A cognitive portrayal of risk perception in Turkey: some cross-national comparisons

Abstract

This paper describes an exploratory investigation of Turkish risk perceptions of various activities and technologies. Factor analysis revealed various meaningful results, including distinct locations in the Turkish cognitive map for nuclear power, large construction and commercial aviation risk items. The differences in the positioning of certain clusters of risk items within the Turkish map are also notable, particularly the cluster of food preservatives, food colourings and pesticides. Such locations are found to contrast considerably with those observed in risk perception studies relating to other nations, such as the USA and Japan. Possible explanations are offered for the findings, and potential avenues for future research are provided.