Risk Analysis, Vol. 22, No.

1, 2002

An Existential Approach to Risk Perception

Ian H. Langford1

Existential, or existential-phenomenological philosophical approaches to the social psychol-

ogy of risk perception provide a novel framework for understanding issues that are common
to all humanity, such as fear of death, freedom and responsibility, isolation and
meaninglessness, as these anxieties are a function of existing, or being-in-the-world. These
fundamental anxieties can be related theoretically to the ways people perceive risks within
social and cultural milieus, and can also be used practically within case studies, as
demonstrated in the three examples presented, which examine perceptions of climate
change, food-related risks, and environmental awareness via a mixture of quantitative and
qualitative techniques. The discussion focuses on the possible insights that can be gained
from taking an existential perspective on risk perception, and relates notions of contem-
porary technologically-oriented societies to the existential challenges faced by individuals
and societies in the contemporary world.

KEY WORDS: Existential philosophy; phenomenology; risk perception; trust and responsibility

1. INTRODUCTION
The world has always been ending. In the
Christian tradition, the Book of Revelation in
the Bible provides apocalypse in ample measure,
strangely reminiscent of the most dire predictions
of outcomes associated with modern-day climate
change. In the year 999, many people were also
convinced that the world was ending, and perhaps
there is in us, or at least in some of us, a need for the
world to be ending to make sense of it and give
purpose to our lives.
However, what we really face is uncertainty, in
great quantity. We live in a world of objects, solid or
1
Centre for Environmental Risk (CER), School of Environmental
Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK; and Centre
for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment
(CSERGE), School of Environmental Sciences, University of
East Anglia, Norwich, UK. Address correspondence to
Dr. Ian H. Langford, CSERGE, School of Environmental
Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ;
i.langford@uea.ac.uk
abstract, yet the two things in our world that are not
objects are ourselves, our sense of being, and our
experience of the passage of timeÐwe are Beings in
Time (Heidegger, 1927). We desire constancy and
(however de®ned) progress for ourselves and the
world, yet we are Beings in Time, moving from birth
until death, never still, always in motion, always
moving toward death. The only two certainties
we can state with clarity are, ``One day I will die''
and ``Everything changes, nothing stays the same''
(Langford, 2000a).
These are not dry philosophical dictums to
amuse ourselves with, but real issues that have been
with us as long as we have been conscious, and they
have distinct social, political, and cultural impacts, as
well as de®ning, in essence, our personal lives
(Sartre, 1948, 1952). Nowadays, even our constant
striving for greater material comforts to allay our
fears is questioned, not only for possible detrimental
effects on the individual or society, but for the
effects of human comfort-seeking on the whole
planet. Yet, as early as 1846, the Danish philosopher
Kierkegaard noted that this not only meant a loss

