Perceived Risk

We challenge the prevailing notion that risk taking is a stable trait, such that individuals show consistent risk-taking/aversive behavior across domains. We subscribe to an alternative approach that appreciates the domain-specific nature of risk taking. More important, we recognize heterogeneity of risk profiles among experimental samples and introduce a new methodology that takes this heterogeneity into account. Rather than using a convenient subject pool (i.e., university students), as is typically done, we specifically targeted relevant subsamples to provide further validation of the domain-specific nature of risk taking. Our research shows that individuals who exhibit high levels of risk-taking behavior in one content area (e.g., bungee jumpers taking recreational risks) can exhibit moderate levels in other risky domains (e.g., financial). Furthermore, our results indicate that risk taking among targeted subsamples can be explained within a cost-benefit framework and is largely...

Cycling is the most energy-efficient mode of transport and can bring extensive environmental, social and economic benefits. Research has highlighted negative perceptions of safety as a major barrier to the growth of cycling. Understanding these perceptions through the application of novel place-sensitive methodological tools such as mental mapping could inform measures to increase cyclist numbers and consequently improve cyclist safety. Key steps to achieving this include: (a) the design of infrastructure to reduce actual risks and (b) targeted work on improving safety perceptions among current and future cyclists. This study combines mental mapping, a stated-preference survey and a transport infrastructure inventory to unpack perceptions of cycling risk and to reveal both overlaps and discrepancies between perceived and actual characteristics of the physical environment. Participants translate mentally mapped cycle routes onto hard-copy base-maps, colour-coding road sections accord...

Successful business-to-business (B2B) data exchanges can help firms improve interorganizational cooperation and operational practices, thereby increasing competitive advantage. However, data exchange quality and trust are not assured. Further, although researchers have examined how trust in the exchange partner relates to data exchange system success, both trust and distrust may be important to consider. Using two-factor theory and trust theory, we examine the differential impacts of information quality, system quality, and service outcome quality on trusting and distrusting beliefs. We also study whether trusting and distrusting beliefs have differential influences on relationship commitment and perceived risk. Results from a laboratory experiment show that information quality, a process (i.e., motivating) factor, more strongly influences trusting beliefs than distrusting beliefs, whereas service outcome quality, an outcome (i.e., hygiene) factor, more strongly influences distrusting beliefs. Also, while trusting beliefs has a significantly stronger influence on relationship commitment, trusting and distrusting beliefs have equivalent effects on perceived risk. Implications and ways to expand this research are discussed.

The finding that drivers may react to safety interventions in a way that is contrary to what was intended is the phenomenon of behavioural adaptation. This phenomenon has been demonstrated across various safety interventions and has serious implications for road safety programs the world over. The present research used a driving simulator to assess behavioural adaptation in drivers’ speed and lateral displacement in response to manipulations of road width. Of interest was whether behavioural adaptation would occur and whether we could determine whether it was the result of explicit, conscious decisions or implicit perceptual processes. The results supported an implicit, zero perceived risk model of behavioural adaptation with reduced speeds on a narrowed road accompanied by increased ratings of risk and a marked inability of the participants to identify that any change in road width had occurred.

In recent years, potential travellers still hesitate to adopt consumer-generated contents (CGC) websites as their main source of information for travel planning purposes. This study investigates the effects of source credibility on risk perceived by social media users to facilitate the use of CGC by potential travellers. Technology acceptance model is used and extended with perceived risk as the antecedent of perceived usefulness and ease of use. Further, two dimensions of source credibility theory namely trustworthiness and expertise are added to the model as determinants of perceived risk. Collected data from 211 Iranian online tourists were analysed using SmartPLS to understand the effect of perceived risk on tourists" behavioural intention to use CGC for future travel planning purposes. The findings of the study showed negative effect of source credibility on risk perceived by potential online tourists. The results has shed more lights on the effects of risk perceived by online tourists on their CGC adoption intention in the context of tourism. It can boost the general understanding of CGC adoption by online tourists for travel planning purposes. JEL Classification: L67, M21

