Attitudes toward risk and uncertainty: The role of subjective knowledge and affect

Abstract

An individual's attitude toward risk is often measured by their behavioral tendency in risky situations. However, commonly used self-report measures of risk attitudes often do not explicitly specify "risk" in all the items, which results in an unsystematic mix of both perceived uncertainty and risk (as loss). Thus, an individual's endorsement of those items can vary as a function of not only the latent construct of attitudes toward risk, but also factors including prior knowledge and affective reaction to uncertainty. Two studies were carried out to examine the extent to which participants perceive behavioral tendency items as entailing uncertainty or risk (as loss) and how behavioral tendency can be influenced by prior knowledge. Results indicate that endorsement of behavioral tendency was significantly greater when "risk" information was implicit when compared with items that had explicit information to contextualize the uncertainty or risk. Furthermore, prior knowledge had a significantly stronger influence on the endorsement of items in which risk information was implicit than on the explicit uncertainty/risk items. Finally, uncertainty and risk in the items appeared to influence behavioral tendency significantly via emotional responses to the items. This research highlights the need for researchers to more adequately control for different sources of variability when measuring the desired construct of attitude toward risk.

The Moderating Roles of Sensation Seeking and Worry among Nature-Based Adventure Tourists

“…This suggests that those involved and knowledgeable about adventure tourism are likely to participate in the future. The results are consistent with previous findings on involvement and knowledge and their impact on intentions [ 40 , 53 , 55 , 56 , 70 ]. The successful extension of the TPB was also supported by the relatively strong model fit statistics, suggesting that the study model remained parsimonious even though additional constructs were added.…”

“…Individuals who spend time and effort to read and learn about adventure tourism are also likely to accumulate more knowledge about the activity, similar to previous findings [ 40 , 53 , 56 ]. Additionally, consistent with empirical evidence are the effects of involvement and knowledge on attitude and perceived behavioral control [ 38 , 39 , 42 , 43 , 56 , 65 , 70 ]. It is logical that individuals would spend time and effort to learn about and immerse themselves with things they are interested in.…”

“…In other words, worry is believed to be caused by individuals’ evaluation of future events’ uncertain outcomes. Because the outcomes can be ambiguous or uncertain, those who require explicit and predictable evidence in their decision-making processes tend to struggle to cope [ 37 , 70 ]. Thus, they often start a chain of thoughts that revolves around possible outcomes, which are unknown [ 36 ].…”

“…In other words, worriers tend to be more thorough when planning and are likely to engage in more preparations and follow safety precautions more precisely [ 28 , 42 , 43 , 70 ]. Prior knowledge and experience play a significant role in aiding the decision-making process for those who worry because they can anticipate the type of risk and have more information on preparation and cautionary behaviors [ 43 , 70 ]. Consequently, the level of worry should either strengthen or weaken the relationships between the study variables.…”

Ambiguity attitudes in qualitative contexts: The role of prior beliefs

“…For that it was necessary to capture the range of situations where it might occur in the real world, where situational factors will vary considerably, rather than to limit that range by trying to control for a small set of specific factors. Future work will consider scenarios that more tightly control and measure such factors, including not just prior beliefs about the outcomes but also familiarity with the situation and utility of the outcomes (see e.g., Shou & Olney, 2020 for initial work in that direction).…”