What is considered as ‘dangerous’ or ‘risky’ by the public is of great relevance for risk management and policy-making. Researchers have traditionally measured risk perception with one or more closed questions like ‘How dangerous do you think X is?’ or ‘How worried/concerned are you about X?’ However, these closed risk perception questions have been criticised. In a comparison with qualitative data, Zwick (2005) and Gaskell et al. (2016) both argue that closed questions overestimate the ‘true’ level of perceived risk. Gray et al. (2008) compared closed questions with a question about the frequency with which people worried about crime. In that study the percentage of people who said they have been worrying frequently about crimes was much lower than the percentage that reported worry on the closed question.
The current study aims at distinguishing people who are concerned about electromagnetic fields (EMFs) from technical devices from concerned people who actually think about the issue frequently (thematic relevance, Schütz 1982). The approach is similar to that of Gray and colleagues, however, in contrast to that study, we did not only compare the closed question with a frequency question, but tried to distinguish groups through the use of both questions. Data from two general population surveys in Europe (N = 1995) and Australia (N = 1744) are reported.
Participants were categorised as concerned if they indicated their ‘concern about the potential health effects of EMFs’ was higher than the scale midpoint. Participants were categorised as frequently thinking about EMFs and health if they indicated a frequency higher than the scale midpoint on a scale ranging from ‘never’ to ‘very often’. While according to the closed questions 44% (Europe) and 54% (Australia) were (rather) concerned, only 13% and 11%, respectively, indicated they were concerned and thought about EMFs and health often or very often. Concerned people frequently thinking about the issue significantly differed from the mean of only concerned people in a variety of EMF-related beliefs and judgements, such as subjective exposure, emotional and moral judgements of exposure situations, and scariness of base stations.
The findings suggest that assessing the frequency of thinking about a risk can identify distinct subsets of concerned people. The results should be replicated in other risk areas. Furthermore, differences between the subgroups should be further investigated. For instance, the study of potential differences in the reception of risk communication could yield results that are relevant for risk management.