Week 7: Social Theory

The role of social theory

• Context - risk analysis

  • Actual and perceived risks

  • Limitations 

• Psychometric risk perception

  • Revealed preferences

  • Expressed preferences

• Social amplification of risk

• Social construction of risk

• Cultural theory of risk

• Risk society risk

Context (Risk analysis)

• Panics over environmental and health (E&H) issues

  • eco-anxiety (relatively new phenomenon)

• Risk analysis no longer fully adequate to assuage concerns

• Do environmental and other health risks fundamentally shape society?

The society for risk analysis

The Society for Risk Analysis formed in the 1980s by (social) scientists who felt their home discipline did not have the frameworks to address modern risks

• are risks transforming the way we view society?

Context (actual vs perceived risk) whats the difference?

Actual

• The real risk (an evidence based threat)

Perceived

• the subjective opinion of the likelihood of the risk occurring

Limitations of risk analysis (key words)

• Uncertainty

  • Black swan events

• Bias (despite scientific method)

• Complexity of environment and disease mechanisms

• Over-reliance on (often, limited) historical data

• Inconsistent predictions based on inconsistent assumptions

• Cost of comprehensive analysis 

Black swan events

Big data sets will have aberrations

• actively looking for data that disproves your thesis

• eg. looking for a black swan when all the data shows inly white swans exist

• eg. Fukushima, Chernobyl, 3 mile island, Minamata, Deepwater horizon oil spill

3 factors that make up a black swan event

• highly impactful

• unpredictable

• makes sense in hindsight

Limitations of risk analysis

• Risk scientists not unified on role of their science (sometimes)

  • does mean they discount their science entirely

• Scientists and “the public” are often more aligned that we think

• Findings justify a precautionary approach (see safety/uncertainty factors in previous lectures)

risk axioms (Chauncey Starr)

Risk axioms can be inferred/imputed from large data sets on human (economic) activities

Key Assumptions:

• Benefit: What is spent in aggregate for/on an activity

• Cost/risk: Measured as probability of death

basically: deaths and dollars

Key findings:

1. Risk proportional to third power of benefits from an activity

2. Accept voluntary risks 1000 times greater than involuntary ones

3. Risk of dying from disease is our mental yardstick/anchor (1 in a million)

What are critiques of this approach?

• Involuntary risk exposes some more than others

Social theories of risk

• frameworks described next are all highly intertwined

• limitations of one framework addressed in another (e.g., cultural theory addresses limitations of SARF)

• Frameworks arose in roughly the same period early 1980s to 1990s.

• Variety of social sciences represented – breaks down disciplinary boundaries

• Move from micro world of individuals to macro world of societies/globe

Psychometric Risk Perception aka “Expressed Preference”

Human side of risk –what we perceive as real, has real consequences

Heuristics and biases – shortcuts to decision-making – specifically judging how likely an event is

Affective reactions – fear (dread – uneasy “gut” reaction) in particular

Trust – in institutions and experts who make decisions on our behalf

Controllability – individual control in particular (e.g., driving, diet)

Voluntariness – vs imposed (e.g., nuclear waste is imposed on locals)

Catastrophic potential – e.g., Covid

Cultural factors – human values about resilience of nature and human capacity (e.g., arrogance) to control nature

Risk perception matrix: expressed preferences

Key factors in risk perception measured as expressed preferences: Dread and familiarity

• (a gut level of uncomfortable)  

• That is, all of the items on the left were asked of people in relation to the activities above in a survey and they shake out statistically into these two key factors.

Heuristics and biases

• Availability heuristic – examples easily come to mind (e.g., recent plane crash) 

• Anchoring bias – rely too heavily on first piece of information (e.g., pricing of all sorts “you save 40% on the suggested price of…!”, “there is a 1 in 800 chance of dying in the tub, so don’t worry about 1 in 10 million risk of dying from nuclear disaster”)

• Confirmation bias – seek out information that affirms what we believe (e.g., subscribing to #pesticideskillpeople news feed)

• Hindsight bias – after a black swan event we feel we now understand the risk (e.g., predict and manage a global pandemic

Paul Slovic: Studied global risk and decision making

• proved that people make decisions irrationally

• eg. Covid = the death toll rising, meant we listened less to safety measures

• bigger numbers = our brains cannot comprehend the risk as much

• humans don’t make decisions like the experts do → people have different rationalities

Loss aversion bias

• We tend to feel losses more acutely or are more afraid of losing what we already  have compared to gaining the same amount

• E.g., Explains why the insurance industry does so well

• E.g. explains aversion to all sorts of imposed (involuntary) risks in particular

White male effect

• Men typically assess risks as lower than do women

• White men in particular rate risks as lower

• Need to attend to this in risk communication

• Assumption is that these are the ones in power and in control of the hazards these risks represent

• 30% of men consistently rate (perceive) risks as slight/minimal  across surveys – skews data (for men in particular).

