IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/riskan/v10y1990i1p169-184.html

Knowledge‐Based Representations of Risk Beliefs

Author

Listed:
  • Bruce E. Tonn
  • Cheryl B. Travis
  • Richard T. Goeltz
  • Raymond H. Phillippi

Abstract

Beliefs about risks associated with two risk agents, AIDS and toxic waste, are modeled using knowledge‐based methods and elicited from subjects via interactive computer technology. A concept net is developed to organize subject responses concerning the consequences of the risk agents. It is found that death and adverse personal emotional and sociological consequences are most associated with AIDS. Toxic waste is most associated with environmental problems. These consequence profiles are quite dissimilar, although past work in risk perception would have judged the risk agents as being quite similar. Subjects frequently used causal semantics to represent their beliefs and “% of time” instead of “probability” to represent likelihoods. The news media is the most prevalent source of risk information although experiences of acquaintances appear more credible. The results suggest that “broadly based risk” communication may be ineffective because people differ in their conceptual representation of risk beliefs. In general, the knowledge‐based approach to risk perception representation has great potential to increase our understanding of important risk topics.

Suggested Citation

  • Bruce E. Tonn & Cheryl B. Travis & Richard T. Goeltz & Raymond H. Phillippi, 1990. "Knowledge‐Based Representations of Risk Beliefs," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 10(1), pages 169-184, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:riskan:v:10:y:1990:i:1:p:169-184
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.1990.tb01031.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6924.1990.tb01031.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1539-6924.1990.tb01031.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. Roger E. Kasperson, 1986. "Six Propositions on Public Participation and Their Relevance for Risk Communication," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 6(3), pages 275-281, September.
    2. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    3. Christina M. Harding & J. Richard Eiser, 1984. "Characterising the Perceived Risks and Benefits of Some Health Issues," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 4(2), pages 131-141, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Ranjit Singh & Jayashree Bhattacharjee, 2019. "Measuring Equity Share Related Risk Perception of Investors in Economically Backward Regions," Risks, MDPI, vol. 7(1), pages 1-20, January.
    2. Seow Eng Ong & Davin Wang & Calvin Chua, 2023. "Disruptive Innovation and Real Estate Agency: The Disruptee Strikes Back," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 67(2), pages 287-317, August.
    3. Christiane Goodfellow & Dirk Schiereck & Steffen Wippler, 2013. "Are behavioural finance equity funds a superior investment? A note on fund performance and market efficiency," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 14(2), pages 111-119, April.
    4. Philippe Fevrier & Sebastien Gay, 2005. "Informed Consent Versus Presumed Consent The Role of the Family in Organ Donations," HEW 0509007, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Shuang Yao & Donghua Yu & Yan Song & Hao Yao & Yuzhen Hu & Benhai Guo, 2018. "Dry Bulk Carrier Investment Selection through a Dual Group Decision Fusing Mechanism in the Green Supply Chain," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-19, November.
    6. Shoji, Isao & Kanehiro, Sumei, 2016. "Disposition effect as a behavioral trading activity elicited by investors' different risk preferences," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 104-112.
    7. Pieter Nel & Renee van Eyden, 2026. "From News to Noise: Does Media Sentiment Drive Stock Market Volatility?," Working Papers 202605, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    8. Christoph Engel & Michael Kurschilgen, 2011. "Fairness Ex Ante and Ex Post: Experimentally Testing Ex Post Judicial Intervention into Blockbuster Deals," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 8(4), pages 682-708, December.
    9. Nicolás C. Bronfman & Luis Abdón Cifuentes & Michael L. deKay & Henry H. Willis, 2007. "Accounting for Variation in the Explanatory Power of the Psychometric Paradigm: The Effects of Aggregation and Focus," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(4), pages 527-554, June.
    10. Christina Leuker & Thorsten Pachur & Ralph Hertwig & Timothy J. Pleskac, 2019. "Do people exploit risk–reward structures to simplify information processing in risky choice?," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 5(1), pages 76-94, August.
    11. Singal, Vijay & Xu, Zhaojin, 2011. "Selling winners, holding losers: Effect on fund flows and survival of disposition-prone mutual funds," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(10), pages 2704-2718, October.
    12. Jos'e Cl'audio do Nascimento, 2019. "Behavioral Biases and Nonadditive Dynamics in Risk Taking: An Experimental Investigation," Papers 1908.01709, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2023.
    13. Alex Cukierman & Anton Muscatelli, 2001. "Do Central Banks have Precautionary Demands for Expansions and for Price Stability?," Working Papers 2002_4, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow, revised Mar 2002.
    14. Dash, Saumya Ranjan & Maitra, Debasish, 2018. "Does sentiment matter for stock returns? Evidence from Indian stock market using wavelet approach," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 32-39.
    15. José F. Tudón M., 2019. "Perception, utility, and evolution," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 7(2), pages 191-208, December.
    16. Francesco GUALA, 2017. "Preferences: Neither Behavioural nor Mental," Departmental Working Papers 2017-05, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    17. Lepone, Grace & Tian, Gary, 2020. "Usage of conditional orders and the disposition effect in the stock market," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    18. Shunda, Nicholas, 2009. "Auctions with a buy price: The case of reference-dependent preferences," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 645-664, November.
    19. Castilla, Carolina & Haab, Timothy C., 2010. "Asymmetric Search and Loss Aversion: Choice Experiment on Consumer Willingness to Search in the Gasoline Retail Market," 2010 Annual Meeting, July 25-27, 2010, Denver, Colorado 61672, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    20. Javed, Arslan & Onculer, Ayse, 2026. "Self-other discrepancy: the role of decision transparency in risky choices," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).

    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:10:y:1990:i:1:p:169-184. 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.