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Handbook of Risk Theory pp 725–759Cite as

Cultural Cognition as a Conception of the Cultural Theory of Risk

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Abstract

Cultural cognition is one of a variety of approaches designed to empirically test the “cultural theory of risk” set forth by Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky. The basic premise of cultural theory is that individuals can be expected to form beliefs about societal dangers that reflect and reinforce their commitments to one or another idealized form of social ordering. Among the features of cultural cognition that make it distinctive among conceptions of cultural theory are its approach to measuring individuals’ cultural worldviews; its empirical investigation of the social psychological mechanisms that connect individuals’ risk perceptions to their cultural worldviews; and its practical goal of enabling self-conscious management of popular risk perceptions in the interest of promoting scientifically sound public policies that are congenial to persons of diverse outlooks.

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Acknowledgments

Research described herein was supported by the National Science Foundation (Grants SES-0621840 & SES-0242106) and the Oscar M. Ruebhausen Fund at Yale Law School.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Yale Law School, Yale University, 127 Wall Street, New Haven, CT, 06511, USA

    Prof. Dan M. Kahan

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  1. Prof. Dan M. Kahan
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Correspondence to Dan M. Kahan .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Philosophy Department Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Sabine Roeser

  2. Philosophy Department, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands

    Sabine Roeser

  3. Human Technology Center, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Rafaela Hillerbrand

  4. Department of Plant Physiology and Forest Genetics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden

    Per Sandin

  5. Section for Philosophy and Ethics, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Martin Peterson

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Kahan, D.M. (2012). Cultural Cognition as a Conception of the Cultural Theory of Risk. In: Roeser, S., Hillerbrand, R., Sandin, P., Peterson, M. (eds) Handbook of Risk Theory. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1433-5_28

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1433-5_28

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-007-1432-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-007-1433-5

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