Abstract
It is widely believed that affect plays an important role in risk perception, and that such perception is mainly governed by emotional processes. However, upon closer scrutiny it turns out that the belief is based on weak empirical evidence, if the words affect and emotion are interpreted according to their dominating meanings in natural language, and to common usage in psychology at large. Instead, severity of consequences emerges as a major factor in perceived risk, just as it did in a previous analysis of probability/risk vs. consequences (Sjöberg,
1999b
,
2000a
). The perception of severity of consequences is not the same as emotion, although emotional effects may arise from considering some severe consequences of accidents or the use of certain technologies and facilities. The picture of the public as irrational and emotionally driven painted by the received message on the role of affect is unfortunate and possibly has unwanted policy implications. The word affect should be used to denote emotion; it is then clear that affect/emotion is of only minor importance in risk perception.
1. This paper was supported by a grant from the Bank of Sweden Tercentary Fund (Neglected Risks). Elisabeth Engelberg provided important information on emotion definitions. Henry Montgomery gave valuable comments on the manuscript.