101 0272-4332/02/0200-0101$16.00/1 Ó 2002 Society for Risk Analysis

102
of vitality but of something essential to human
beings:
when all combine in every way to make everything
easier and easier, there remains only one possible
danger, namely, that the easiness might become so
great that it would be too great; then only one want is
left, though not yet a felt wantÐthat people will want
dif®culty. (Kierkegaard, 1846)
Is this suf®cient reason to need the world to
be ending, to remove the stagnation of eternal com-
fort for something more challenging, more real?
Giddens (1991) remarks that when trust is lost,
individuals enter a state of existential anxiety
whereby everything seems frightening or threaten-
ing, nothing seems certainÐbut this anxiety could
also be a necessary, if not suf®cient, precursor to
personal and even political change (Heidegger,
1927; Sartre, 1948). Every anxiety ®nds a focus for
its energy, either to create or destroy, and Beck
(1999) provides such a focusÐthe global political
economy, which divides individuals, societies, and
institutions, yet at the same time unites them in
either buying into or opting out of its global-scale
processes and outcomes. As Beck comments, in the
World Risk Society individual biographies are
becoming at the same time more dissimilar and
more the same. Occupations, lifestyles, even moral
and ethical beliefs become more diverseÐbut the
global political economy, promoted by cheap travel
and the information revolution, provides threats and
possibilities that are for everyone more and more
the same.
However, one does not have to resort to the
notion of a World Risk Society to explore existential
concerns in contemporary society. Giddens and
Beck tend to place the focus on high-consequence
risks, with the possibility of utter catastrophe, where
Beck (1999) states there is often little or no
insurance protection. However, as Freudenberg
(2000) points out, the more salient changes in risk
in recent times come from such things as the
complex division of labor. This is a more insidious
process than those that Beck comments on, with the
current generation knowing far less about the
objects and processes that feature in their everyday
lives than their grandparents' generation. We are
dependent on technology, but we have little idea
how most of the technology works, and hence in
gaining technical control through the items we use.
We have lost social control and, as Freudenberg
points out, when something goes wrong, it is often
Langford
dif®cult to ®nd who is responsible or capable of
®xing it. So, our only options are to trust the
technology, the technologists, and regulatory insti-
tutions controlling the use of technology or else
come to terms with the anxiety and helplessness of
realizing our lack of control. Hence, the concept of
trust becomes a central theme in examining risk
perception and communication in contemporary
society (Gerrard, 2000; Langford et al., 2000a),
with trust representing a highly complex process
linked to notions of individual and social free-
dom and responsibility, which shall be explored in
Section 2.
Wittgentstein provides an existential basis
for the concept of social trust in On Certainty
(Wittgenstein, 1969). Wittgenstein distinguishes be-
tween two types of proposition, one empirical and
based on evidence, the other descriptive, based on a
framework that may consist of a worldview or
accepted cultural values. Social trust in individuals,
social groups, or institutions tends to be based on our
agreement and sympathy, generated by an ``inher-
ited background against which I distinguish between
true and false'' (Wittgenstein, 1969: 15) rather than
carefully reasoned argument. Hence, there is no
general principle of credibility for assessing infor-
mation on health risks, for example, only a choice of
being convinced or not within a limited framework,
which may be based on dominant cultural and social
values or the rejection of these values. Trust is
therefore ``a groundless social bond that is never-
theless necessary to the functioning of society''
(Earle and Cvetkovich, 1995) as it tends to be based
on a ``kind of mythology'' (Earle and Cvetkoitch,
1995) associated with worldviews that provide a basis
for accepting information and predicting how people
and/or institutions will behave. Existentially, we can
say that trust is important because it links together a
group of people with something in commonÐand
fundamentally, we all have in common the reality
that everything is contingent, and we all live in the
world from birth until death. Trust is a means of
assuaging the anxieties associated with death and
isolation, discussed in Section 2, and it can also
provide meaning and a way of either taking or
avoiding responsibility. For this last point, it is
important to distinguish between reliance and trust
(Hertzberg, 1988). People may not trust the govern-
ment, for example, but they still rely on it to provide
information on a wide range of issues (Langford
et al, 2000a). Reliance can be de®ned as a more
Existential Approach to Risk Perception
cognitive process, where an individual exercises
judgment based on evidence about a particular risk.
In relying on information, an individual takes some
responsibility for deciding on the reliability of the
information, and therefore exercises some control.
However, trust is a more affective process, based on
our deeper understanding of the world, and our
worldviews, and as such is harder to trace. Hence,
when trust is lost, for example with the British
government over the BSE crisis, there tends to be
outrage, as the breach of trust offends and changes
not only attitudes and opinions, but something
deeper to do with our accepted or taken-for-granted
view of our world (Langford et al., 1999b; Slovic,
1993). In existential terms, we are ambivalent toward
trust because trusting is itself a risky activityÐwe
give up some control by trusting, and therefore risk
losing some of our individuality. However, to not
trust or rely on external sources at all can be a very
isolating and frightening state of affairs as we shall
see in the following sections.
The purpose of this article is to show how the
existential, or existential-phenomenological, ap-
proach to studying human thinking, feeling, and
being can provide insights into why people perceive
environmental and health risks as they do. Whether
or not these risks are real is forever a moot point,
but at least we can understand why we de®ne the
problems in particular ways and seek particular
solutions personally, socially, culturally, and politic-
ally. However, I would emphasize that the purpose
of the article is not purely theoretical, but practical,
and the case studies section demonstrates three
instancesÐtwo qualitative studies and one quanti-
tative studyÐwhere focusing on existential issues
can provide real insight into and understanding of
contemporary risk issues.
2. THE FOUR MAJOR EXISTENTIAL
CONCERNS
The aim of this section is to outline the four
fundamental arenas of anxiety, following the typol-
ogy of Irwin Yalom (1980), which underlie and
motivate human behavior, and relate these to
perceptions of environmental and health risks in
contemporary Western societies. This is not to
suggest that human beings have no other motiva-
tions, but simply that these four arenas of concern
are common not only to human beings, but to the
state of being human. In each section, we shall
re¯ect on the relevance of the concern for the
103
interpretation of risk in personal, social, cultural,
and political dimensions where appropriate.
2.1. Death
In existential terms, the concept of death
anxiety is based on two primary notions. First, life
and death are interdependent, and exist simulta-
neously, no matter how hard one tries to af®rm life
and deny death. Consequently, death exerts a great
in¯uence on our experiences and conduct in life, for
``even in birth we die, the end is there from the
start'' (Manilius, 1965). Second, death is a primor-
dial source of anxiety and, as such, is a primary font
of psychopathology. However, this need not leave us
in a state of despair. Heidegger (1927) pointed out
that although the physicality of death destroys, the
idea of death saves us, by motivating us to shift to a
higher mode of existence, to move from a state of
forgetfulness of being to a state of mindfulness of
being. We may avoid the subject of death, ignore
death, try to cheat or despise death, but it is always
there within us, and it can exert an enormous
in¯uence over our everyday lives in a number of
debilitating or empowering ways.
A great number of writers have alluded to death
anxiety, for example, the ``fragility of being'' (Jas-
pers, 1951), the ``dread of non-being'' (Kierkegaard,
1847), the ``impossibility of further possibility''
(Heidegger, 1927), and ``ontological anxiety'' (Til-
lich, 1952). Freud commented that social life formed
out of the fear of death, and Hegel noted that
history-taking by groups is a symbolic quest for
``mediated immortality.'' Empirical research by
Diggory and Rothman (1961) has led to a de®nition
of death anxiety among members of the general
public as a constellation of seven main fears (in
descending order of magnitude):
1. Grief caused to relatives and friends;
2. The end of all plans and projects;
3. The process of dying may be painful;
4. One can no longer have any experiences;
5. One can no longer care for one's depen-
dents;
6. Fear of what happens if there is life after
death;
7. Fear of what happens to one's body after
death.
However, although these statements, elicited from a
random sample of individuals in a Western techno-
logical society, illustrate the negative side of death,
104
Yalom (1980) notes from his work with terminal
cancer patients that the approach of death can
also lead to personal growth, particularly in the
areas of:
1. Rearrangement of life's priorities (seeing the
trivial for what it is);
2. A sense of liberation, having choices;
3. Enhanced sense of living in the immediate
present;
4. Vivid appreciation of elemental facts of life;
5. Deeper communication with signi®cant
others;
6. Fewer interpersonal fears, less fear of rejec-
tion, more willingness to take risks.
Lifton (1974) notes that for those of us not faced
with such a stark, immediate specter of death, we
tend to attempt to assuage our fear of death in a
number of potentially inauthentic, and ultimately
inadequate, modes, namely:
1. BiologicalÐfocusing on our progeny, and
genetic survival;
2. TheologicalÐbelief in a higher plane of
existence;
3. CreativeÐbelief in the impacts on others of
our personal creations;
4. NaturalÐthe theme of nature being eternal.
The underlying presumption is, however, that we
can authentically overcome our fear of death only
by being aware of it and accepting it, in an
existential transcendent mode, by means of losing
ourselves in the continuous present. However, this
is no mean feat, particularly in Western ``death-
averse'' or ``death-avoidant'' societies, so we must
examine the coping strategies that individuals
employ to avoid or avert it, often at great personal
cost (Yalom, 1980). Rank (1945) commented that a
neurotic was someone who ``refused the loan (life)
