Study 1.1

This first study focused upon two questions. Firstly, the study aimed at identifying environmental changes that are considered as risks in lay thinking in order to generate stimuli for the following studies. Secondly, we investigated if the risk concept of Yates and Stone (1992) can be applied to lays’ concepts of risk. Therefore the central question was whether loss, relevance and uncertainty can be regarded as being constitutive elements of risk on a subjective level.

Method

The representative survey (N=1000) was conducted in the former western states of Germany. Two open questions were presented to the subjects. The first question was which global environmental changes they considered as risks. Any number of answers was possible. Secondly, the subjects were asked to give reasons why they considered their answers to question 1 as risks. Furthermore, the subjects indicated on a scale to what extend they perceive 16 given environmental changes as global environmental risks.

Results

The answers to question 1 were classified in order to produce a hierarchy of environmental risks according to their frequency of naming. Air pollution, the hole in the ozone layer and the destruction of the forests, for instance, were very frequent answers, whereas the extinction of species and the erosion of the soil were mentioned rather rarely, although they are also very serious risks according to experts. When asked to give reasons in question 2, the subjects mainly named negative consequences that are understood as losses in the risk concept of Yates and Stone. The other two elements, relevance and uncertainty, were rarely named. They seem to be of secondary importance when giving reasons for certain risks.