Putting the personal into risk measurement: exploring the roles of psychological and sociological factors in the perception of risk in the water industry

Abstract

Risk measurement has predominantly utilised the technical and scientific approach to risk, developed in the 1950s and 1960s. This ‘rational’ and ‘objective’ approach to assessing risks has not been updated and is still widely used within the water industry. Furthermore, it has been cemented in risk management standards, and acts as the key model for risk assessments. Risk research in the last forty years has proposed alternate theories that are highly critical of the systematic, ‘rational’ approach of these old risk practices. This criticism stems from the lack of incorporating psychological, sociological and cultural risk elements in assessments, thus limiting the scope of how risks are actually perceived by assessors. Psychological approaches consider the risk assessor’s own affiliations with the risk, based on experience and other psychological factors. Sociological theories, such as those proposed by Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky, argue that the beliefs, or worldviews of the assessor more effectively describes how a risk will be evaluated.