This dissertation examines the influence of competing risks in shaping individuals' choices about potential intimate relationships. According to Ulrich Beck's "risk society" theory, the individualization of social risks has direct and measurable consequences for the ways people organize and evaluate potential intimate relationships (Beck & Beck-Gernsheim, 1995, 2002, 2004; Giddens, 1994; Lupton, 2006). This study investigates the ways in which subjective or identity-related risks hypothesized by scholars of late modernity shape the perception and the actual risk of dating violence. Empirical research on dating violence identifies many objective “risk factors” related to a person’s chances of experiencing intimate partner violence; however studies investigating perceptions of dating risk from the subject’s perspective sometimes reveal more personal concerns and priorities. To date, no intimate partner violence research explicitly utilizes a conceptualization of risk informed by risk society theories. The present study explores the potential for utilizing risk society concepts in explaining the relationships between perceptions of instrumental risks and identity-related risks, and how these risk perceptions may impact involvement in dating violence.

<p>The main objective of this study is to understand and asses flood risk perception among people living in Msimbazi Valley in Das es Salaam, Tanzania. Many of the people I have interviewed are experiencing flooding every year but it is rarely considered disastrous. Looked at individually they may not be disasters but cumulatively they may be. The rapid urbanisation, in this part of the world, forces people to live on hazardous but central land because of the livelihood opportunities available there. The government and the local communities are well aware of the risk of floods in the area and are considered as a serious threat to the families. People are still living in these areas because they find the benefits big enough to make up the risks.</p>

Emissions of carbon dioxide, dioxins, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter as well as use of non-renewable resources and energy are some important sustainability challenges for the Swedish steel industry. Much effort has been made, mainly by technical solutions, which to a high degree have decreased the emissions during the last 30 years. Technical solutions however will not be sufficient to reach sustainable development, stakeholder involvement is also necessary. Stakeholder theory states that stake­holder involvement must include a dialog between the stakeholders involved and the operation. The first step in this process is to identify which key issues the stakeholders find most important and then the organisation needs to start interact with its stakeholders. This thesis deals with such issues. Stakeholder preferences for environmental issues were assessed with conjoint analysis, Q-methodology and focus group discussions. The theory of planned behaviour was used to assess how attitudes were connected to background factors and a potential pro-environmental behaviour. Five studies have been carried out in the framework of this thesis. The studies include: a literature review, method evaluation, evaluation of environ­mental objectives in stakeholder groups, screening of relevant factors, evaluation of steel environmental characteristics, identification of barriers to the introduction of new materials and the im­pact of worry and risk perception on strategic environmental decisions. It can be concluded that the methods applied in the studies work well in eliciting preferences. It has been possible to show how different stakeholder groups as well as individuals prioritise environmental objectives and sustaina­bility issues. Since individuals within a stakeholder group vary considerably in preferences, the results from this thesis show the importance of illustrating results on an individual level instead of the traditional group level. Also, a method has been tested where the results were brought back to the respondents in order to stimulate discussions between different stakeholder groups.

Aims: To study practices and procedures with respect to electrotherapy in physiotherapy departments and to study physiotherapists’ perception of health risk, health consequences and protection of health from different risks including electromagnetic field emissions from electrotherapy devices. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in three phases from June 2002 to December 2003. The first phase was an audit of the practices and procedures regarding electrotherapy in National Health Service physiotherapy departments (N = 46 including 7 departments in pilot study) located in 12 counties in the southeast and southwest of England including Greater London. The second phase comprised one observational visit to each of the same physiotherapy departments to characterise their occupational environment. The third phase was a questionnaire survey of 584 physiotherapists working in these departments. Variables concerned perception of health risk, health consequences and protection of health associated with different risk factors. Results: In the first two phases, the recruitment rate of the departments was 80.7% (46 out of 57) and response rate of those recruited was 100% (n=46). The response rate for the last phase of the study was 66.8% (390 out of 584). Results of the practices and procedures audit show that ultrasound was the most common form of electrotherapy while microwave diathermy was neither available nor used in these departments. Pulsed shortwave diathermy was used 4-5 days per week while continuous shortwave diathermy was used rarely. Electrotherapy was provided to up to 50% of patients per week in the departments. The observational visits to the departments revealed that there were metallic objects within close proximity of diathermy equipment and wooden treatment couches for treatment with PSWD and CSWD were rare. The risk perception survey showed that physiotherapists generally perceived a moderate health risk and health consequences (harm) from exposure to EMF emissions from electrotherapy devices. Protection from EMFs in physiotherapy departments was generally perceived as ‘usually’ possible. Conclusions: Physiotherapy departments report safe electrotherapy practices. Use of diathermy devices that use RF EMFs is declining. The key predictors of physiotherapists’ perception of health risk were perception of health consequences and vice versa. Gender was a significant predictor of the perception of health risks and health consequences. The main predictor of perception of protection against risk was the knowledge of environmental and health issues. Latent dimensions of perceptions of health risk, health consequences and protection from risk were identified and confirmed and their predictors were determined.