in order to avoid the payment of the debt
(death),'' while Tillich (1952) stated that ``neurosis
is the way of avoiding non-being by avoiding
being.'' We can de®ne two fundamental defense
strategies for coping with death anxiety that have a
pervasive in¯uence on people's lives. Further, we
can re¯ect on the relevance of death anxiety
defenses to an individual coping with life in
contemporary society.
The ®rst defense against death is belief in
personal specialness. This defense is based in the
basic belief that ``I am too special to dieÐother
people die, not me,'' which leaves it vulnerable to
Langford
the reality of dying. Yalom (1980) observed two
kinds of reaction to death in terminal cancer
patients: the ®rst is revelatory, namely ``my God,
I'm really going to die!'' the second transcendent,
being ``when it comes to aging and dying, what I
wish has absolutely nothing to do with it.'' Belief in
specialness may normally be expressed in a combi-
nation of defensive strategies, namely:
1. Compulsive Heroism: the seeking of an
heroic pose, afraid of nothing (but nothing-
ness), characterized by Kazantzakis's (1965)
hero Zorba, who exclaims ``men like me
should live for a thousand years.'' However,
this myth dissolves over time, as personal
and physical vulnerabilities increase and
prowess declines. Wahl (1957) notes that
the defense is bolstered against the reality of
physical decline by magical beliefs in tem-
porary and reversible death.
2. Workaholism: the implicit belief of getting
ahead, progressing, moving up, and so on is a
common heroic manifestation. Kluckholm
and Stroedbeck (1961) note different value
orientations in compulsive achievers with an
emphasis on doing, judged by external
standards of accomplishment, to individuals
who focus on being or being-in-becoming,
with the focus on actions of self-develop-
ment. Life-stage changes may result in a shift
from one value orientation to the other.
3. Narcissism: the individual maintains special-
ness by diminishing the recognition of the
rights and specialness of others (``those who
die'') in favor of their own.
4. Aggression and Control: the illusion of spe-
cialness may fuel a drive for power, domin-
ation, or exploitation of others (Rank, 1945).
We can see that, in a global society, these four
traits are not only manifested at the individual level
but also at the level of societies and cultures. They
encompass the ``we can ®nd a solution'' technocen-
tric perspective on life (Pepper, 1999). Politicians
talk about ``progress,'' usually isolated to that of a
nation state, in overcoming the cruel and capricious
world by invention, application, and economic and
technological progress. The rights of others outside
the nation state, in developing countries, for in-
stance, are inherently diminished. If progress is
threatened, then opponents must be dominated by
aggression and control, either militarily or econom-
ically. This state of mind rises from the personal
Existential Approach to Risk Perception
level, where individuals act sel®shly in their own
interests to ®nd ``security'' or a ``good life'' for
themselves and their families, to social groups who
compete for in¯uence and power, through institu-
tions and political blocks to produce tension and
con¯ict between nation states, where no one can be
the ®rst to say, for example with climate change, that
enough is enough. No politician anywhere on earth
would dare to say anything other than ``I will make
life better,'' and hence life has to become forever
``better,'' but too often in terms of material comforts
and spending power that can produce no real
security or ward off the possibility of disaster and
death. The insurance industry is so powerful simple
because it offers some (ultimately unreal) protection
against things that will ``never happen,'' that are
beyond comprehension and control. In this mind set,
the impacts of climate change will ``never happen''
but can be insured against by particular individuals
(or nation states), to the inherent detriment of
others. Nothing can really change, because this
would mean admitting that we are at the mercy of
change.
The second main defense against death anxiety
is the belief in some form of ultimate rescuer,
whether it be a person, a group, a belief, an ideal, or
a process. The underlying motive is the need for a
``personal omnipotent intercessor,'' a force or being
that eternally observes, loves, and protects (Yalom,
1980), a ``magic helper'' (Fromm, 1941), or an
``omnipotent servant'' (Masserman, 1955). Kierke-
gaard (1977) noted that it is dangerous to venture,
as one may lose, and so people prefer to live, think,
and feel within a ``comfort zone.'' However, when
the rescuer defense collapses, or as Heidegger
(1927) put it, there is ``a breakdown in the machin-
ery'' of life, an individual may become suddenly
aware of his or her needs. Previous to this, although
maintaining (perhaps at great cost) an at least
partially comfortable ``rescued'' life, the individual
may have believed himself or herself to be notably
self-suf®cient. Again, life-threatening illness can
shake the rescuer defense badly, and individuals
may channel a great deal of energy into bolstering
belief in a protector (e.g., in the patient±doctor
relationship). If the protector is found wantingÐas
in the case of the UK government over the BSE
issue, great anger, a feeling of deception, and a sense
of betrayal are the certain outcomes.
Depression is a common outcome of the failure
of the rescuer defense, which may be related to a
sense of fatalism, of having no control or input into
105
life and being at the mercy of either chance or
powerfully malevolent forces (Langford et al.,
1999a, 2000a). If the rescuer is found to be inad-
equate or counterfeit, then the individual has no
alternative coping strategy available. In societal
terms, if the public feels betrayed by a powerful
agency, such as government, then various options
are manifest in thoughts and actions:
1. Withdrawal, characterized passively by
``giving up'' and actively by ``opting out''
for an alternative lifestyle and way of being;
2. Rebellion, characterized passively by with-
drawing support (e.g., voting for another
political party) or positively by protest,
demonstration, and overthrow of the whole
system of established power (rather than
particular proponents of it).
The recent BSE inquiry in the United Kingdom2
is potentially an example of an institutional over-
throw of one established method of bureaucratic risk
management for another, more open form of con-
trol, but a cynical view would be that time will
tellÐthere may have been blood-letting on the part
of the establishment, but the beast may not be dead.
The recent acts of destruction on ®elds containing
genetically modi®ed crops and attacks on research
laboratories performing animal experiments in the
United Kingdom are examples of rebellion that lies
outside and operates against established institutional
structures.
2.2. Freedom and Responsibility
Sartre (1943) noted that ``to be responsible is to
be the uncontested author of an event or thing.''
One could also protest in many situations ``but I did
nothing.'' Sartre counters this by stating that ``one is
entirely responsible for one's life, not only for one's
actions but one's failures to act.''
Human societies have largely maintained a
highly ambivalent attitude toward freedom. Today,
the idea of freedom clashes with prevailing world-
views, such as the belief in divine providence, the
laws of scienti®c causality, Hegel's notion of history
as a meaningful progression, Marxist and Freudian
deterministic theories, and so on. But, as Husserl
and Sartre have described, one can at times ``see
through'' the personal meanings of events to a
2
See http://62.189.42.105/pdf/index.htm.
106
deeper and fundamentally unsettling reality be-
neath. The nature of many contemporary risk issues
disturbingly allude to this reality. For example, with
global climate change, the risks are uncertain, the
costs and bene®ts distributed unequally, and the
responsibility reaches from the scale of the individ-
ual right through to the centers of major industrial
and political power (e.g., the United States). Our
freedom is to see through ``personal meaning'' to the
random and meaningless world beyondÐour re-
sponsibility is to create a meaning for ourselves, of
which we are the sole and authentic authors,
whether as individuals or societies.
However, the awareness of our true freedom and
responsibility can be very frightening, and lead to a
sense of responsibility awareness or groundlessness.
To relieve groundlessness anxiety, people seek
structures, rules, grand designs, authority, anything
bigger than themselvesÐas Fromm (1941) stated,
``even a tyrant is better than no leader at all.''
However, to do this is to inauthentically ¯ee from
freedom (Heidegger) or act in bad faith (Sartre). We
construct the world of appearances to serve our
denial; we constitute the world in such a way that it
appears independent of our constitution. An individ-
ual may blame others, or those institutions with
authority, and the institutions with authority
may blame each other. Responsibility, whether
personal, social, or political, is ultimately best avoi-
ded. Responsibility avoidance may employ several
strategies:
1. Subjugation: Subjugation to external forces
obliterates choice, and if one believes one
has no choice, then one has no responsibility
to change. On an individual level, it is ``all
the government's fault.'' Conversely, the
government may state that it is the individ-
ual's fault, for example, the public would not
accept tough measures to mitigate against
climate change.
2. Displacement: Shifting responsibility onto
another assuages the dread of groundless-
ness, for example, by stating that nothing can
be done personally (e.g., ``it is up to the
government''), responsibility is transferred
to an external location.
3. Denial: By denying there is a problem, there
is no need to be responsible for it. Unfortu-
nately, much scienti®c examination of ``risks
with uncertainty'' allows for this possibility,
as ``absence of evidence'' is not, in scienti®c
Langford
terms ``evidence of absence'' (Langford
et al., 1999b). However, a negative result
(e.g., for carcinogenicity of a compound)
provides suf®cient legal justi®cation for sta-
ting that there is no risk.
4. It won't happen again: Another denial strat-
egy is that of being temporarily ``out of
control;'' perhaps control systems failed, but
the possibility of further failure has been
eradicated. An example of this could be
some expert's claims at the recent BSE
inquiry that the same situation could never
arise again.
5. Avoidance of autonomous behavior: In this
case, an individual, social group, or institu-
tion has a strategy for dealing with a risk, but
refuses to implement it. Individuals in focus
groups and interviews (see Section 3) often
report that they would ``like to do some-
thing'' about a risk in society ``but there is no
point as others are not interested or aware.''
6. Deciding not to decide: Delaying important
decisions also externalizes responsibility by
removing it from the present and placing it in
the future. This does not mean that a ``wait
