IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/empleg/v4y2007i3p465-505.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Culture and Identity‐Protective Cognition: Explaining the White‐Male Effect in Risk Perception

Author

Listed:
  • Dan M. Kahan
  • Donald Braman
  • John Gastil
  • Paul Slovic
  • C. K. Mertz

Abstract

Why do white men fear various risks less than women and minorities? Known as the “white‐male effect,” this pattern is well documented but poorly understood. This article proposes a new explanation: identity‐protective cognition. Putting work on the cultural theory of risk together with work on motivated cognition in social psychology suggests that individuals selectively credit and dismiss asserted dangers in a manner supportive of their cultural identities. This dynamic, it is hypothesized, drives the white‐male effect, which reflects the risk skepticism that hierarchical and individualistic white males display when activities integral to their cultural identities are challenged as harmful. The article presents the results of an 1,800‐person study that confirmed that cultural worldviews interact with the impact of gender and race on risk perception in patterns that suggest cultural‐identity‐protective cognition. It also discusses the implications of these findings for risk regulation and communication.

Suggested Citation

  • Dan M. Kahan & Donald Braman & John Gastil & Paul Slovic & C. K. Mertz, 2007. "Culture and Identity‐Protective Cognition: Explaining the White‐Male Effect in Risk Perception," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 4(3), pages 465-505, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:empleg:v:4:y:2007:i:3:p:465-505
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1740-1461.2007.00097.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1740-1461.2007.00097.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1740-1461.2007.00097.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. Claire Marris & Ian H. Langford & Timothy O'Riordan, 1998. "A Quantitative Test of the Cultural Theory of Risk Perceptions: Comparison with the Psychometric Paradigm," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 18(5), pages 635-647, October.
    2. Nancy Kraus & Torbjörn Malmfors & Paul Slovic, 1992. "Intuitive Toxicology: Expert and Lay Judgments of Chemical Risks," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 12(2), pages 215-232, June.
    3. Paul Slovic & Melissa L. Finucane & Ellen Peters & Donald G. MacGregor, 2004. "Risk as Analysis and Risk as Feelings: Some Thoughts about Affect, Reason, Risk, and Rationality," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(2), pages 311-322, April.
    4. King, Gary & Honaker, James & Joseph, Anne & Scheve, Kenneth, 2001. "Analyzing Incomplete Political Science Data: An Alternative Algorithm for Multiple Imputation," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 95(1), pages 49-69, March.
    5. Terre A. Satterfield & C. K. Mertz & Paul Slovic, 2004. "Discrimination, Vulnerability, and Justice in the Face of Risk," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(1), pages 115-129, February.
    6. Thomas Dietz & Linda Kalof & Paul C. Stern, 2002. "Gender, Values, and Environmentalism," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 83(1), pages 353-364, March.
    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. Sara K Guenther & Elizabeth A Shanahan, 2020. "Communicating risk in human-wildlife interactions: How stories and images move minds," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(12), pages 1-17, December.
    2. Robin Gregory & Robert Kozak & Guillaume Peterson St-Laurent & Sara Nawaz & Terre Satterfield & Shannon Hagerman, 2021. "Under pressure: conservation choices and the threat of species extinction," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 166(1), pages 1-21, May.
    3. Zhu, Dan & Hodgkinson, Lynn & Wang, Qingwei, 2021. "Interaction and decomposition of gender difference in financial risk perception," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(C).
    4. Branden B. Johnson & Brendon Swedlow, 2024. "Scale reliability of alternative cultural theory survey measures," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 527-557, February.
    5. Jessica E. Hughes & James D. Sauer & Aaron Drummond & Laura E. Brumby & Matthew A. Palmer, 2023. "Endorsement of scientific inquiry promotes better evaluation of climate policy evidence," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 176(6), pages 1-20, June.
    6. Qi Guo & Palizhati Muhetaer & Ping Hu, 2023. "Cultural worldviews and support for governmental management of COVID-19," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-16, December.
    7. Salil Benegal & Mirya R. Holman, 2021. "Understanding the importance of sexism in shaping climate denial and policy opposition," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 167(3), pages 1-19, August.
    8. Paul R. Hindsley & O. Ashton Morgan, 2022. "The Role of Cultural Worldviews in Willingness to Pay for Environmental Policy," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 81(2), pages 243-269, February.
    9. Dan M. Kahan & Hank Jenkins-Smith & Tor Tarantola & Carol L. Silva & Donald Braman, 2015. "Geoengineering and Climate Change Polarization," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 658(1), pages 192-222, March.
    10. Hillary C Shulman & Olivia M Bullock, 2020. "Don’t dumb it down: The effects of jargon in COVID-19 crisis communication," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(10), pages 1-10, October.
    11. O'Shaughnessy, Matthew & Schiff, Daniel & Varshney, Lav R. & Rozell, Christopher & Davenport, Mark, 2021. "What governs attitudes toward artificial intelligence adoption and governance?," OSF Preprints pkeb8, Center for Open Science.

