Abstract of Plenary Paper

The 1996 Annual Meeting of the Society for Risk Analysis-Europe

Digesting Risk: The Social Psychological Processes Influencing Risk Management of Food Hazards. Prof Glynis M. Breakwell, Social Psychology European Research Institute, University of Surrey GU25XH

The paper presents a general model of risk management strategies. Using Identity Process Theory and Social Representations Theory, it explores how and why such strategies sometimes succeed but often fail. These issues are illustrated with respect to food hazards. In doing this, it addresses a series of questions:

• What constitutes a risk management strategy?
• How do issue and crisis management differ in this domain?
• To what extent do risk management strategies attempt to target understanding of risk and to what extent do they target behavioural responses to risk?
• Do cultural, psychometric and cognitive approaches to risk perception need to be integrated in order to produce an effective model of risk communication? If so, how can this be done?
• Is it more useful to think in terms of risk interpretation rather than risk perception when modelling consumers responses to risk management strategies?

The paper reviews recent empirical studies of the social psychological processes which play a significant role in determining how food hazards are understood by consumers and in shaping how they behave in reaction to the risks perceived. The value and inadequacies of such studies are examined. It explores some of the factors which influence how scientists and the food industries communicate about such hazards and analyses a few of the reasons why they find influencing the public difficult.

The paper concludes with suggestions concerning how risk management strategies might be improved.