Cited by 136Risk Perception and ManagementSocial and Intergroup PsychologyDecision-Making and Behavioral Economics

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 97 of the 97 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; 1 of the 24 sources its claims cite were checked for support.

Culture and Identity‐Protective Cognition: Explaining the White‐Male Effect in Risk Perception

Open access
Kahan, Dan M., Braman, Donald, Gastil, John, Slovic, Paul, Mertz, C. K.·2007·Journal of Empirical Legal Studies

Abstract

Why do white men fear various risks less than women and minorities? Known as the “white‐male effect,” this pattern is well documented but poorly understood. This article proposes a new explanation: identity‐protective cognition. Putting work on the cultural theory of risk together with work on motivated cognition in social psychology suggests that individuals selectively credit and dismiss asserted dangers in a manner supportive of their cultural identities. This dynamic, it is hypothesized, drives the white‐male effect, which reflects the risk skepticism that hierarchical and individualistic white males display when activities integral to their cultural identities are challenged as harmful. The article presents the results of an 1,800‐person study that confirmed that cultural worldviews interact with the impact of gender and race on risk perception in patterns that suggest cultural‐identity‐protective cognition. It also discusses the implications of these findings for risk regulation and communication.

Overview

AI snapshot

Written from the paper’s full text.

TL;DR

The paper proposes identity-protective cognition to explain the “white male effect” in risk perception: cultural worldviews shape risk assessments in ways that defend identities. In a 1,844-person U.S. survey, cultural worldviews strongly predicted environmental, gun, and abortion risk perceptions, and the white-male effect was culture-specific, largely attributable to hierarchical and individualistic white men.

Key findings

  • The sample displayed the conventional white-male effect: white males were significantly less concerned about each risk evaluated. In Table 1, for example, hierarchical white males versus everyone else scored 2.66 vs. 3.02 on environmental risk, 2.13 vs. 2.47 on gun risk, and 2.61 vs. 2.92 on abortion risk.
  • Cultural worldviews strongly predicted risk perceptions. For environmental risks, adding Individualism and Hierarchy increased explanatory power by about 20%; Hierarchy had the largest single effect, and the combined worldview variables explained over nine times as much variance as education and over three times as much as gender. For gun risks, worldview measures increased explanatory power by over 50% and combined explained almost 5 times as much variance as gender, 34 times as much as education, and 17 times as much as rural residence. For abortion risks, hierarchical worldview predicted greater concern and individualistic worldview predicted less; cultural scales added about 10% explanatory power and had a combined effect nearly five times that of education and almost double that of party affiliation and ideology combined.
  • The white-male effect was culture-specific. Differences between white males and others were pronounced among hierarchical respondents for each risk and among individualists for every risk but abortion; they were muted or nonsignificant among egalitarian and communitarian respondents for gun and abortion risks. In environmental regressions, adding a “Hierarchical White Male” dummy made Female, Black, and Other Minority nonsignificant, confirming the white-male effect was attributable entirely to hierarchical white males. In gun regressions, the Female coefficient became nonsignificant after adding hierarchical and individualistic white-male dummies. In abortion regressions, adding a “Hierarchical White Female” dummy made Female nonsignificant.
  • Anomalous finding: being African-American remained a significant predictor of greater abortion-risk concern even after cultural worldviews were controlled for; the paper calls its explanation conjectural and says it merits additional investigation.

Methods

  • Nationwide random-digit-dial telephone survey conducted June–September 2004 with 1,844 U.S. residents aged 18 or older, including an oversample of 242 African-Americans. Sample included 519 white male, 707 white female, 153 black male, and 254 black female subjects; mean age was 39; average household income was between $40,000 and $50,000; average interview length was about 21 minutes; response rate was 42% and cooperation rate 59%.
  • Cultural worldviews were measured with 32 items forming Communitarianism-Individualism (α = .77) and Egalitarianism-Hierarchy (α = .81) scales. Risk perceptions were measured for environmental risks (α = .72), gun risks (α = .83), and abortion risk via agreement with “Women who get abortions are putting their health in danger.” Other measures included demographics, sensation-seeking, religion, political ideology, and party affiliation.
  • Analysis used group means and multivariate regressions with interaction terms and dummy variables for cultural-demographic groups. Missing data were imputed through multiple imputation with Stata’s MICE module, generating five imputed data sets. The sample had sufficient power to detect small effects (e.g., r = .10) at p = .01 in anticipated multivariate regressions.

