Risk Society and Representations of Risks: Earthquakes and Beyond

Abstract

This chapter explores how lay publics respond to potential disasters. It contends that the current risk perception field largely neglects the common-sense beliefs and emotions that lie at the root of public responses to risks. The chapter challenges several of the assumptions that buttress the conventional construal of the terms 'risk' and 'perception'. It proposes that the current focus on how the individual mind cognitively processes predictable, calculable phenomena should be replaced by emphasis on how emotional and socio-cultural beings represent often unknowable potential catastrophes. Social representations theory is put forward as a viable theoretical framework within which this shift could be achieved. The chapter illustrates the value of a social representations approach to studying risk by presenting the findings of a cross-cultural study examining social representations of earthquakes in cities at risk of earthquakes in the US, Japan and Turkey. The chapter concludes by proposing routes by which the findings of such studies could be channelled into behavioural intervention programmes.

Social Representations of Earthquakes: A Study of People Living in Three Highly Seismic Areas

“…However, there is at best equivocal support for the proposition that risk perceptions predict adjustment behavior; heightened perception that earthquakes pose a risk does not inevitably lead to greater risk reduction efforts among households and individuals (Lindell and Perry 2000, Rossetto et al 2011). The assumption that individual risk perception leads to reduction efforts is faulty for a number of reasons, principally that human action is not driven solely by conscious, rational decision-making carried out by individuals (Joffe 2003, Joffe and O'Connor 2013). Rather, emotional and sociocultural factors play a key role in people's risk-related behavior.…”