and see'' strategy toward a risk is always
¯awed, but delaying decisions can easily be
an avoidant strategyÐat the core, an avoid-
ance of the anxiety of making decisions
where alternatives often exclude.
2.3. Isolation
Very few individuals or social groups enjoy
being isolated, and some of the fear, or dread,
associated with some risks stems from the fear of
isolation. For example, exposure to an environmen-
tal pathogen, such as the prion proteins involved in
nvCJD, may (or may not) cause disease in only a
very few individuals. In probabilistic terms, the risk
of disease is very low, but probabilities deal with
populations. For any individual, the only two poss-
ible probability values are zero and oneÐWhat if it
is me? The more terrible the disease, the greater the
fear, and few things could be more isolating that
nvCJD for sufferers or their families. Existential
isolation obviously relates to other issues such as
death, freedom, and growth. As Heidegger (1927)
said, ``no-one can take the other's death away from
him.'' Death is a fundamentally lonely experience,
and the process of dying may result in the loss
of material possessions and social status for the
Existential Approach to Risk Perception
individual and his or her dependents. Hence, the
connotations of dreadful diseases being contracted
from exposure to environmental pathogens reach
far beyond the immediate fear of death and into
issues such as loss, isolation, fairness, and account-
ability.
Fromm (1956) believed that the loneliness ``of
being one's own parent'' was a primary source of
anxiety in adults, and that personal growth implies
separation (Fromm, 1941; Fierman, 1965). How-
ever, in a society where so many risks are abstrac-
ted from everyday reality and sometimes of
potentially biblical consequences, such as climate
change, uncertainty fuels anxiety, which promotes a
desire for fusion. Facing risks uncertain in scale,
consequences, and origin, many people feel isolated
and try to fuse with the ``other'' but then fear
losing their autonomy. The ``other,'' in terms of
risks, may be a person, social group, institution, or
even a system of beliefs and values. McDonald and
Langford (1998) found, with respect to food risks,
that people want choiceÐbut they also want
someone to reassure them that their choices are
the right ones.
2.4. Meaninglessness
In contemporary Western societies, asking
questions such as ``Why do we live?'' and ``What is
the meaning of life?'' are often seen as symbols of
weakness, depression, self-indulgence, or an inabil-
ity to simply get on with life. Yet, as Camus stated,
these are the most urgent questions of all, and we
are all beings seeking meaning, in whatever form
(Heidegger, 1966). Life in technologically oriented
Western societies often provides comfort, excite-
ment, and stimulus, but fails to provide meaning
(Giddens, 1991). On an individual level, the psychi-
atrist Carl Jung (1966) noted that approximately
one-third of all his patients were suffering not from a
speci®c neurosis, but from feeling the senselessness
and aimlessness of their lives. Viktor Frankl (1969)
found that 20% of neuroses in clinical practice are
``noogenic,'' i.e., deriving from a lack of meaning in
life. Maddi (1967) de®ned existential neurosis as the
chronic inability to believe in the truth, importance,
usefulness, or interest value of anything one does or
can imagine doing. Hobbs (1962) noted that con-
temporary neuroses are characterized not so much
by repression and conversion (lack of insight), but
by lack of a sense of purpose and meaning.
107
Risk can provide meaning. In a world where the
direct and immediate threats of disease and dying
are low, such as infection and war, but indirect and
delayed threats are relatively high, such as cancer
and unemployment, focusing on certain aspects of
risk can give a purpose in life. Different individuals
and social groups de®ne this challenge in different
ways, from individualistic striving for success to mass
protest movements against environmental degrada-
tion.
It has been estimated that 81% of U.S. college
students suffer ``existential frustration,'' character-
ized by boredom, apathy, and having nothing one
actually wants to do (Frankl, 1969). ``Symptoms''
tend to rush in to ®ll this vacuum of meaning. Maddi
(1967) describes the three main forms of reaction to
meaninglessness as:
1. Crusadism: A dedication to dramatic and
important causes, a search for adventure, a
reaction formation comprising a compulsive
activity indulged in because of a lack of sense
of real purpose. This may link to a more
pervasive compulsion where frenetic activity
consumes the individual, a condition com-
mon in contemporary Western society, whe-
ther in acceptance or rejection of social and
cultural norms.
2. Nihilism: An active state of discrediting all
activities that others give meaning to, fueled
by energy generated by a deep sense of
despair, a sense of futility in seeking mean-
ingÐthe ``angry pleasure of destruction''
(Yalom, 1980).
3. Vegetativeness: A passive state of extreme
purposelessness, with no compulsion and no
anger. The cognitive component is a chronic
inability to believe in the usefulness or value
of any endeavor. The affective component is
pervasive blandness, boredom, and episodic
depression, while behavioral levels tend to
be low, with a lack of selectivity, as choice of
activity is immaterial to the individual.
3. CASE STUDIES
The following three case studies seek to brie¯y
demonstrate the insight and new understanding that
can be gained from applying an existential analysis
to data collected in the form of informal and formal
interviews, focus groups, and questionnaire surveys.
108
3.1. Global Climate Change
Various psychological factors have been pro-
posed for explaining why climate change is a dif®cult
issue for individuals, societies, and institutions,
either in the form of mitigating against it or taking
remedial action (Rachlinski, 2000), focusing on a
wide range of cognitive heuristics and biases (see,
for example, Tversky and Kahneman, 1974; Gardner
and Stern, 1996). However, in this section, we shall
reexamine perception and responses to climate
change in relation to the existential anxieties that
underlie human perception, as a complementary
rather than con¯icting taxonomy to that of cognitive
bias. We shall achieve this using data from semi-
structured interviews, focus groups, and a survey on
perceptions of global climate in Norwich, U.K.
(Lorenzoni and Langford, 2001; Langford and
Lorenzoni, 2001).
One frequently cited cognitive heuristic is that of
biased assimilation, or the selective collection or
evaluation of new information to support previously
held beliefs, and ensuring their consistency and
continuation (Festinger, 1957; Greenwald, 1980),
sometimes referred to as maintenance of ``attitudinal
certainties'' (Eiser, 1994). With respect to climate
change (and other major environmental threats), this
often results in polarization of opinionÐinto either
regarding the threat as the most important thing in
the world, or complete rejection of it as trivial and
due to ``media hype'' (Langford et al., 1999b).
Previous research on public perception of climate
change has also extensively recognized and reported
that people's opinions and views may be based on
confusing information and uncertainty, in some cases
further heightened by misrepresentation in the
media (e.g., Lacey and Longman, 1994; Bell, 1994;
Bate, 1997; Caroselli, 2000). For instance, a survey of
U.S. citizens just before the Kyoto conference in
December 1997 highlighted that cultural models and
individual values often help explain why and what
people think about a certain issue: these emerge very
strongly within people's views and can undermine
any environmental educational programs (Kempton,
1997). Climate change is, after all, a long-term,
intangible risk. Due to lack of scienti®c proof, people
have to be persuaded, almost up to the point that it
can be compared to an act of faith, in a changing
climate and the need for human beings to act
accordingly (van Dommelen, 1999).
By comparing and exploring media and public
understanding of climate change in New Zealand,
Langford
Bell (1994) determined that misreporting of climate
change and confusion with ozone depletion occurred
in media articles analyzed during 1988 (when
climate change was ®rst on the agenda). Similarly
to the U.S. public surveyed by Kempton (1997),
Bell's respondents confused the issues and causes of
climate change and ozone depletion, which made
them err in terms of the solutions appropriate to
either of the problems. Respondents also tended to
overestimate future temperature rises, sometimes by
a factor of nine with respect to the most recent
scienti®c information, and changes in sea levels
(perhaps in¯uenced by memorable catastrophic
events and unfamiliarity of the issue). Bell
(1994:60) warns that ``the overestimation we have
found may become a problem in the future when the
public recognize that their in¯ated expectations of
climate change impacts have not been ful®lled.''
Morgan et al. (1992) devised a four-step meth-
odology to determine lay people's thoughts about a
certain issue. A series of interview techniques
enriched with visual aids and devised to minimize
interviewer bias were used to elicit people's views
and opinions, known as ``mental models.'' By
outlining in detail people's knowledge on the spe-
ci®c risk in question, it allowed the researchers to
determine where any misinformation on the issue in
question derived from and how this was interpreted
by single individuals. A comparison of experts'
mental models with lay people's has shown that
``the public'' have ``nonspeci®c'' mental models, that
is, they seem to confuse causes and effects of
different environmental issues and misquote statis-
tics. This appears to be widespread across developed
countries such as the United States where most of
the studies have been undertaken (Read et al., 1994;
Bostrom et al., 1994; Bord et al., 1998), as well as in
Canada and Europe (Bord et al., 2000). It has been
suggested that perhaps those who care about the
environment do so in general and are not speci®c
about each separate issue (Douglas et al., 1998); this
may be an indication of shift to postmaterialistic
values or the emergence of a new environmental
paradigm (Steger et al., 1989; Thompson and Ray-
ner, 1998:273). In assessing support for measures and
policies aimed at reducing anthropogenic contribu-
tions to climate change, the literature has frequently
cited the very uncertain nature of climate change
and the dif®culty of observing these changes in
everyday life as factors that affect their acceptance
and the successful implementation of mitigating
measures. Other variables, such as knowledge of
Existential Approach to Risk Perception
the issue in question, perceived risk, beliefs, and
trust in the government and international bodies
also affect individuals' views on environmental
measures (e.g., O'Connor et al., 1999; Langford
et al., 1999a). Hence, climate change as a risk issue
contains the potential for capturing a wide range of
personal, social, and environmental concerns, which
we shall explore from an existentialist perspective in