Limitations

  • The paper states its proof is “admittedly indirect” and calls for future experimental methods to corroborate the findings. It also says the mode of proof does not rule out alternative or supplemental mechanisms, including affect, biased assimilation, availability bias, and in-group/out-group dynamics such as naïve realism, reactive devaluation, and group polarization.
  • The paper describes the African-American abortion-risk finding as the primary anomalous result and says its proposed explanation is “obviously conjectural” and merits additional investigation.
  • Evident from the text: the study is a cross-sectional telephone survey with a 42% response rate and 59% cooperation rate, relying on self-reported attitudes; the African-American oversample was excluded from the Table 1 analysis to avoid overweighting African-Americans relative to white women and other minorities.

Model-written summary. Check it against the paper before relying on it.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1111/j.1740-1461.2007.00097.x

Cites

97 of 97 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

57 Own result · 52 Own interpretation · 6 Sources not found · 6 Not checked yet · 5 No basis given · 4 Own method · 1 Supported so far · 1 No full text of the sources

Show all 94 claims

  • Probably not a substantial claim. 17
  • It may state two separate claims as one. 23
38 of 38
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    The distribution of risk perceptions across persons can yield insight about the formation of those perceptions.

    “The basic premise of the study was that the distribution of risk perceptions across persons can yield insight about the formation of those perceptions.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Cultural worldviews exert a causal influence on risk perceptions rather than merely being correlated with them.

    “Model 2 adds the cultural worldviews variables.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The cultural worldview variables validly and reliably measure the group-grid cultural dispositions they are intended to measure.

    “Each worldview variable was significant and had the predicted sign.”
3 of 3

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

Each contradiction between two passages listed here was confirmed by an independent check.

3 of 3

Citations

Cites

Show all 90 references

Research works printed but not linked: 17

  1. Balkin J. M., 1998, Cultural Software
  2. Bord R. J., 1997, The Gender Gap in Environmental Attitudes: The Case of Perceived Vulnerability to Risk, Social Science Q, 78, 830
  3. Cohen J., 1988, Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences
  4. Douglas M., 1982, In the Active Voice
  5. Douglas M., 1986, How Institutions Think
  6. Douglas M., 1999, Implicit Meanings: Selected Essays in Anthropology
  7. Ellis R., 1997, Culture Matters: Essays in Honor of Aaron Wildavsky
  8. Hofstadter R., 1970, America as a Gun Culture,” 21, American Heritage, 4
  9. Jenkins‐Smith H., 2001, Modeling Stigma: An Empirical Analysis of Nuclear Waste Images of Nevada, Risk, Media, and Stigma: Understanding Public Challenges to Modern Science and Technology
  10. Jenkins‐Smith H., 1994, Politics, Policy, and Culture
  11. Kahan D. M., 2006, Cultural Cognition of Public Policy, Yale J. of Law & Pubic Policy, 24, 147
  12. Kalof L., 2002, Race, Gender and Environmentalism: The Atypical Values and Beliefs of White Men, Race, Gender & Class, 9, 1
  13. Kennedy R., 1997, Race, Crime, and the Law
  14. Margolis H., 1996, Dealing with Risk: When the Public and Experts Disagree on Environmental Issues
  15. Ross L., 1995, Barriers to Conflict Resolution
  16. Smith T. W., 1990, Ethnic Images
  17. Thompson M., 1990, Cultural Theory

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Items 101–136 of 136

Metadata

Authors
Kahan, D. M., Braman, D., Gastil, J., Slovic, P., & Mertz, C. K.
Affiliations
  • Yale University (US)
  • George Washington University (US)
  • Pennsylvania State University (US)
  • University of Oregon (US)
Corresponding author
  • Kahan, Dan M.
  • Braman, Donald
  • Gastil, John
  • Slovic, Paul
  • Mertz, C. K.
Venue
Journal of Empirical Legal Studies
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2007-09-11
Volume
4
Issue
3
Pages
465-505
ISSN
  • 1740-1453 (ISSN-L)
  • 1740-1461
OpenAlex
W2084725137
Cited by
136
References
90
Citations by year
2025: 2 · 2024: 33 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 23 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 5 · 2014: 9 · 2013: 1 · 2012: 4
FWCI
12.31
Type
journal article
Language
en
Locations
  • Journal of Empirical Legal Studies (publishedVersion)
  • bepress Legal Repository (submittedVersion)
  • SSRN Electronic Journal (submittedVersion)
Funders
National Science Foundation (0242106)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Risk Perception and Management
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
Keywords
risk perception, cultural identity, motivated cognition, gender differences, racial differences, cultural worldview, risk communication, risk regulation

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