This thesis analyses the process of institutionalisation of the concept of genetically modified organism (GMO) in the UK between 1986-1993. The existing accounts of the GM debate have focussed on either the 1970s or the 1990s. Very little, however, has been said about the 1980s, long before that of GMOs became a popular issue. Through a detailed examination of the PROSAMO initiative – a series of experiments aimed at determining the environmental impact of GMOs with a regulatory purpose in mind – this thesis have been able to explore the important but rather neglected role of the UK dominant institutions in the historical development of the debate over the release of GMOs into the environment. In analysing the way ‘GMO’ institutionalised between the late 1980s and early 1990s, this thesis shows that the concepts of risk and uncertainty – which have dominated the GM debate – need to be conceived as collective constructs that are used strategically in order to pursue various objectives related to the context in which people using them operate. It is also argued that the legitimate use of these concepts is bound to the credibility and the authority of science. These considerations have stimulated some reflections on the nature and role of regulation in the GM debate. In particular, it is argued that the move from a voluntary system of controls to a statutory one represents a move from an epistemic community approach to policy-making to a logic of bureaucratic politics, in which the literal interpretation of rules became a solution to political disagreement. As rule following became a political requirement, GMOs became a bureaucratic issue and scientists turned into bureaucrats. Within these changes, the role of scientific expertise in the definition of GMOs decreased. From this point of view, the way ‘genetic modification’ and GMO institutionalised gave rise to new practices and behaviours that turned around GMO as a controversial but nevertheless stable category.

In the area of transportation policy, congestion pricing has been used to alleviate traffic congestion in metropolitan areas. The focus of Chapter 1 is to examine drivers’ perceived risk of traffic delay as one determinant of reactions to congestion pricing. The experiment reported in this essay recruits commuters from the Atlanta and Orlando metropolitan areas to participate in a naturalistic experiment where they are asked to make repeated route decisions in a driving simulator. Chapter 1 examines belief formation and adjustments under an endogenous information environment where information about a route can be obtained only conditional on taking the route. If the subjects arrive to the destination late, i.e. beyond an assigned time threshold, they are faced with a discrete (flat) penalty. In contrast, Chapter 2 examines subjective beliefs in a setting where the penalty for a late arrival is continuous, such that a longer delay incurs additional penalty on the driver. The primary research question is: does belief formation differ when the late penalty is induced as a continuous amount compared to when it is induced as a discrete amount? In particular, will we observe a difference in learning across the range of congestion probabilities under different penalty settings? In the continuous penalty setting, we do not observe a difference in learning across the range of congestion probabilities. In contrast, in the discrete penalty setting we observe significant belief adjustments in the lowest congestion risk scenario. In Chapter 3 the “source method” is used to examine how uncertainty aversion differs across events that have the same underlying objective probabilities but are presented under varying degrees of uncertainty. Subjects are presented with three lottery tasks that rank in order of increasing uncertainty. Given the choices observed in each task a source function is estimated jointly with risk attitudes under different probability weighting specifications of the source function. Results from the Prelec probability weighting suggest that, as the degree of uncertainty increases, subjects display increased pessimism; in contrast, the Tversky-Kahneman (1992) and the Power probability weightings detect no such difference. Thus, the conclusion regarding uncertainty aversion are contingent on which probability weighting specification is assumed for the source function.

