Ethical and Affective Evaluation of Environmental Risks. Dr. Gisela Böhm, University Bremen & Hans-Rüdiger Pfister, German Research Center for Information Technology (GMD), University Bremen, Department of Psychology, Grazer Str. 2a, D-28334 Bremen, Germany, telephone +49-421-218 7079, fax +49-421-218 4605, e-mail boehm@uni-bremen.de
The present paper will be concerned with environmental risk perception, with special emphasis on those environmental risks that pertain to global change phenomena, such as climate change and ozone depletion. Two determinants of risk judgments are investigated that seem particularly relevant to environmental risks: ethical and affective evaluations. It is assumed that the focus of risk evaluation can be on one of two aspects: a) on an evaluation of potential losses, or b) on ethical considerations. We assume that both, potential loss and violation of ethical principles elicit emotional evaluations, but that these two judgmental aspects are associated with different specific emotions. Following cognitive emotion theories, we distinguish loss-based emotions, such as worry and fear, from ethical emotions, e.g., guilt and anger. A study is presented that investigates the role of ethical and affective evaluations in risk judgments. Various environmental risks were presented to subjects, e.g., air pollution, ozone depletion, climate change, and destruction of ecological balance. For each environmental risk, subjects indicated in free-response format as well as on rating scales the extent to which ethical principles were violated, and the intensity of both loss-based and ethical emotions. The correlational structure of the emotion ratings confirms the distinction between loss-based and ethical emotions. Risk judgments covary with the strength of ethical evaluation and with the intensity of loss-based emotions, but are independent of ethical emotions. The implications of these findings for the risk appraisal process are discussed.
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