What Is The Cultural Theory Of Risk?

It's a paradigm to understand risk perception, devised by Mary Douglas. I honestly though she died years ago, but every source I consult says she's still kicking (December 2006).

Douglas is a little old lady (and anthropologist) who takes issue with the risk preception scales developed by Paul Slovic. Douglas reckons that Slovic (read about his ideas) ignores how personality and cultural traits might influence risk perceptions.

According to Douglas, people could be divided into one of five types, which predict how they react to different types of possible hazards:

Autonomous: Archetypal hermits, who ignore the outside world.

Individualist: Confident free-thinkers. They most fear things that interfere with free-choice (like authoritarian government).

Egalitarian: Medium social status. Cautious, most fearful of unlikely risks that could nevertheless badly affect many (like new polluting industries). Douglas would say that we live in an age when Egalitarian thinking predominates, which is why Slovic's model of risk perception seems so work so universally.

Hierarchist: People with protected high social status, they rely on rules, expert advice, social structure and their social position to protect them.

Fatalist: Have low social status. See everything that happens as beyond their control. Stereotyped as passive, but they will take steps to minimise the risk to themselves and their own family, although they don't think far outside that box.

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