View article

This article reviews the main insights from selected literature on risk perception, particularly in connection with natural hazards. It includes numerous case studies on perception and social behavior dealing with floods, droughts, earthquakes, volcano eruptions, wild fires, and landslides. The review reveals that personal experience of a natural hazard and trust—or lack of trust—in authorities and experts have the most substantial impact on risk perception. Cultural and individual factors such as media coverage, age, gender, education, income, social status, and others do not play such an important role but act as mediators or amplifiers of the main causal connections between experience, trust, perception, and preparedness to take protective actions. When analyzing the factors of experience and trust on risk perception and on the likeliness of individuals to take preparedness action, the review found that a risk …