IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/riskan/v14y1994i5p851-856.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Perceived Risk and Uncertainty of Nuclear Waste: Differences Among Science, Business, and Environmental Group Members

Author

Listed:
  • Hank Jenkins‐Smith
  • Gilbert W. Bassett

Abstract

This paper presents survey results on perceived risk regarding the management of nuclear waste. Using data taken from random mail surveys of members of scientific, business, and environmental groups in Colorado and New Mexico in the summer of 1990, we examine differences between the groups in their expressed perceptions of risk and also their assessments of the certainty of their beliefs. We consider whether (a) greater uncertainty is associated with greater perceived risks and (b) whether there is greater responsiveness to new information for those whose beliefs are least certain. We find that there are connections between perceived risk and uncertainty, and there is a greater tendency to update risk assessements from a position of greater initial uncertainty. There are, however, differences between the groups as well as asymmetries in their responses to new information. The latter suggests that perceived risks will ratchet upward over time even when information is not biased toward more or less risk.

Suggested Citation

  • Hank Jenkins‐Smith & Gilbert W. Bassett, 1994. "Perceived Risk and Uncertainty of Nuclear Waste: Differences Among Science, Business, and Environmental Group Members," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 14(5), pages 851-856, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:riskan:v:14:y:1994:i:5:p:851-856
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.1994.tb00297.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6924.1994.tb00297.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1539-6924.1994.tb00297.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Opaluch James J. & Swallow Stephen K. & Weaver Thomas & Wessells Christopher W. & Wichelns Dennis, 1993. "Evaluating Impacts from Noxious Facilities: Including Public Preferences in Current Siting Mechanisms," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 41-59, January.
    2. Richard P. Barke & Hank C. Jenkins‐Smith, 1993. "Politics and Scientific Expertise: Scientists, Risk Perception, and Nuclear Waste Policy," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 13(4), pages 425-439, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jill J. McCluskey & Gordon C. Rausser, 2001. "Estimation of Perceived Risk and Its Effect on Property Values," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 77(1), pages 42-55.
    2. Rob P. Rechard, 1999. "Historical Relationship Between Performance Assessment for Radioactive Waste Disposal and Other Types of Risk Assessment," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(5), pages 763-807, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Atallah, Shadi S. & Huang, Ju-Chin & Leahy, Jessica & Bennett, Karen, 2020. "Preference Heterogeneity and Neighborhood Effect in Invasive Species Control: The Case of Glossy Buckthorn in New Hampshire and Maine Forests," 2020 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, Kansas City, Missouri 304623, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    2. Toshiaki Sasao, 2004. "Analysis of the socioeconomic impact of landfill siting considering regional factors," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 6(2), pages 147-175, June.
    3. Ciarli, Tommaso & Ràfols, Ismael, 2019. "The relation between research priorities and societal demands: The case of rice," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 949-967.
    4. E D Adamides & P Mitropoulos & I Giannikos & I Mitropoulos, 2009. "A multi-methodological approach to the development of a regional solid waste management system," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 60(6), pages 758-770, June.
    5. Carl Danner & Paul Schulman, 2019. "Rethinking Risk Assessment for Public Utility Safety Regulation," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 39(5), pages 1044-1059, May.
    6. Rob Goble, 2021. "Through a Glass Darkly: How Natural Science and Technical Communities Looked at Social Science Advances in Understanding Risk," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(3), pages 414-428, March.
    7. Kit S. Hagemann & Joachim Scholderer, 2009. "Hot Potato: Expert‐Consumer Differences in the Perception of a Second‐Generation Novel Food," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(7), pages 1041-1055, July.
    8. Naomi Aoki, 2018. "Who Would Be Willing to Accept Disaster Debris in Their Backyard? Investigating the Determinants of Public Attitudes in Post‐Fukushima Japan," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(3), pages 535-547, March.
    9. Powe, N.A. & Garrod, G.D. & McMahon, P.L., 2005. "Mixing methods within stated preference environmental valuation: choice experiments and post-questionnaire qualitative analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(4), pages 513-526, March.
    10. Richard Benjamin & Jeffrey Wagner, 2006. "Reconsidering the law and economics of low-level radioactive waste management," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 8(1), pages 33-53, December.
    11. Ruby, Melissa C. & Johnson, F. Reed & Mathews, Kristy E., 1998. "Assessing Opt-Out Formats For Discrete-Choice Stated Preferences: Results From A Saltwater Angling Survey," 1998 Annual meeting, August 2-5, Salt Lake City, UT 20807, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    12. Andrea R. Beyer & Barbara Fasolo & Lawrence D. Phillips & Pieter A. de Graeff & Hans L. Hillege, 2013. "Risk Perception of Prescription Drugs," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 33(4), pages 579-592, May.
    13. Richard Benjamin & Jeffrey Wagner, 2006. "Reconsidering the law and economics of low-level radioactive waste management," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 8(1), pages 33-53, December.
    14. Gupta, Kuhika & Ripberger, Joseph T. & Fox, Andrew S. & Jenkins-Smith, Hank C. & Silva, Carol L., 2021. "The future of nuclear energy in India: Evidence from a nationwide survey," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    15. Chhandita Das & Christopher M. Anderson & Stephen K. Swallow, 2009. "Estimating Distributions of Willingness to Pay for Heterogeneous Populations," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 75(3), pages 593-610, January.
    16. Meredith Frances Dobbie & Rebekah Ruth Brown, 2014. "A Framework for Understanding Risk Perception, Explored from the Perspective of the Water Practitioner," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 34(2), pages 294-308, February.
    17. Sandra Hoffmann & Paul Fischbeck & Alan Krupnick & Michael McWilliams, 2007. "Elicitation from Large, Heterogeneous Expert Panels: Using Multiple Uncertainty Measures to Characterize Information Quality for Decision Analysis," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 4(2), pages 91-109, June.
    18. Fumihiro Yamane & Hideaki Ohgaki & Kota Asano, 2011. "Nuclear Power‐Related Facilities and Neighboring Land Price: A Case Study on the Mutsu‐Ogawara Region, Japan," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(12), pages 1969-1994, December.
    19. George Wright & Fergus Bolger & Gene Rowe, 2002. "An Empirical Test of the Relative Validity of Expert and Lay Judgments of Risk," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 22(6), pages 1107-1122, December.
    20. Travisi, Chiara M. & Nijkamp, Peter, 2004. "Are Italians Willing to Pay for Agricultural Environmental Safety? A Stated Choice Approach," 84th Seminar, February 8-11, 2004, Zeist, The Netherlands 24988, European Association of Agricultural Economists.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:riskan:v:14:y:1994:i:5:p:851-856. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1539-6924 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.