A framework for future study of expert and lay differences in the judgment of risk

Abstract

It has become almost an accepted fact that experts perceive or judge risks in a different manner to laypersons. This apparent finding has stemmed from the pioneering work of Slovic and colleagues (e.g., Slovic, Fischhoff, and Lichtenstein, 1985), who have suggested that experts perceive risks in terms of statistical fatalities, whereas laypersons interpret the term in a more complex manner. Subsequent research has also suggested that experts tend to judge risks as lesser than comparative lay samples. However, Rowe and Wright (2001) critiqued this research and came to the conclusion that there is little evidence of expert-lay differences in risk perception or judgment. Among their main contentions were that important demographic factors that have been shown to be associated with perception or judgment of risk have generally not been controlled for across expert and lay samples, and that the “experts” sampled have generally not been studied in a manner liable to make their expertise meaningful. They also qu...