Trust and Acceptance of Risks

This chapter seeks to understand the determinants of risk acceptance. Thus, it implements a survey (n=200) to ask participants which policy measures would make people accept each of the following risks: nuclear power plants, traffic accidents, food safety, electrical appliances, and medical mishaps. These results indicate that risk acceptance cannot be fully explained only by objectively achieved security, but other factors, such as scientific understanding and trust in workers and organizations, were also found to be important for increasing risk acceptance. Those who wish to increase the public's risk acceptance should appear trustworthy and try to understand the scientific mechanisms of accidents; they should also try to minimize risk damage and probability. Trust is important, especially for risks where accidents can be prevented relatively easily by workers and/or organizations. These risks include those associated with food and medical mishaps. Scientific understanding of risk mechanisms is also important for risk acceptance, especially for risks involving mechanisms that are relatively complex, such as nuclear power and electrical appliance risks.