the following analysis.
In our semistructured interviews, we also found
a range of opinions that we managed to also retrieve
from a factor analysis of the survey data (Fig. 1),
based around two axes of belief in human impacts
on climate change, and concern/importance value of
climate change. We then undertook focus groups,
each of which contained individuals falling into one
of the four quadrants in Fig. 1, i.e., each focus group
was homogeneous in this respect, and contained
people of a similar opinion as determined by the
four quadrants. The four strategies can be charac-
terized in existential terms as follows:
· Denial: These people refused to acknow-
ledge that climate change was an important
Fig. 1. Factor analysis representation of perceptions of climate
change (Lorenzoni and Langford, 2001).
109
issue, and also registered low interest in and
concern for the issue. However, as became
clear in the focus groups, this was not a
passive position, but an active one. Partici-
pants showed strong individualistic and/or
hierarchist tendencies (Langford et al, 2000a;
Marris et al., 1998; Langford et al., 1999b)
placing their reason at the center of their
worlds, believing in their ability to be well
informed and make realistic judgments
based on this information. Their defense
against uncertainty and the possibility of
disaster lay in the realm of personal special-
ness. They de®ned themselves as being
reasoning people, largely by lamenting the
ignorance and passive behaviors of others,
the ``people who go shopping in the city
centre on Saturdays.'' They were keenly
interested in social issues, and there was a
consensus that everybody should be forced
to vote by law, to make them responsible for
governmentÐpersonal responsibility was an-
other very strong line taken in de®ning the
ef®cacy of the self. When presented with
graphical and textual information on climate
change, they found it useful, but questioned
where it had come from and how reliable it
was supposed to be. Rationality took the
uncertainty out of life. As one participant
commented, there had been major environ-
mental scares and prophecies of doom in the
1970s and 1980s, but the world was still very
much as it had been. Because today followed
from yesterday, tomorrow would follow in its
own fairly predictable manner. The ration-
ality defense was particularly effective, as it
allowed for a sense of superiority over both
the emotional responses that environmental-
ists were labeled with and the ignorance of
the common citizen/consumer. Although the
facts the participants stated were not always
correct, they prided themselves on being
open to new information and capable of
forming their own opinions, given suf®cient
evidence. Personal responsibility was seen as
being paramount, and the lack of it in others
was used as a comforting explanation of the
inherent uncertainty in the worldÐif every-
one behaved responsibly, then things would
be predictable. Scienti®c uncertainty, in par-
ticular over climate change, was seen as a
weakness, and also as being divisive, in the
110
sense that scientists set themselves up as
experts, but then cannot provide de®nitive
evidence.
· Disinterest: These people presented them-
selves as having a generally fatalistic view on
life (Langford et al., 2000a), believing that
external forces beyond their control exert
unmanageable in¯uence over their lives. In
social learning theory terms, these people
have an external locus of control, believing
that powerful others, fate, and chance dom-
inate their experiences (Langford et al.,
2000b; Bandura, 1986; Wallston, 1992; Rot-
ter, 1966). In interviews and focus groups,
these respondents were very cautious about
believing anything and talked only about the
negative impacts of humans on the environ-
ment and each other. They possessed neither
the personal specialness or ultimate rescuer
defenses to any degree, and were lacking in
®nding true meaning in the world or even in
their own lives. Some could be described as
``vegetative'' and it was dif®cult to motivate
them to attend a group discussion, as has
previously been found with ``fatalists''
(Langford et al., 2000a). Some, when pro-
voked into discussion, became more actively
nihilistic and presented angry and fearful
discourses on the vested interests of both
government and industry colluding together
in aggressive global capitalism that destroyed
both the environment and the meaningful-
ness of people's lives. When questioned
about possible future impacts of climate
change in 50 years, participants denied any
responsibility, stating it was not their prob-
lem, and they would not be involved, so they
didn't want to think about it. These respond-
ents also felt themselves isolated, but did not
de®ne this anxiety in terms of self and other,
instead relying on the more general defense
that the world is basically a bad place and we
can do very little to change this. ``Connect-
edness'' was only present in the sense that we
are all victims of powerful, impersonal
political and economic forces. They felt that
global capitalism was the present and the
future for the world, and although ``global
sustainability'' would be a better option, it
was too ``utopian,'' and that only very major
catastrophes directly affecting those in
power would precipitate any change, such
Langford
as ``major ¯oods right in the centre of
London.'' Again, change was seen as only
occurring through chance events happening
to those who hold the power.
· Willing and keen: Those who fell into this
broad category felt themselves to be em-
powered and showed high levels of concern
and information gathering. However, in
contrast to those in the ``denial'' category,
their responses were far more affective than
cognitive (Langford and McDonald, 1997),
and they preferred to use feeling and intu-
ition to justify their opinions rather than
rationalization and categorization. They gen-
erally had a belief in some sort of ``ultimately
rescuing'' principle or, basically, that if
enough effort is put in and commitment
shown, then the ``good guys can win.'' Those
who were ``keen'' showed a high degree of
personal responsibility, and believed in their
obligation to ``do the right thing'' personally,
with individual action being ideally comple-
mented by political leadership. They were
less judgmental of other people and de®ned
the distinction between self and others in
terms of motivation and knowledge. There
was some evidence of crusadism and the
need to convert others to their way of
thinking, which was noncritically assumed
to be ``good for everybody, and the planet.''
They linked together human actions and
environmental impacts and believed that
freedom creates responsibility. In contrast,
those who could be classi®ed as ``willing''
demonstrated more negative attitudes to-
ward the role of others and more pessimism
about the future. In general, people were
highly anxious about uncertainty, but ration-
alized this anxiety through believing that
commitment, effort, and the education of
others could create a better world. They
prided themselves on having a social as well
as an environmental conscience, but were
fearful of the future due to the uncertainty
surrounding technological advancement,
which was taking things further and further
away from the ``natural'' at a faster and
faster pace. This fear of uncertainty caused
the ``willing'' to lose some motivation for
taking action based on their beliefs, but the
``keen'' focused on using collective effort to
bring about change in both businesses and
Existential Approach to Risk Perception
government. Overall, fears of death, ground-
lessness, and meaninglessness were assuaged
by a belief in communal ef®cacy linked to
the possibility of social change based on
education and political pressure. Even so, all
participants agreed that that at present they
had very little in¯uence via their individual
actions, but rested on the belief that they
were at least ``doing the right thing'' even if
it made no difference.
· I don't believe it, but it is important: Inter-
estingly, there was a small group of people
who ®tted into our fourth quadrantÐthey
did not believe in human impacts on the
climate, but felt that the issue was important.
These people again formulated their argu-
ments using feeling and intuition rather than
logic and rationalization, but were also
characterized by skeptical uncertainty. The
main theme, which kept recurring, was based
on responsibility and the operation of nat-
ural forces. Were human beings capable of
really changing anything, given the power of
the forces of nature, and the great variability
in climate seen in the distant past? Further,
could human beings be held responsible for
their actions? They were also concerned with
striking a balance between harming humans
and the environment, if humans could be
held responsible for global environmental
change. An emphasis was again placed on
education, to ``get them while they are
young,'' almost in an effort to reduce the
uncertainty in future generations that they
felt themselves. They saw the locus of
control for change as being external, with
political leadership a necessity, perhaps in a
form of UN-style world government. Al-
though not necessarily believing in climate
change, it still provided a focus for their
beliefs about uncertainty and the inhumanity
of the global political economy. In a way,
they were more honest about their uncer-
tainty and doubts than those who took a
more crusading view of the need for change.
3.2. Food Risks
Between 1997 and 2000, a series of in-depth
interviews, focus groups, and questionnaire surveys
were carried out in urban and rural parts of Norfolk,
111
U.K. (Langford and McDonald, 1997; McDonald,
2001). The in-depth interviews (38 in total) were
carried out using personal construct theory (Sparks
and Shepherd, 1994; Fransella, 1984) in relation to a
number of different food risks with different char-
acteristics, from genetically modi®ed foods and
British beef (important in the current BSE crisis)
to salt and saturated fats in the diet and food
poisoning. The most frequently used constructs were
about fear of serious illness and death, followed by
fear of ``unknown long-term consequences'' and
``tampering with nature'' and concerns over econo-
mic and commercial motives, plus insuf®cient regu-
lation in the food industry. From the wealth of
interview and survey information collected, we
determined ®ve basic strategies for dealing with
food risks, based on the constructs elicited and other
information on attitudes, beliefs, values, and stated
and measured behavior (we collected shopping
receipts from respondents for one month). We
evaluated the ®ve strategies discussed below as
cognitive schema toward food risks (see Fig. 2),
based on early adaptive or maladaptive schema such
as dependence/incompetence and vulnerability to
harm/illness (Langford, 2000b; Young, 1999), which
allows us to discuss the strategies in relation to
existential anxieties as follows.
Two adaptive strategies could be identi®ed, one
of which was based on logical rationalization
(Informed) and the other on intuitive-affective
reasoning (Sensible).
Fig. 2. Cognitive strategies for dealing with food-related risks.
112 Langford

