Will the Real Meaning of Affect Please Stand Up?

Journal of Risk ResearchVol. 9, No. 2, 101–108, March 2006EDITORIALWill the Real Meaning of AffectPlease Stand Up? 1LENNART SJÖBERGCentre for Risk Research, Stockholm School of Economics, SwedenABSTRACT It is widely believed that affect plays an important role in risk perception,and that such perception is mainly governed by emotional processes. However, uponcloser scrutiny it turns out that the belief is based on weak empirical evidence, if thewords affect and emotion are interpreted according to their dominating meanings innatural language, and to common usage in psychology at large. Instead, severity ofconsequences emerges as a major factor in perceived risk, just as it did in a previousanalysis of probability/risk vs. consequences (Sjöberg, 1999b, 2000a). The perceptionof severity of consequences is not the same as emotion, although emotional effectsmay arise from considering some severe consequences of accidents or the use ofcertain technologies and facilities. The picture of the public as irrational andemotionally driven painted by the received message on the role of affect is unfortunateand possibly has unwanted policy implications. The word affect should be used todenote emotion; it is then clear that affect/emotion is of only minor importance in riskperception.When risk perception first became a topic in behavioral research, it wasbelieved by many that the ‘‘biased’’ views held by the public on risks oftechnology were due to cognitive limitations, as described in the Kahneman–Tversky work on heuristics (Sjöberg, 1979; Tversky & Kahneman, 1974).However, it later became clear that there were social and psychologicaldynamics involved (Sjöberg, 1980a) which could be better accounted for byan approach bringing in non-cognitive factors. 2 Emotion or affect, specifiedas dread, was early held to be a dominating factor in risk perception.1 This paper was supported by a grant from the Bank of Sweden Tercentary Fund (NeglectedRisks). Elisabeth Engelberg provided important information on emotion definitions. HenryMontgomery gave valuable comments on the manuscript.Correspondence Address: L. Sjöberg, Centre for Risk Research, Stockholm School ofEconomics, Stockholm, Sweden. Email: pls@hhs.se1366-9877 Print/1466-4461 Online/06/020101–8 # 2006 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/13669870500446068

102 EditorialRisk researchers are now increasingly interested in affect, and its rolein risk perception and management; see e.g. Loewenstein et al. (Loewenstein,Weber, Hsee, & Welch, 2001). It is argued that affect is very important inrisk perception, seemingly supporting the traditional view that dread is adominating factor in perceived risk (Fischhoff, Slovic, Lichtenstein, Read, &Combs, 1978; Slovic, 1987). It has been suggested that there is an ‘‘affectheuristic’’ which would account for much of perceived risk.Defining EmotionSome of this discussion is hard to follow because the word affect is beingused in varying ways. What does affect mean in the natural language?According to Merriam-Webster, 3 affect (as a noun) meansthe conscious subjective aspect of an emotion considered apart from bodilychanges.The dictionary also notes two other meanings, said to be now obsolete, viz.feeling and affection. To understand this statement we also need to know themeaning of emotion. The dictionary meaning isthe affective aspect of consciousness : FEELING b : a state of feeling c : apsychic and physical reaction (as anger or fear) subjectively experienced asstrong feeling and physiologically involving changes that prepare the body forimmediate vigorous actionClearly, then, feeling is another key term, reported by Merriam-Websterto be a synonym of emotion. 4 Feeling is also a more complex term, but wefind among its possible meanings thataffection applies to feelings that are also inclinations or likingsHence, one of many specialized meanings of affect is ‘‘feelings of liking,’’found also in contemporary writings on the psychology of emotions (Ekman& Davidson, 1994). The overall picture is that words such as affect, emotion2 The cognitive analysis of decision making and action, dominating for many years, failed torecognize the difficulties of sustaining long-term commitments, obvious in the addictions(Sjöberg, 1980b) where emotions play a crucial role (Elster, 1983, 1999), but also in manyother contexts. People re-interpret and re-structure information so as to fit preconceivedpreferences, they do not proceed in a straightforward and seemingly rational manner to makedecisions and act upon given information (Montgomery, 1989).3 The Internet on-line edition was used, see http://www.m-w.com/netdict.htm.4 Yet, it is clear that feeling is a broader term than emotion. There are feelings having noemotional contents.