In the last two decades, there has been heightened interest from industry, government and consumers regarding the effectiveness of warnings, and this interest has corresponded with an upsurge of research on the topic.  This book provides a comprehensive review and analysis of major issues in the theory, research, and applications of warnings and risk communication.  Its contributors include leading US and international experts.
Warnings and Risk Communication begins with a section containing an overview chapter introducing the area and telling some of its history.  This is followed by a chapter describing a communication-human information processing (C-HIP) model that serves as a theoretical framework and an organizational basis for the research literature presented in subsequent chapters.  The second section describes methods for investigating warning effectiveness issues.  Techniques on how to conduct research measuring the effects of warning at intermediate processing stages (such as attention and comprehension) and on behavioral intentions and compliance are detailed.  The third section consists of seven chapters based on the stages of the C-HIP model, with each chapter reviewing the associated warning research and theory.  The fourth section provides practical guidance for developing effective warnings.  Standards, regulations and guidelines are discussed, and procedures for developing and testing warnings are presented.  In the fifth section, the book concludes with two chapters addressing forensics issues.  Legal concerns in warning design and failure to warn are examined, and the role of the warnings expert witness in litigation is described.
Warnings and Risk Communication is an authoritative sourcebook on the theory, research and applications in the field.  It provides a resource for professionals and academics in diverse domains that range from human factors/ergonomics, engineering psychology, marketing, and design, to industry, government, and litigation.  Improving occupational and consumer safety is the book's foremost goal.

Over 5.5 million Syrian refugees were forcibly displaced worldwide according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR, 2017), fleeing an inhumane war in their country. Many of them are now facing a different kind of war: they are being accused of being terrorists, parasites and rapists, through a powerful and almost unstoppable hate speech propaganda on social media. Throughout this study I posit that host society youth are key players in the integration and the inclusion of these refugees. However, programs in educational settings are ill-designed to equip youth and empower them to face racism and to withstand the online flux of disinformation, let alone to play a leadership role in counterbalancing social media propaganda and manipulation.
The objective of my study was twofold: First I wanted to understand how this youth viewed their role in the integration and the inclusion of refugees in their societies, in a context where the image of refugees was deeply influenced by social media, especially after terror attacks. Second, I wanted to discover the knowledge and the skills they developed through the process of learning about themselves, more specifically through identifying the construct systems they used when facing digital propaganda targeting sensitive and controversial issues such as the Syrian refugee crisis. To meet this objective, I conducted 66 in-depth interviews with 22 youth between 18 and 24 years old from Canada. The instruments I used stemmed from Personal Construct Psychology because this theory considers experiences to be at the core of how construals about concepts are formed. During the first meetings, the participants were convinced that despite the fact that they were able to withstand the digital propaganda against the refugees, they were helpless when it came to helping others recognize the signs of manipulation. Through the in-depth discussions, however, the participants had an “aha” moment. They suddenly realized that not only they could control how social media influenced them, but also that they could and should shape the online image that was shared online of the refugee presence in Canada. Their bystander stance was by itself an act against the resettlement of refugees, and this act had to stop.  They started questioning their own answers, reflecting on their own behaviours online, trying to make sense of their decisions and of what made them think that they were different than other Canadians.  Their empathy towards refugees increased and another developed towards the groups who rejected refugees. They identified factors that could lead to islamophobia, racism and fear and developed strategies to counterbalance them and to help host societies make informed choices.  The results of this study provide a concrete model, tools and strategies to be adopted by educators, civic educators, social workers, curriculum developers, policy makers and parents to help youth learn about themselves, as a first step to cease being manipulated by the media, and to become ready to confront hate speech, to act as influential agents of change, and to voice their concerns and ideas in the matters that affect their lives.

An involvement-commitment-loyalty model is proposed and tested with AMOS. The results for fast-moving-consumer-goods (fmcg) are consistent with the theory. Ego involvement influences purchase involvement, which influences brand commitment, which influences customer loyalty. The results for the more ego-involved service of hair stylists, however, showed a different result. Purchase loyalty did not mediate the relationship between ego involvement and brand commitment, but instead ego involvement had a direct relationship with brand commitment.

