Risk policy trust, risk perception, and attitudes

Sammanfattning: The role of trust in social, economic, political, and organizational relations is a research topic that has received much attention during the last decade. Trust has been considered a key variable in various contexts, although it should be noted that many theorists pay little attention to empirically testing their arguments about the importance of trust. It is in the present thesis examined whether trust is an important variable in the context of risk policy.This question was addressed from different perspectives in three empirical studies, which were based on extensive survey data. The first article concerned the case of energy policy and the relationship between people’s perceptions of nuclear risks and their attitudes towards various aspects of energy policy was examined. In the second article it was studied whether trust was an important predictor of perceived risk within and across four European countries. Finally, in the third article, determinants of public trust in organizations were studied.An important finding in the thesis was that determinants of trust varied depending on the organization studied. It was also found that trust was a significant predictor of perceived risk, but the relationship was not very strong. It was suggested that the overall policy implications for risk management should be that there are limits to the possibilities to increase the level of trustworthiness and build public trust. An organization could make strong efforts to build an image of being a competent, open, fair, and credible organization, but still not gain the necessary degree of trust, because public perceptions can be based on certain organizational characteristics that are very fundamental and not easily changed. Furthermore, even if an organization succeeds in building a high degree of public trust, it was found in the thesis that it is possible to trust those responsible for risk management to be very competent and honest, yet perceive risks as high. A number of possible causes for this interesting finding are presented in the thesis.