Editorial 103and feeling are not particularly well defined and have ambiguous relations toeach other. Finucane et al. (Finucane et al., 2000) wrote:Affect may be viewed as a feeling state that people experience, such ashappiness or sadness. It may also be viewed as a quality (e.g. goodness orbadness) associated with a stimulus. (p. 2, emphasis added)Another key term in the discussion is dread, according to Merriam-Webstermeaninggreat fear especially in the face of impending evil, or extreme uneasiness in theface of a disagreeable prospectHence, dread clearly has emotional meaning, denoting very strong emotion(fear).In psychology, there are more specialized definitions which reflectcurrent research interests and conceptions. However, scientific publicationsin psychology offer little enlightment on what emotion is. In the Handbookof Emotions, edited by Lewis and Haviland (Lewis & Haviland, 1993), themeaning of the term is seemingly taken for granted. Zajonc, in his chapter onemotions in the Handbook of Social Psychology (Zajonc, 1998), writesA complete and coherent definition of emotion is equivalent to this entirechapter including the contents of its references. (p. 591)Only a few current articles deal with definitional issues. As an example,Cabanac (Cabanac, 2002) noted that there is no consensus on the issue ofdefinition of emotion and suggested that emotion is any intense mentalexperience with hedonic (pleasure or displeasure) value. Since there are alsoweak emotions this definition seems less than suitable, and also too wide.A person can be intensely convinced of a viewpoint, and embrace itwith pleasure, still we would not call such conviction an emotion—or wouldwe?Textbooks are also of some interest in the present discussion. Here is adefinition of emotion from a widely used contemporary textbook inpsychology:emotions are positive or negative feeling (affect) states consisting of a patternof cognitive, physiological and behavioral reactions to events that haverelevance to important goals or motives [(Passer & Smith, 2001), p. 412]This formulation is informative, up to a point. Emotion, feeling andaffect are seemingly equated. The notion of emotion as a mental state isroughly similar to the dictionary definition, but the addition that these states‘‘consist of patterns of … reactions’’ makes things very unclear, again. Howcan a mental state ‘‘consist’’ of, among other things, physiological reactions?

104 EditorialWhatever would be the answer to that question, the textbook definition isuseful because it shows how the mainstream definition of emotion/affect isclose to natural language, while the addition of scientific considerationscreates considerable confusion or makes the concept loose. It is this type oflooseness which is the likely culprit for how affect has been treated in riskperception research. Concepts are simply not used in a clear andconsequential manner, and words can mean many different things.Consequences of DefinitionsWhy is all this important? The reason is that emotion is not necessarilyimplicated as an important factor in perceived risk, but liking may well be.People tend to construe risks and benefits according to how well they like anobject or a concept. There will be belief-value correlations, reflecting wishfulthinking, 5 perhaps especially with object/concepts which are relativelyunknown to the respondent (Ganzach, 2001).When evidence for a likingrisklink is interpreted as implicating a role for ‘‘affect,’’ it takes very carefulreading not to draw the conclusion that the data have shown that risk andemotion are closely related.Yet, they aren’t. Data show that an emotion-loaded word such as worryis only weakly linked to perceived risk with correlations around 0.3 or lower(Drottz-Sjöberg & Sjöberg, 1990; Sjöberg, 1998). 6 The image model ofattitude suggested previously (Sjöberg, 1999a; Sjöberg & Biel, 1983) positsthat there is an underlying mental substrate, called image, which drives theelicited beliefs and values connected to a concept or an object. The morecommon rationalistic view assumes beliefs and values to be the drivingfactors in attitude, and to be independent (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). 7 LaterSwedish and Norwegian work has supported the mental image model.Rundmo found support for the image model of perceived risk (Rundmo,2002), while an earlier study gave more equivocal results: both therationalistic and the mental image models fitted data (Rundmo & Sjöberg,1998).Finucane et al. suggested a similar interpretation of their data whichshow a strong negative correlation between beliefs and values, or risks andbenefits (Finucane et al., 2000), naming it the ‘‘affect heuristic.’’ However,the affect interpretation suggested by Finucane et al. of their results is5 In the context of a risk perception survey, very strong evidence for wishful thinking wasfound for Sweden’s membership in the European Union (Sjöberg, 1996), to take just oneexample.6 These correlations, around 0.3, mean that 90% of the variance of perceived risk remainunexplained. Yet, Loewenstein et al. (Loewenstein et al., 2001) cite them in support of theirthesis that emotion is of paramount importance for understanding perceived risk.7 The intricate dynamics of beliefs and values is not well accounted for by cognitive attitudemodels such as the one proposed by Fishbein and used in a great many applications. Sjöbergand Montgomery showed how beliefs and values are dynamic entities, construed in thecontext of rhetoric (Sjöberg & Montgomery, 1999).

