Components of Perceived Risk: A Reconciliation of Previous Findings

Abstract

People's perceptions of the risk associated with a product, in large measure, determines the degree of caution they will exhibit with regard to that product. Previous attempts to examine risk and to determine what factors are important in the composition of risk have produced disparate findings. Specifically, some studies have demonstrated that likelihood of injury plays an important role in risk perceptions (e.g., Slovic, Fischhoff & Lichtenstein, 1980), and other research shows that severity of potential injury plays the foremost role (e.g., Wogalter, Desaulniers & Brelsford, 1986; 1987). It was not until risk was conceived of in multidimensional terms that a coherent picture of risk seemed possible. The present study uses principal components analysis (PCA) to see if stable multidimensional solutions could be extracted from two qualitatively (and significandy) different item lists (as demonstrated by Young, Wogalter & Brelsford, 1992). Two sets of subjects rated the two different item lists on the same rating questions. The results were collapsed across subjects and submitted to a PCA. The solutions that emerged from the two item lists were strikingly similar. Each produced three components, with similar variable loadings and magnitudes. The results demonstrate clearly that risk, conceived of multidimensionally, is not affected by the products, technologies or activities under consideration. Rather, risk is a construct that could be tapped in order to give people a proper appreciation of the hazards associated with products and technologies that they encounter every day.