Explaining the White Male Effect in Risk Perception , 2007 .

[21]  Lennart Sjöberg,et al.  World Views, Political Attitudes and Risk Perception , 1998 .

[22]  Steve Rayner,et al.  Cultural theory and risk analysis , 1992 .

[23]  Paul Slovic,et al.  The Second National Risk and Culture Study: Making Sense of - and Making Progress In - The American Culture War of Fact , 2007 .

[24]  Karl Dake.  Myths of Nature: Culture and the Social Construction of Risk , 1992 .

[25]  S. Chaiken,et al.  Selective Use of Heunrstic and Systematic Processing Under Defense Motivation , 1997 .

[26]  S. Krimsky,et al.  Social Theories of Risk , 1992 .

[27]  I H Langford,et al.  A Quantitative Test of the Cultural Theory of Risk Perceptions: Comparison with the Psychometric Paradigm , 1998, Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis.

[28]  P. Slovic.  Perception of risk. , 1987, Science.

[29]  Claude M. Steele,et al.  When Beliefs Yield to Evidence: Reducing Biased Evaluation by Affirming the Self , 2000 .

[30]  Ian H. Langford,et al.  A Quantitative Test of the Cultural Theory of Risk Perceptions: Comparison with the Psychometric Paradigm , 1998 .

[31]  J. Elster.  Making Sense of Marx , 1986 .

[32]  Daniel Kahneman,et al.  Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability , 1973 .

[33]  M. Woodbury,et al.  The Use of Grade-of-Membership Techniques to Estimate Regression Relationships , 1992 .

[34]  S. West,et al.  Multiple Regression: Testing and Interpreting Interactions. , 1994 .

[35]  P. Slovic,et al.  The Role of Affect and Worldviews as Orienting Dispositions in the Perception and Acceptance of Nuclear Power1 , 1996 .

[36]  D. Kahan,et al.  Caught in the Crossfire: A Defense of the Cultural Theory of Gun-Risk Perceptions , 2003 .

[37]  M. Douglas.  Risk and Blame: Essays in Cultural Theory , 1994 .

[38]  Ragnar E. Löfstedt,et al.  The Earthscan Reader in Risk and Modern Society , 1998 .

[39]  M. Douglas,et al.  Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. , 1967 .

[40]  Duane M. Oldfield.  The rise of radical egalitarianism , 1991 .

[41]  A. Tversky,et al.  Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases , 1974, Science.

[42]  M. Douglas,et al.  In the Active Voice , 1982 .

[43]  Jonathan L. Gross,et al.  Measuring Culture: A Paradigm for the Analysis of Social Organization , 1986 .

[44]  Paul Slovic,et al.  Who Fears the HPV Vaccine, Who Doesn’t, and Why? An Experimental Study of the Mechanisms of Cultural Cognition , 2010, Law and human behavior.

[45]  C. K. Mertz,et al.  Gender, race, and perceived risk: The 'white male' effect , 2000 .

[46]  Geoffrey L. Cohen,et al.  Cultural cognition of the risks and benefits of nanotechnology. , 2009, Nature nanotechnology.

[47]  M. Douglas.  Risk Acceptability According to the Social Sciences , 1986 .

[48]  D. Kahan.  The Cognitively Illiberal State , 2007 .

[49]  Lillian Hsu,et al.  Bridging the partisan divide: Self-affirmation reduces ideological closed-mindedness and inflexibility in negotiation. , 2007, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[50]  M. Douglas,et al.  Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. , 1967 .

[51]  R. Ellis.  Culture Matters: Essays In Honor Of Aaron Wildavsky , 1997 .

[52]  E. Peters,et al.  Cultural Cognition and Public Policy: The Case of Outpatient Commitment Laws , 2010, Law and human behavior.

[53]  R. Boudon,et al.  Social Mechanisms: Social mechanisms without black boxes , 1998 .

[54]  M. Douglas.  How Institutions Think , 1986 .

[55]  C. Judd.  Everyday data analysis in social psychology: Comparisons of linear models. , 2000 .

[56]  M. Douglas.  Being Fair to Hierarchists , 2003 .