The differential impacts risk and uncertainty have on travel decision-making were explored by examining the constructs' influence on the antecedents of intentions to visit Australia using the theory of planned behavior. Respondents were obtained from online consumer panels in South Korea, China and Japan. The South Korean and Chinese samples were general population samples, while the sample from Japan was an international travelers' sample. The extended model fitted the data well, explaining between 21 and 44 percent of ...

The purpose of this conceptual paper is to develop an understanding the role of consumer evaluation of hotel restaurant co-branding and consider how this impacts intention to purchase. Developed from the existing co-branding literature, a conceptual model of hotel- restaurant co-branding is provided. This model describes the relationship between consumer perceived risk and perceived value and their influence on consumer

E-banking is one of the most recently used services in the world and are being used as strategic weapon by banks to enhance the development of banking services. The information technology advancement affects the whole world by changing the way of living, learning and interacting with one another. This study aims to examine the impact of awareness and perceived risk on the usage level of e-banking services and to identify the moderation effect of demographics among awareness and e-banking usage in Quetta City. This study integrates theory of perceived risk with the brand awareness concept to propose a theoretical model. Primary data were collected from 150 bank account holders by non-probability convenience sampling technique through well-structured questionnaire. Multiple regression was run to test the study hypothesis. The main findings of the study are: awareness has positive and significant impact on e-banking usage level. Perceived risk has insignificant negative impact on e-banking usage. Among the five categories of perceived risk, only social risk has significant and negative impact on e-banking usage. Demographics (age, gender, education and income) plays a moderating role in the relationship of awareness and e-banking usage..

The differential impacts risk and uncertainty have on travel decision-making were explored by examining the constructs' influence on the antecedents of intentions to visit Australia using the theory of planned behavior. Respondents were obtained from online consumer panels in South Korea, China and Japan. The South Korean and Chinese samples were general population samples, while the sample from Japan was an international travelers' sample. The extended model fitted the data well, explaining between 21 and 44 percent of ...

The motivation to share members’ knowledge is critical to an online community’s survival and success. Previous research has established that knowledge sharing intentions are based on group cohesion. Several studies also suggested that social loafing behavior will seriously corrode group cohesion. Therefore, social loafing is a key obstacle to fostering online community development. Although substantial studies have been performed on the critical factors that affect social loafing in the learning group, those on online communities are still lacking. By integrating two perspectives, social capital and perceived risk, a richer understanding of social loafing behavior can be gained. In the research model, social ties and perceived risk have been driven by anonymity, offline activities, knowledge quality, and media richness. Social ties and perceived risk are hypothesized to affect social loafing in the online community, which, in turn, is hypothesized as negatively affecting group cohesion. Data collected from 323 online users in online communities provide support for the proposed model. The study shows that social loafing is a significant negative predictor of the users’ group cohesion. The study also shows that social ties and perceived risk are important components of social loafing. Anonymity, offline activities, knowledge quality, and media richness all have strong effects on social ties and perceived risk in the online community. Implications for theory and practice and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Results of past research suggest that affect plays an important role in risk perception. Because affect may also increase the availability of risks, affect and availability are closely related concepts. Three studies tested the hypothesis that evoking negative affect (fear), either through past experience or through experimental manipulation, results in greater perceived risk. The present research focused on perception of flooding risk. Study 1 and Study 2 showed that participants who received risk information concerning a longer time period (e.g., 30 years) perceived more danger compared with participants who received risk information for one year. Study 2 showed that the interpretation of risk information was influenced by participants' own experiences with flooding. In Study 3, affect was experimentally manipulated. After looking at photographs depicting houses in a flooded region, participants perceived greater risk compared with participants in a control group. Taken together, the results of these three studies suggest that affect is important for successful risk communication. Results of the present research are in line with the affect heuristic proposed by Slovic and colleagues.