Department of Marketing, BI Norwegian Business School, Norway.
Department of Innovation, Consumer and Sensory Sciences, Nofima, Norway.
Risk Anal. 2020 May;40(5):1092-1110. doi: 10.1111/risa.13449. Epub 2020 Jan 27.
Previous studies of risk behavior observed weak or inconsistent relationships between risk perception and risk-taking. One aspect that has often been neglected in such studies is the situational context in which risk behavior is embedded: Even though a person may perceive a behavior as risky, the social norms governing the situation may work as a counteracting force, overriding the influence of risk perception. Three food context studies are reported. In Study 1 (N = 200), we assess how norm strength varies across different social situations, relate the variation in norm strength to the social characteristics of the situation, and identify situations with consistently low and high levels of pressure to comply with the social norm. In Study 2 (N = 502), we investigate how willingness to accept 15 different foods that vary in terms of objective risk relates to perceived risk in situations with low and high pressure to comply with a social norm. In Study 3 (N = 1,200), we test how risk-taking is jointly influenced by the perceived risk associated with the products and the social norms governing the situations in which the products are served. The results indicate that the effects of risk perception and social norm are additive, influencing risk-taking simultaneously but as counteracting forces. Social norm had a slightly stronger absolute effect, leading to a net effect of increased risk-taking. The relationships were stable over different social situations and food safety risks and did not disappear when detailed risk information was presented.
先前关于风险行为的研究发现，风险感知与冒险行为之间的关系较弱或不一致。在这些研究中，一个经常被忽视的方面是风险行为所嵌入的情境背景：即使一个人可能认为某种行为有风险，但支配情境的社会规范可能会产生一种抵消力量，从而削弱风险感知的影响。本文报告了三项食品情境研究。在研究 1（N = 200）中，我们评估了不同社会情境下规范强度的变化，将规范强度的变化与情境的社会特征联系起来，并确定了具有一致低和高遵从社会规范压力的情境。在研究 2（N = 502）中，我们调查了在遵从社会规范的压力低和高的情境下，人们对 15 种不同食物的接受意愿与感知风险之间的关系，这些食物在客观风险方面有所不同。在研究 3（N = 1,200）中，我们检验了在产品相关的感知风险和支配产品供应情境的社会规范的共同影响下，风险承担是如何被共同影响的。结果表明，风险感知和社会规范的影响是相加的，同时但作为相互抵消的力量影响风险承担。社会规范的绝对影响略强，导致风险承担的净效应增加。这些关系在不同的社会情境和食品安全风险中是稳定的，并且在呈现详细风险信息时不会消失。