Editorial 105ambiguous. As pointed out above, affect can be used in two senses of theword (emotion and liking) and but Finucane et al. presented no data onemotion which enabled them to support the conclusion that emotions areinvolved in the judgment process.Going back now to 1978, the classical paper by Fischhoff et al.purportedly showed that ‘‘dread’’ is a major factor in perceived risk (Slovic,1987). This is a common conclusion from that paper and it has been widelybelieved, on its basis, that emotional factors are very important in riskperception. Yet, there were only three items which emerged in that study asindicators of ‘‘dread,’’ and they were Certain to be fatal, Dreaded, andCatastrophic. In their factor analysis of nine items, Fischhoff et al. foundSeverity of consequences to be the most important item loading on what waslater to be called the Dread factor. Somewhat later, the contents of the factorwere broadened, on the basis of the analysis of 18 items (Slovic, Fischhoff, &Lichtenstein, 1980), yet no emotion term other than ‘‘dread’’ was included.Later work in the 1980s was summarized by Slovic in 1987 (Slovic, 1987).He reported, in that paper, a factor characterized, in its high values, by ahazard being or causing:- uncontrollable- dread- global catastrophic- consequences fatal- not equitable- catastrophic- high risk to future generations- not easily reduced- risk increasing- involuntaryThe term dread clearly suggests that people have a ‘‘gut reaction’’ to ahazard and that such a reaction is the main part of the dynamics of theirconcern. However, the Dread factor is, upon closer inspection, quiteheterogenous. It does contain one item which clearly refers to emotionalreactions, but the other items refer to severe consequences of the hazard(fatal, children or future generations involved etc.), or even to an assortmentof various factors such as fairness or voluntariness. Nine attributes definingthe dread factor were according to Graham (Graham, 2001), in a recentarticle:- fatal versus non-fatal- global versus local impact- involuntary versus voluntary- uncontrollable versus controllable- unfair versus fair- catastrophic versus unclustered victims- future versus current generations

106 Editorial- increasing versus decreasing- not easily reduced versus easily reducedSeveral of these items were found by Fischhoff et al. to load on the Noveltyfactor, and were not grouped with Dread items by them. Note also that noneof the items mentioned by Graham refers explicitly to emotional reactions.In a recent analysis of data on risk perception of nuclear waste (Sjöberg,2003), items referring to purely emotional aspects were allowed to formtheir own factor, while the other Dread items formed the factor of Severityof consequences. It was then found that emotional reactions played a minorrole. The main factor was that of Severity of consequences.It can be concluded that the received message from 25 years of riskperception research, viz. that emotional factors dominate the picture, is dueto the misleading name given to an assortment of very different items, onlyone of which explicitly denotes emotional reactions. The importance of‘‘Dread’’ is due to the importance of severe consequences, which provesnothing about the role of emotions. When tested empirically, emotions bythemselves play a minor role.An interesting exception is the recent study on reactions to the 9-11events in the American public (Lerner, Gonzalez, Small, & Fischhoff, 2003).It is possible that the circumstances of this particular study involved muchmore extreme levels of anger and fear than what is usually studied in surveywork on risk perception. A study of perceived risks of terrorism in theSwedish public showed that Dread was of minor importance only (Sjöberg,2005).The importance of severity of consequences is in very good agreementwith previous work which shows that consequences play a more importantrole than probabilities, which in turn are almost the same as risks (Sjöberg,1999b, 2000a). It is also in good agreement with the results in the Fischhoffet al. (1978) paper where the item ‘‘severity of consequences’’ had thehighest factor loading in the factor labelled ‘‘Dread.’’ConclusionTwo conclusions can be drawn from the argument put forward here. First,empirical data do not support a strong link between emotion and perceivedrisk, in the main sense of the word emotion and in the sense it is used inpsychological emotion research. Second, while there is evidence for arelationship between liking and risk perception, this is not evidence for a linkbetween emotion and risk perception. Liking is not emotion.The way emotions are ‘‘proven’’ to be a factor in risk perception is thusby a sort of terminological ‘‘slippery slope’’ involving shifting meanings ofterms. Liking is a factor in risk perception, and one of the meanings of likingis affect. Hence, affect is said to be implicated in risk perception, and one ofthe meanings of affect is emotion. Conclusion: emotion is important in riskperception!

