Cognitive Representation of Risk Perceptions: A Comparison of Japan and the United States

Abstract

An impressive body of research in the psychometric tradition has demonstrated systematic biases in the way Americans perceive risks associated with technologies, substances, and activities. The consistency of the findings has raised the question of whether these biases are culturally specific or reflective of more fundamental human thought processes. Do people in different cultures perceive technological and other risks differently or similarly? An answer to the question is also important to the development of effective communication strategies and international policies for addressing global risks. Recent empirical research to address the question has used psychometric techniques to-assess the risk perceptions of samples in Hungary, Norway, and Hong Kong. The research presented here, building and improving on the previous cross-cultural work, is a comparison of risk perceptions between American and Japanese people. The results from the concurrently collected perception data indicate both striking similarities and differences in the ways Americans and Japanese perceive risks.