Vocational Risk Tolerance and Perceptions of Occupational Hazards

Abstract

Opinions of three groups in occupations presenting some environmental health risks were compared with each other to determine the factors important to vocational risk perceptions and the effects of vocation on attitudes toward environmental hazards. Variation in attitudes among groups toward assessments of risk and the acceptability of risk exposure reflected outlooks toward the compensatory factors within one's vocation. These included availability and use of information to support preexisting conceptions of one's own and other vocations, social support, vocational identity, positive public image, and high salaries. Such compensatory factors may help explain why groups differ in their vocational risk tolerance and in attitudes toward environmental hazards.