Risk perception approach limitations

.

• People may not share their true thoughts

• Data represents a generalized view of perceptions (ecological fallacy)

• The unknown effect (not understanding it)

Social Amplification of risk

• Allied with the risk perception approach

• More focused on the aggregate implications of risk interpretation (perceptions) and response

• Acknowledges the role of industries and institutions (aka “society”)

• Identifies the sites and processes that lead to risk attenuation and risk amplification

• Emphasis on social impacts of attenuation (e.g., not paying enough attention – household radon) and amplification (e.g., banning DDT in areas with vector-borne diseases)

  • society amplifies or attenuates due to context (aligns with the social construction of risk)

Social Construction of risk (Berger and Luckmann)

• Reality is not fixed and pre-existing, but formed through social interaction

  • reality is constructed through social processes

  • eg. money is a physical object with a socially constructed value

• Emphasis on shared meanings

• Socialization creates and maintains those meanings

• Thus risk is created, maintained and potentially alterable through social/institutionalized changes to meanings

• Overall, challenged received wisdom on social organization as given and spurred a new age of human agency

Cultural theory of risk (Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky)

• “Risk and Culture: An Essay on the Selection of Technical and Environmental Dangers” (1982)

• Added to cultural and political nuance to theories of risk (see SARF – “culture” not well defined)

• Core idea: society(ies) choose specific risks to pay attention to and control – goal: maintain social order

• Society can choose what we perceive as risky (we pick and choose what to care about)

• social structures reflexively shape and are shaped by that choice

  • i.e., some risks are not worthy of attention (e.g., radon) while others deserve attention as being unacceptable (e.g., nuclear power generation in Germany)

four rationalities

• the Fatalist

• the Hierarchist

• the Egalitarian

• the Individualist

• Core values and cultural biases reflexively support risk attention (perception)

• Four “risk cultures” identified

• These values do not align entirely with traditional political leanings (left<-> right)

the 4 rationalities explained (know which is which → will be on final)

• Political power struggles over (health) risks - disagreements across at least two of these risk cultures 

• Empirical testing shows these ideas are significant but do not have as much influence as some of the variables measured in psychometric risk studies (e.g., affect/emotion, voluntariness, trust) e.g., egalitarians tend to be highly concerned about many risks (e.g., nuclear waste, climate change) while individualists and hierarchists tend to be less concerned about risks (e.g., climate change, GMOs)

• The fatalist risk culture does not consistently predict risk perception (which is actually consistent with the theory)

Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity

• Theory of how society has shifted from a focus on wealth generation (production of goods), to risk management of the negative externalities of good generation (“bads”)

• The theory explains a shift from industrial “modernity” (industrialization – maximizing output and profit) to “reflexive modernity” (self-aware production of goods, more studied and cautious use of processes, chemicals and materials)

• While hazards are global, inequalities are heightened as those with wealth and power enact ways to avoid risks

• came up with the idea that risk would change society

  • producing ‘goods’ vs preventing ‘bads’ theory by Urich Beck → speaks on how society has transitioned to prioritizing risk awareness and management over mere economic growth, highlighting the complexities of modern societal challenges.

Risk Society Assumptions

• Risks from hazards are increasingly manufactured and global (e.g., climate change, nuclear disasters)

• Increasing individualization of risk – we are expected to protect ourselves

• Disagreements on risk (see risk perceptions) lead to new forms of socio-political conflict – rise of environmental justice movements

• Reflexivity - Experts, governments, traditional institutions for managing risk increasingly distrusted and questioned

• The inherent uncertainty of science is laid bare – we used to rely on it almost unquestioningly

• Structures of capitalism increasingly scrutinized and politicized

• Disembedding of individuals from historical structures of community, family, social security

• Increasing ontological insecurity – existential anxiety - about all of the above

  • things are much more uncertain in the world right now, reflexive modernity

hazard vs risk definitions

Hazard = thing that causes harm

Risk = the probability and scale of the harm

Reflexive modernization

• industrialization and technology are being scrutinized for negative side effects

• modern societies are increasingly aware of the risks associated with their actions, leading to a more cautious approach to development and environmental impact.