Sjoberg (1998). Workd Views, Political Attitudes and Risk Perception

This study was published at Risk: Health, Safety & Environment in 1998 and is the first article I read about the limited power of cultural theory in predicting technological risk attitudes.

Basically, this study, with 141 subjects from a church organization in California, aimed to replicate the Dake's piece published in 1990 (Orienting dispositions in the perception of risk). Dake aruged in his study that "cultural bias and social relations" (including hierarchy, individualism, and egalitarianism) better explained people's risk perception than other political ideology and personality reasons.

However, Sjoberg criticized Dake's ideology measure for being too heterogeneous and having low reliability, compared to Rothman and Lichter's measure, in that it included many non-business and -economics related items.

Variables tested in this study, thus, included political attitudes, trust, affect, and Dake's scales, with dependent variables being 36 societal concerns and 51 risk ratings. Sjorboerg found that although trust was pervasively correlated with concerns, it explained only 2.6% of the variance of risks. The same situation is applicable to Dake's scales of world views. In addition, affect was correlated with risks and concerns well.


The more surprising finding pertains to the fact that Dake's scale were not technology related, leading Sjorberg to conclude that "Cultural Theory simply is wrong (p.149)" [in its use of explaining risks].

Related reading:

Peters, E., & Slovic, P. (1996). The Role of Affect and Worldviews as Orienting Dispositions in the Perception and Acceptance of Nuclear Power Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 26(16), 1427-1453.