    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. Ronald L. Schumann & Kevin D. Ash & Gregg C. Bowser, 2018. "Tornado Warning Perception and Response: Integrating the Roles of Visual Design, Demographics, and Hazard Experience," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(2), pages 311-332, February.
    2. Morioka, Rika, 2014. "Gender difference in the health risk perception of radiation from Fukushima in Japan: The role of hegemonic masculinity," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 105-112.
    3. 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.
    4. Anna Olofsson & Saman Rashid, 2011. "The White (Male) Effect and Risk Perception: Can Equality Make a Difference?," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(6), pages 1016-1032, June.
    5. Michael Siegrist & Joseph Árvai, 2020. "Risk Perception: Reflections on 40 Years of Research," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(S1), pages 2191-2206, November.
    6. Malcolm P. Cutchin & Kathryn Remmes Martin & Steven V. Owen & James S. Goodwin, 2008. "Concern About Petrochemical Health Risk Before and After a Refinery Explosion," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(3), pages 589-601, June.
    7. Rita Saleh & Angela Bearth & Michael Siegrist, 2019. "“Chemophobia” Today: Consumers’ Knowledge and Perceptions of Chemicals," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 39(12), pages 2668-2682, December.
    8. Angela Bearth & Gulbanu Kaptan & Sabrina Heike Kessler, 2022. "Genome-edited versus genetically-modified tomatoes: an experiment on people’s perceptions and acceptance of food biotechnology in the UK and Switzerland," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 39(3), pages 1117-1131, September.
    9. Regina Schoell & Claudia R. Binder, 2009. "System Perspectives of Experts and Farmers Regarding the Role of Livelihood Assets in Risk Perception: Results from the Structured Mental Model Approach," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(2), pages 205-222, February.
    10. Creed Tumlison & Rachael M. Moyer & Geoboo Song, 2017. "The Origin and Role of Trust in Local Policy Elites’ Perceptions of High‐Voltage Power Line Installations in the State of Arkansas," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(5), pages 1018-1036, May.
    11. Terre A. Satterfield & C. K. Mertz & Paul Slovic, 2004. "Discrimination, Vulnerability, and Justice in the Face of Risk," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(1), pages 115-129, February.
    12. McAuliffe, Sarah & Potts, Jonathan & Canessa, Rosaline & Baily, Brian, 2014. "Establishing attitudes and perceptions of recreational boat users based in the River Hamble Estuary, UK, towards Marine Conservation Zones," Marine Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 98-107.
    13. Wadley, David A. & Han, Jung Hoon & Elliott, Peter G., 2019. "Risk hidden in plain sight: Explaining homeowner perceptions of electricity transmission infrastructure," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 744-753.
    14. Floris Goerlandt & Jie Li & Genserik Reniers, 2021. "The Landscape of Risk Perception Research: A Scientometric Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(23), pages 1-26, November.
    15. Jagadish Thaker & Nicholas Smith & Anthony Leiserowitz, 2020. "Global Warming Risk Perceptions in India," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(12), pages 2481-2497, December.
    16. Andersson-Hudson, Jessica & Knight, William & Humphrey, Mathew & O’Hara, Sarah, 2016. "Exploring support for shale gas extraction in the United Kingdom," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 582-589.
    17. Mathew P. White & J. Richard Eiser, 2006. "Marginal Trust in Risk Managers: Building and Losing Trust Following Decisions Under Uncertainty," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 26(5), pages 1187-1203, October.
    18. Sara Ekholm & Anna Olofsson, 2017. "Parenthood and Worrying About Climate Change: The Limitations of Previous Approaches," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(2), pages 305-314, February.
    19. Michael Greenberg & Karen Lowrie, 2014. "Paul Slovic: Risk Perceptions and Affect," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 34(2), pages 206-209, February.
    20. Kazuya Nakayachi, 2013. "The Unintended Effects of Risk‐Refuting Information on Anxiety," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 33(1), pages 80-91, January.

    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:empleg:v:4:y:2007:i:3:p:465-505. 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)1740-1461 .

    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.