· Informed: These people believed in control (Young, 1999)) to an early maladaptive schema of
and the personal responsibility for being dependency/incompetence that is being expressed
informed. They strongly displayed the per- toward food risks. Of course, it could well be argued
sonal specialness defense, and de®ned them- that respondents were in reality correct to be
selves in relation to others as being well anxious and alarmed in the face of current risk
informed, responsible, and not prone to issues such as the BSE crisis. Existentially, these can
media hype or media scares. They found be interpreted as follows:
personal meaning in being in control of
· Avoidance (``Ostriches''): These people avoi-
themselves and their environment, and, as
ded thinking about food risks and were
with those in ``denial'' discussed above, were
actively disinterested in information on food
skeptical of often contradictory scienti®c
risks. They displayed active forms of respon-
evidence. Respondents in this category ac-
sibility avoidance, such as referring to anec-
knowledged that they did not always ``do the
dotal examples of people known to them
right thing'' in relation to food, but were
who had paid no attention to food risks and
comfortable with being responsible for the
lived to be very old, and by dismissing
outcomes. Freedom of choice was very
potentially manageable risks, such as food
important, and they lamented the lack of
poisoning, as being based on chance and
information available on the content of many
without serious consequences. The avoid-
foods as this restricted the degree of control
ance defense (and associated denial of re-
they could exercise over their diets.
sponsibility) was maintained at the expense
· Sensible: Respondents with this form of
of personal ef®cacy, and hence provided no
coping strategy regarded themselves as being
support of self-esteem. On occasion, anxiety
grounded and making sensible choices in the
was displayed as respondents' felt isolated
face of uncertain information. In this sense,
and disempowered by their own ignorance,
they used an ``ultimate rescuer'' style de-
but this tended to be quickly dismissed due
fense in believing, intuitively and affectively,
to food risks being unavoidable and gener-
that ``common sense'' would be rewarded
ally unimportant.
with good health. They believed the advice
· Maintenance (``Excluded''): A small number
of doctors and other trusted forms of infor-
of respondents had great dif®culty in provi-
mation, but were suspicious of vested inter-
ding any constructs at all toward food risks,
ests and the sensationalism of the media.
other than the fear of the unknown. In
However, rather than regarding belief in
general, these people felt excluded from the
``media hype'' as being attributable to the
processes of society and adopted a passive,
defective gullibility of others, they regarded
vegetative strategy not only toward food risks,
it as a malevolent process in a society where
but also about other major issues within
genuine information is scarce, de®ning them-
society. Their sense of self-ef®cacy was par-
selves as people who regarded advice with
ticularly low, and although they were some-
caution and acted in moderation. They did,
times surprised, when the interviewer
however, feel some isolation anxiety associ-
patiently explained what was required of
ated with the responsibility of making diet-
them in the interviews, that they could give
ary choices for their families based on
meaningful answers, the presumption that
incomplete or misleading information, but
maintained their sense of identity was that it
assuaged this anxiety with a belief in their
was all beyond them. The automatic nature
own competence in using ``common sense''
of this reaction suggested that it was a
even if they weren't particularly well in-
schema maintenance strategy, which avoided
formed or even interested in food risks.
responsibility anxiety and suggested learned
Three maladaptive coping strategies were iden- helplessness/hopelessness (Seligman, 1975;
ti®ed, maladaptive in the sense that they tended to Langford, 2000a), which at least provided
increase respondent anxiety rather than alleviate the comfort of not having to reach decisions
itÐthese can be interpreted as defensive reactions on anything potentially important. However,
(using avoidance, maintenance, and compensation these people also displayed a great deal of fear
Existential Approach to Risk Perception 113

