Contagious Risk Perception: The Social Dynamics of Risk Perception, Communication, and Behavior

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Wolfgang Gaissmaier, since 3/2023
• Subject Area: Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology
• Term: from 2020 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 441541975

Building on our previous research on risk perception, risk communication, and the social amplification of risk, we will further investigate the social dynamics of risk, i.e. how others serve as exposure in individuals’ PEC cycles. Specifically, we will investigate (a) how characteristics of risk information determine its social transmission, (b) how social communication network structure and risk information interact in the transmission of risk information, and (c) how actual social network context information is used in individual risk estimates.In the first funding period, we discovered that selective attention to attitude consistent information (preparedness) trumped social risk information influence. Thus, Work Package 1 will investigate how risk information concerning flu vaccination, HPV vaccination and colorectal cancer screenings (exposure) should be designed to overcome this resistance to new information (coping) and spread further in social networks. Building on previous findings, we expect more transparent and affect-rich information to proliferate more efficiently. As an additional preparedness factor, we will manipulate participants’ mindsets, expecting that a deliberative mindset renders participants more receptive towards risk information exposure, and thus facilitate the social amplification of the exposed risk signal.Work Package 2 will elaborate on the effects of information network structure on the transmission of risk information. Resembling the social chaining of individual PEC cycle trajectories, the proliferation of risk information is modeled in experimental online groups of six people by game-theoretic principles. This model enables us to control selective attention phenomena we encountered in natural settings and extends our first funding period findings on linear, unidirectional communications to complex, recursive communication patterns. Accordingly, this design allows us to test how groups communication networks, selective experience with, and the distribution of risk information will affect the efficiency of collective and individual decision making.Work Package 3 will scrutinize how people sample incidences and risk behavior from their social circles (exposure) and build corresponding risk perceptions for both themselves and their peers upon those samples (coping). We evaluate how group structures and individual behaviors contribute to optimistic biases with a longitudinal round-robin assessment of risks and risk perceptions in a naturally evolving, closed group. We then experimentally test how feedback on individual biases may alter risk estimations.This project collaborates on the topic of risk communication with P4 ‘Prepared for Risk’, on the role of mindsets in this process with P6 ‘Updating Risk’, and on modeling social risk comparisons with P10 ‘Risk Analyses’.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Ehemaliger Antragsteller: Dr. Helge Giese, until 2/2023