Dynamic Processes in Risk Perception.

This article examines how public concern about different social problems changes over time in response to fluctuations in problem severity. Examining time series of concern and objective severity for nine different problems, both graphically and econometrically, we address three main questions. First, how closely does concern track fluctuations in problem severity? Second, what psychological processes mediate the relationship between concern and problem severity? Finally, what factor(s) distinguish between problems for which tracking is accurate and inaccurate? Copyright 1990 by Kluwer Academic Publishers