when confronted with the possibility of having ness of Consequences Inventory associated
to make choices in the interviews. By avoiding with the New Ecological Paradigm (Stern
responsibility and remaining passive, they et al., 1995);
avoided death anxiety by believing that there 2. Twenty questions from the Keirsey Tem-
was absolutely nothing they could do, having perament Sorter, which classi®es individuals
an external locus of control and low interest according to the Myers-Briggs Type Indica-
value in risks facing themselves or society. tors (Bayne, 1995; Kiersey, 1998; McDonald
The only partially active strategy they dis- and Langford, 2000);
played was in adopting passive-aggressive 3. Twelve questions on Cultural Solidarities
behaviors to avoid answering questions. (Marris et al., 1998; Langford et al., 1999b,
· Compensation (``Eccentric''): At the other 2000a).
end of the scale, as it were, some respondents 4. Ten questions on existential anxieties (see
displayed hypervigilance, and were easily Appendix).
provoked into anxiety and/or anger by men-
In addition, information was collected on sex, age,
tion of any number of risk issues to do with
subject area, and occupation.
food. Again, there was a sometimes hidden
The Kiersey Temperament Sorter gives scores on
external focus on the malevolence of indus-
four scales, based on the Myers-Briggs classi®cation
try and government in practically ``poison-
of personality typeÐthese scales are extroversion±
ing'' them for the sake of power and pro®t.
introversion, sensing-intuitive, thinking-feeling, and
They attempted to be well informed, but
judging-perceiving. In this study, individuals were
were extremely selective about their sources
classi®ed as having any of the eight traits if they scored
of information, treating with suspicion any-
40% or more above/below the mean for each scale.
thing that hinted at ``of®cialdom.'' In the
Cultural theory, which examines worldviews
interviews, a great deal of death/loss anxiety
(termed cultural solidarities), scores individuals on
was consciously displayed, and respondents
four scales: hierarchy, individualism, egalitarianism,
felt greatly uncertain of the hostile world
and fatalism. These can brie¯y be de®ned as
surrounding them and isolated from others
(Langford et al., 2000a, 1999a; Marris et al., 1998):
because of their more extreme beliefs.
Meaning was provided by ``conspiracy the- · Hierarchists: Characterized by strong group
ory'' and feelings of self-ef®cacy generated boundaries and binding prescriptions. Hier-
by actively ``®ghting back.'' Feeling highly archists will tend to see an individual's place
responsible, but under conditions of per- in the world as de®ned by a set of institutional
ceived great dif®culty, they also displayed classi®cations, e.g., based on age or gender.
groundlessness anxiety in coming to terms These demarcations are not questioned, but
with the unknown risks of the modern world, justi®ed on the grounds that they enable the
being unable to ®nd a comfortable place to society to run smoothly. Control is vested in
be, and provided a great number of con- formal, hierarchical systems of authority.
structs based around fear, mistrust, and · Egalitarians: Characterized by strong group
outrage at previous scandals, such as BSE. boundaries and a strong social patterning of
self-expression. Egalitarians have a powerful
sense of social connectedness. They expect
3.3. Existential Anxieties and Risk
each individual to negotiate his or her
relationship with others, although no indi-
In autumn 1999, 223 completed questionnaires
vidual is granted authority by virtue of his or
were collected from students, researchers, and fac-
her position.
ulty in the School of Environmental Sciences,
· Fatalists: Characterized by low group associ-
University of East Anglia. A full copy of the
ation but a strong sense of social distinctive-
questionnaire can be obtained from the author.
ness. Like hierarchists, fatalists' sense of
The questionnaires were self-completed and con-
autonomy is controlled by their interpreta-
tained four batteries of questions, namely:
tions of social institutions. They see them-
1. Ten questions on environmental attitudes selves as generally excluded from these
and beliefs, taken from the General Aware- institutions and therefore as ``outsiders'' with
114 Langford

