IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhb/hastba/2001_011.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Risk perception and New Age beliefs

Author

Listed:
  • Sjöberg, Lennart

    (Center for Risk Research)

  • af Wåhlberg, Anders

    (Department of Psychology)

Abstract

This is a study of risk perception in relation to New Age (NA) beliefs, including traditional folk superstition and belief in paranormal phenomena, as well as use of alternative healing practices. Data were also obtained on trust dimensions and on personality and psychopathology variables, as well as religious involvement. It was found that four factors accounted for the investigated NA beliefs, and they were termed Higher Consciousness Beliefs, Denial of Analytic Knowledge, Traditional Superstition and Belief in the Physical Reality of the Soul. NA beliefs were strongly and positively related to religious involvement, and negatively to educational level. They were also positively related to maladjustment, and to concerns over Tampering with Nature. In regression analyses, it was found that NA beliefs explained about 15% of the variance of perceived risk, and that the most powerful explanatory factors were Higher Consciousness Beliefs and beliefs in paranormal phenomena. Traditional superstition and use of healing practices did not contribute to explaining perceived risk.

Suggested Citation

  • Sjöberg, Lennart & af Wåhlberg, Anders, 2001. "Risk perception and New Age beliefs," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Business Administration 2001:11, Stockholm School of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhb:hastba:2001_011
    Note: In press, Risk Analysis
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    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:hhb:hastba:2001_011. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Helena Lundin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/erhhsse.html .

    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.