Bringing appraisal theory to environmental risk perception: a review of conceptual approaches of the past 40 years and suggestions for future research

Abstract

An intensive program of 40 years of research has produced various conceptual cognitive and affective approaches to environmental risk perception. In this short review of the most relevant conceptual approaches, appraisal theory is presented as a useful means of integrating cognitive and affective approaches to risk perception. Appraisal theory offers an opportunity to advance our understanding of how environmental risk perception operates in an emotion-specific manner and enables identification of new research directions. Although within other conceptual approaches there are still open research questions, the potential for examining environmental risk perception within appraisal theory has not yet been fully explored. Reviewing current appraisal theoretical models, seven research questions are suggested to structure future research on environmental risk perception.

Keywords:

• risk perception
• review
• cognition
• affect
• emotion
• appraisal theory

Notes

1. Some approaches that aim to explain individual differences in risk perception, such as cultural theory or the examination of worldviews and other individual dispositions or demographics (e.g. gender) are not presented in detail. The role of these variables in risk perception may be mediated by cognition and affect and is, thus, partially discussed in the presentation of affective and cognitive approaches. Theoretically interesting approaches that have not initiated a clear line of empirical research in the field of environmental risk perception, such as the social representation theory (Joffe 2003), are not presented either; for a detailed overview of these approaches, see, for example, Breakwell (2007).

2. Definitions (Scherer 1999; Watson and Spence 2007): Outcome desirability encompasses the overall evaluation of how positive or negative (desirable/undesirable) a situation is relative to a personal benchmark, whether it be driven by goals or a more general evaluation of pleasantness. Agency includes the evaluation whether control is by oneself, others or chance). Certainty represents the perceived likelihood of a particular event. Fairness deals with how morally appropriate one perceives an event to be. Coping potential is the evaluation of the ability to cope with consequences to be expected. Due to a lack of empirical evidence, Watson and Spence proposed ignoring coping potential as an antecedent of emotion. This is in contrast to the suggestion of most appraisal theorists (see, e.g. Scherer 1999) who proposed including coping potential with respect to an event. However, in the context of environmental risk, coping potential with a risk was empirically demonstrated to be a relevant determinant of emotion (Peters, Burraston, and Mertz 2004).

3. Some appraisal theorists view the components of emotion as being ordered in a sequential process, starting with an evaluation of whether or not the stimulus is good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant and followed by more complex appraisals (Ellsworth and Scherer 2003; Scherer 2009a, 2009b). This component process model (Scherer 2009a, 2009b) delineates a very complex sequence of appraising and elicitation of emotion and action tendencies with cycles of reappraising. We believe that in the context of environmental risk perception, it is more important to have knowledge about the relevant emotional components (e.g. what appraisals elicit what specific emotions and what action tendency) rather than to know the true sequence of the activation of these components.

4. It should be noted that there is also a different approach to understanding individual differences in emotion through appraisal. Relational models assume that the specific links between particular appraisals and the experience of particular emotions, as specified in the structural models, are general across all individuals. There are a few authors who assume that individuals may differ in the specific appraisal patterns (for a short overview, see Smith and Kirby 2009).