Editorial 107Liking is a common way of operationalizing attitude, and attitude hasbeen found to be an important driving factor behind perceived risk (Sjöberg,1992, 2000b). It is sometimes argued that this relationship is artefactual, ormerely semantic. However, that argument is illogical and unjustified. Likingis surely different in meaning from perceived risk and their relationship ispurely empirical.In conclusion, the belief that risk perception is contaminated by emotionhas just been growing stronger over the years, yet it is unjustified. It can beused for dismissing the public’s risk concern as uninformed and—yes—‘‘emotional.’’ The very fact that an extensive discussion, filling an entireissue of the journal Reliability Engineering and Systems Safety, of whetherthe public’s risk perception should have an influence on policy failed tomention the simple argument that it must be so in a democratic society(Sjöberg, 2001a, 2001b), demonstrates the need for a critical analysis of andreflection on the received message in risk perception research.ReferencesCabanac, M. (2002) What is emotion?, Behavioural Processes, 60, pp. 69–83.Drottz-Sjöberg, B.-M. and Sjöberg, L. (1990) Risk perception and worries after the Chernobyl accident,Journal of Environmental Psychology, 10, pp. 135–149.Ekman, P. and Davidson, R. J. (Eds) (1994) The Nature of Emotion. Fundamental Questions (New York:Oxford University Press).Elster, J. (1983) Ulysses and the Siren (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Elster, J. (1999) Strong Feelings. Emotion, Addiction, and Human Behavior (Cambridge, MA: The MITPress).Finucane, M. L., Alhakami, A., Slovic, P. and Johnson, S. M. (2000) The affect heuristic in judgments ofrisks and benefits, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 13, pp. 1–17.Fischhoff, B., Slovic, P., Lichtenstein, S., Read, S. and Combs, B. (1978) How safe is safe enough? Apsychometric study of attitudes towards technological risks and benefits, Policy Sciences, 9, pp.127–152.Fishbein, M. and Ajzen, I. (1975) Belief, Attitude, Intention, and Behavior: An Introduction to Theoryand Research (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley).Ganzach, Y. (2001) Judging risk and return of financial assets, Organizational Behavior and HumanDecision Processes, 83, pp. 353–370.Graham (2001) Technological danger without stigma: The case of automobile airbags, in: J. Flynn, P.Slovic & H. Kunreuther (Eds) Risk, Media, and Stigma. Understanding Public Challenges to ModernScience and Ttechnology, pp. 241–256 (London: Earthscan).Lerner, J. S., Gonzalez, R. M., Small, D. A. and Fischhoff, B. (2003) Effects of fear and anger onperceived risks of terrorism: A national field experiment., Psychological Science, 14(2), pp. 144–150.Lewis, M. and Haviland, J. (Eds) (1993) Handbook of Emotions (New York: Guilford Press).Loewenstein, G. F., Weber, E. U., Hsee, C. K. and Welch, N. (2001) Risk as feelings, PsychologicalBulletin, 127, pp. 267–286.Montgomery, H. (1989) From cognition to action: The search for dominance in decision making, in: H.Montgomery & O. Svenson (Eds) Process and Structure in Human Decision Making, pp. 23–50(Chichester, UK: Wiley).Passer, M. W. and Smith, R. E. (2001) Psychology: Frontiers and Applications (New York, NY:McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.).

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