The Marshall Islands may be rendered uninhabitable by sea level rise and other consequences of global climate change within 50 years, a threat with which locals are increasingly familiar via educational events, firsthand environmental observation, and Biblical exegesis. This thesis explores Marshallese attitudes towards this spectre, in particular explaining why ‘ordinary’ Marshall Islanders (if not their government) have strongly favoured a response strategy based on self-blame and local mitigation, rather than other-blame and protest of industrial nations. I argue that this strategy does not stem from ignorance or disempowered pragmatism, but from a moral reading of climate change consonant with Marshallese values. Bringing together literature on traditionalism, entropy, and the cultural cognition of risk, I demonstrate that Marshallese reactions to climate change are intelligible in light of a vigorous pre-existing narrative of self-inflicted cultural decline. Climate change becomes framed as both a cause and a consequence of weakening custom, the over-reliance on foreign things, transforming global warming into a locally resonant, and indeed ideologically appealing, risk. Based upon this case study, I sketch a ‘trajectorial theory of risk perception’ and accompanying research agenda.

Master of Science / Department of Journalism and Mass Communications / Nancy Muturi / Cigarette smoking is one of the leading causes of preventable deaths in the U.S. and a global public health concern. The health effects have been severe among the youth. Smoking among the youth has been attributed to media. Movie in particular, is perhaps the most successful advertising on cigarette. Research shows that greater exposure to smoking in movies predicts increased likelihood of trying smoking. The purpose of this experimental study was to explore the relationships of smoking exposure in movies and young adults’ attitude, intention, and risk perception toward smoking. The theory of reasoned action (TRA) and the Attitude Accessibility Concept served were used in the study. The experiment was conducted at 70 Kansas State University students and examined the extent to which young adults’ memory/experience on smoking are triggered by watching smoking scenes; and whether young adults had different reactions based on the level of dosages of onscreen smoking. The results showed that the relationship of onscreen smoking and young adults’ memory/experience on smoking is not significant, as well as the relationship of media exposure and young adults’ attitude to smoke. However, the study found that nonsmokers contain considerable anti-smoking attitude and significant risk perception to smoke. The anti-smoking attitude is highly associated with the risk perception. The study presented theoretical implications, which includes the proposal to incorporate risk perception in the model of TRA, made recommendations to future anti-smoking campaigns targeted on young adults, and suggested areas of further research.

Risk perception is the judgment people make about the characteristics and severity of a risk. Numerous theories and models exist which have identified the factors that influence risk perception. Among these factors, location, health status, and demographic characteristics are known to shape risk perception. To measure the influence of these factors on environmental perception, a series of surveys conducted in four Louisiana communities between 2004 and 2005 describe community perceptions about environmental issues and health status. The objective of the study was to characterize and compare environmental concerns relative to location, health status, and demographic characteristics. Results indicate that location has a strong influence in framing an individual’s concerns about environmental issues, particularly those living close to industry. Concern for general environmental and natural preservation issues were comparable among the communities indicating that concern for these issues is independent of residential location.

Com a necessidade de novas formas de produção de energia para conter a crise ambiental e o aquecimento global, novas tecnologias têm sido estudadas e a energia nuclear foi apontada como uma das saídas para a produção de energia limpa. O estudo do risco está diretamente relacionado ao estudo de sua percepção, que determina a maneira de agir do ser humano e, portanto influencia na aplicação de novas tecnologias, uma vez que o reconhecimento de algo como perigoso é determinado por fatores sócio históricos. Este estudo teve como objetivo comparar as percepções de risco nuclear e ambiental, em um grupo de estudantes universitários, com a aplicação de uma pesquisa, no período de 31 de março a 31 de maio de 2010, contendo: imagens de fatos históricos para serem nomeados; estruturação de uma escala de risco para determinadas atividades; e um questionário sobre riscos e benefícios relacionados ao tema da pesquisa. A análise dos resultados evidenciou uma diminuição da percepção do risco nuclear em relação ao risco ambiental na população estudada. / With the necessity for new forms of energy production to contain the environmental crisis and the global warming, new technologies have been studied and the nuclear energy has been placed as one of the ways out for clean energy production. The study of the risk is directly related to the study of its perception, that determines the human beings actions, therefore it influences in new technologies applications, since the awareness of something as dangerous is determined by socio-historical factors. The purpose of this study was compare the perceptions of nuclear and environmental risks, considering a group of university students, with the application of research in the period from March 31 to May 31, 2010, containing: images of historical facts to be nominated; structuring of a risk scale for certain activities, and a questionnaire about risks and benefits related to the subject research. The analysis of results evidenced a reduction in the perception of nuclear risk over the perception of environmental risk in this population.