Sociopolitical Determinants of Perceived Risk, 1998 (ICPSR 34637)
Version Date: Nov 6, 2013 View help for published
Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s)
Paul Slovic, Decision Research
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR34637.v1
Version V1
Summary View help for Summary
The Sociopolitical Determinants of Perceived Risk project is an extensive national survey designed to assess the influence of sociopolitical constructs on perceived risk. This research project designed an extensive survey instrument to assess the influence of sociopolitical constructs on perceived risk. The survey was administered to 1,204 randomly selected adults by telephone between September, 1997 and February, 1998. Minority groups (African-American, Hispanic-American, and Asian-American persons) were oversampled. This national survey revealed that men rate a wide range of hazards as lower in risk than women and that whites rate risks lower than non-whites. Non-white females often gave the highest risk ratings. The group with the consistently lowest risk perceptions across a range of hazards was white males. A few exceptions were found: compared with white males, Asian males gave lower risk ratings to six items. Compared with the rest of the sample, white males were more sympathetic with hierarchical, individualistic, and anti-egalitarian views, more trusting of technology managers, less trusting of government, and less sensitive to potential stigmatization of communities from hazards. Although the data showed that white males stood apart from others, the data also revealed substantial heterogeneity in risk perceptions among the race and gender groups that comprised the 'other' category. That is, risk perceptions varied considerably across African-Americans, Asian, and Hispanic males and females. The heterogeneity implies that risk perceptions depend importantly on characteristics of the individuals facing the risk. The sociopolitical constructions included power, control influence, alienation, social class, trust and worldviews. Demographic information pertaining to race, gender, age, education and income was also obtained.
Citation View help for Citation
Export Citation:
Funding View help for Funding
Subject Terms View help for Subject Terms
Geographic Coverage View help for Geographic Coverage
Smallest Geographic Unit View help for Smallest Geographic Unit
United States (national survey)
Restrictions View help for Restrictions
Public and restricted versions of the data are included in this collection. Due to the sensitive nature of the restricted data, users will need to complete a Restricted Data Use Agreement before they can obtain the restricted version. These forms can be accessed on the download page associated with this dataset
Distributor(s) View help for Distributor(s)
Time Period(s) View help for Time Period(s)
Date of Collection View help for Date of Collection
Data Collection Notes View help for Data Collection Notes
-
The original identification number was replaced by a sequential record identifier to protect respondent confidentiality.
-
The restricted use data contains qualitative data administrated on a split sample basis where respondents only answered one of the following topics: blood transfusion, eating beef, and cloning.
Study Purpose View help for Study Purpose
This study was designed to assess the influence of sociopolitical constructs on perceived risk.
Study Design View help for Study Design
The survey was administered to 1,204 randomly selected adults by telephone between September 1997, and February 1998. Minority groups (African-American, Hispanic-American, and Asian-American persons) were oversampled.
Sample View help for Sample
Random selection of United States households with phones. Please refer to the "Appendix: Summary of Survey Methodology" in the codebook for more information.
Universe View help for Universe
United States households with phones, with oversampling of non-white households.
Unit(s) of Observation View help for Unit(s) of Observation
Data Source View help for Data Source
Telephone interviews
Data Type(s) View help for Data Type(s)
Mode of Data Collection View help for Mode of Data Collection
Response Rates View help for Response Rates
Response rate ranged by day and race/ethnic groups between 32.5 percent and 54.4 percent. See the Summary of Survey Methodology file in user guide.
HideOriginal Release Date View help for Original Release Date
2013-11-06
Version History View help for Version History
- Slovic, Paul. Sociopolitical Determinants of Perceived Risk, 1998. ICPSR34637-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2013-11-06. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR34637.v1
2013-11-06 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:
- Performed consistency checks.
- Standardized missing values.
- Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.
Weight View help for Weight
Weighting the ethnic groups back to their respective proportion in the United States population as a whole, results in a weighted sample size of 861. See the Summary of Survey Methodology file in the user guide.
HideNotes
These data are freely available to data users at ICPSR member institutions. The curation and dissemination of this study are provided by the institutional members of ICPSR. How do I access ICPSR data if I am not at a member institution?
One or more files in this data collection have special restrictions. Restricted data files are not available for direct download from the website; click on the Restricted Data button to learn more.