The Social Distance Mechanism Of Self-other Differences In Risk Perception

The self-other differences in risk perception has become a hot topic in the fieldof social psychology and communication. With the advancement of technologysociety, people enjoy the results of them while bear the subsequent risk, such asnuclear leaks, fog and haze, global warming, pollution, accidents and so on. Whateverwe face is a global outbreak of disaster or disease and accident in life, we have tomake judgments about the risks of these catastrophic events. Sometimes we need tojudge our own risk, and sometimes we need to judge the risk of others. However,repeated studies have found that our own and others’ risk judgments are different:people have a tendency to underestimate their own risk and overestimate the risk ofothers. This paper intends to explore the social distance mechanism of self-otherdifferences in risk perception.In this study, three experiments were carried out to explore the influence of socialdistance on judgment about self-other risk perception and its mechanism, as well asthe regulating effect of risk type on the influence brought by social distance. InExperiment1, the risk perception of depression was compared on four levels of socialdistance (personal level, in-group, out-group of multiple identities and out-group ofsingle identity). On the basis of Experiment1, Experiment2further studied theheuristic mechanism of how social distance influences self-other risk perception.Experiment3examine whether the results we got can be obtained from the riskperception of car accident.Four conclusions were obtained through these experiments as follows:(1) The self-other perception of both depression and car accident was affected bysocial distance significantly. Respondents will perceive the depression as riskier toother people than to themselves. In addition, the perceived risk to others will ascendas social distance gets further from the respondents along three levels of the other.However, respondents will perceive the car accident as riskier to themselves than toother people. Moreover, the perceived risk to others will descend as social distancegets further from the respondents along three levels of the other. But, on twoout-group levels，both ascend and descend are leveling off.(2) In the risk perception of both depression and car accident, the change ofsocial distance does not lead the different use of heuristics. (3) In the risk perception of both depression and car accident, heuristics will bepositively associated with risk perception at four social distant levels.(4) In the risk perception of depression, affect heuristic can only predicts theself-ingroup difference in risk perception. However, in the risk perception of caraccident, the affect heuristic can predicts all the three self-other differences in riskperception.