The taxonomy of risky activities and technologies: Revisiting the 1978 psychological dimensions of perceptions of technological risks.

Abstract

The objective of this study is to replicate the original study by Fischhoff et al. (1978) and its replication by Fox-Glassman and Weber (2016) and to examine whether risk perceptions for the previously studied activities and technologies have changed over the past 40 years, especially when activities/technologies related to contemporary concerns are included. To achieve this goal, the list of activities/technologies has been modified. To facilitate the analysis of individual data, all participants were asked to rate the benefits and risks of 24 activities. The within-participant approach was also used to achieve the second objective of our study: to analyze the relationship between perceived benefits and risks. In summary, the design of this study differed from previous studies in the following ways: (1) Nine activities/technologies were added related to contemporary concerns such as global warming and fake news on the Internet; (2) all participants rated both benefits and risks; (3) data were collected online (as in the 2016 study); (4) the study was conducted by Prolific with a sample size large enough to detect medium-size effects (n = 382). The two-factor structure proposed by Fischhoff et al.-unknown risk and dread risk-was confirmed on aggregated data for the new set of hazards, which included novel hazards. At the level of individual data, modest support for this structure was observed, and a very strong inverse relationship between perceived benefits and risks was observed.