Table I. Relationships Between Existential Anxieties and Personal Characteristics, Cultural Solidarity, and Temperament (n ˆ 223)

Ultimate Freedom/
Death Specialness Rescuer Responsibility Isolation Meaningless-ness

Personal Characteristics
Female +++ ++++ ++
Age ))) )) ))
Scientist +
Faculty ) ) ))
Research ) )
PhD student ) ++
Undergraduate +++
Cultural Solidarity
Hierarchist ++ ++++ ++++ +++
Individualist
Egalitarian +
Fatalist +++ + +++ +++
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
Extrovert ) +
Introvert +++ ++ )
Sensing )) )
Intuitive +++ ) ++
Thinking + ))) +++ ++ )
Feeling ++ )) )) + +
Judging
Perceiving )

Note: +/) ˆ p < 0.10, ++/) ) ˆ p < 0.05, +++/) ) ) ˆ p < 0.01, ++++/) ) ) ) ˆ p < 0.001.

little or no power to in¯uence the course of
events in their favor.
· Individualists: Characterized by no group
incorporation and no prescribed roles. Indi-
vidualists feel less sense of responsibility
toward other members of society. They
regard the allocation of power and resources
as a matter for their own responsibility, not
by position or status.
Table I gives results from a regression analysis
of existential anxieties, personal characteristics,
cultural solidarities, and Myers-Briggs type indica-
tors. Plus and minus signs indicate the strength of
the association between variables, i.e., the probab-
ility that the association did not occur by chance.
Death anxiety. The strongest predictors of con-
sciously stated death anxiety are being female,
having a fatalistic worldview, and being introverted.
Hierarchists also have higher death anxiety, and
fatalism and hierarchy are the two worldviews
associated with following externally prescribed be-
liefs. Hierarchists believe in externally imposed
rules, and live their lives by them, while fatalists
feel at the mercy of the rules imposed by powerful
others and are helpless in the face of greater forces.
Death anxiety, at least the conscious component of
it, decreases with ageÐmore detailed analysis
showed that there is a quadratic association between
death anxiety and age, with death anxiety being
higher in younger people (18±25) and older people
(over 55), but lower in-between. This may signify
that death anxiety becomes less available to con-
sciousness at the time people are most involved with
projects in their lives (such as establishing careers,
relationships, families, and so on), but it returns later
as projects are completed and death approaches.
Personal specialness. This defense mechanism is
most apparent in the NF type, the ``idealist''
temperament. Interestingly, although idealists make
up only 12% of the general population (Bayne,
1995), they make up 47% of psychology undergrad-
uates and 56% of counselors/psychotherapists
(Myers and McCaulley, 1985). This supports the
evidence reported in Yalom (1980) that health
professionals tend to act out ``heroic'' roles in being
the ``rescuer'' of others in the face of adversities to
defend against their own fear of deathÐby tackling
the risks experienced by others, they assuage their
own sense of helplessness in the face of uncertainty,
Existential Approach to Risk Perception 115

change, and living toward death. This reasoning can

also be applied to environmental activists/scientists,

Meaningless-ness
who may attempt to ``save the world'' with similar

+++
++
motivations. In contrast, scoring highly on the

)
sensing and thinking scales is negatively associated
with personal specialness.
Ultimate rescuer. Females are much more likely
to report this defense mechanism than males, and
were generally more frightened of important others

Isolation

++

)
+

+
dying than were males. Hierarchists and, to a lesser
degree, fatalists were also more likely to use this
defense, again potentially due to their belief in
externally imposed solutions to the problems of life.
Older people were less likely to use this defense

Responsibility
Freedom/
than younger people, and introverts and thinkers

+++
))

++

++
++
were also more likely to use this strategy. Interest-
ingly, members of faculty were less likely to use
either personal specialness or the ultimate rescuer

Table II. Existential Anxieties and Environmental Beliefs

defenses, perhaps because they felt more secure and
successful, and hence effective in acting toward life.
Freedom and responsibility. Hierarchists and
Ultimate
Rescuer

++
fatalists, perhaps not surprisingly, were most likely

+
to feel anxious about these issues, as were younger
people, and those with a higher score on the thinking
type indicator. Feeling and intuitiveness were neg-
atively associated with this anxiety, suggesting that
Specialness

the NF (``idealist'') subtype, concerned with mean-

ing and authenticity, was less afraid of taking
responsibility perhaps due to the strength of the
personal specialness defense. Undergraduates were
more likely to have this anxiety, perhaps because of
Death

the transition from being at school and living with

parents (low freedom and responsibility) to realizing
Claims that we are changing the climate are greatly exaggerated
they are in charge of their own lives. Researchers,
Environmental threats to public health have been exaggerated

Note: +/) ˆ p < 0.10, ++/) ) ˆ p < 0.05, +++/) ) ) ˆ p < 0.01.
While some local plants and animals may have been harmed
with the least prescribed job de®nition of the sample

by environmental degradation, over the whole earth there

studied, were less likely to have this anxiety.
Over the next decade, thousands of species of plants and
Environmental protection will provide a better world for
Environmental protection will help people have a better

Environmental damage generated here harms people all

Isolation. Hierarchists were again positively

Environmental protection is bene®cial to my health

associated with this anxiety, perhaps because their

Environmental protection provides me with better

worldview depends on social solidarity to maintain

Environmental protection bene®ts everyone

rules, whereas fatalists were not associated with

isolation anxiety (fatalists merely feel at the mercy
of external rules). The NF subtype was positively
associated with isolation anxiety, supporting the
animals will become extinct

evidence provided in Langford (2000a) that suggests

opportunities for recreation

that the price to pay for independence (high

personal specialness and low freedom/responsibility
has been little effect
me and my children

anxiety) is the fear of facing the world alone.

over the world

Members of faculty, often with highly developed

quality of life

support systems (both family and at work), scored

lower on this anxiety, while PhD students (often
single and isolated in their work) scored more
highly.
116
Meaninglessness. Fatalists were most strongly
associated with this anxiety, the fatalist worldview
involving the externally oriented belief that life is
largely a matter of chance and there is little humans
can do to alter its course (Langford et al., 2000a).
Egalitarians, who tend to view society as unfair and
unjust, also scored more highly for this anxiety.
Researchers, who are most directly involved in
discovering new scienti®c evidence, were less likely
to have meaninglessness anxiety, while scientists
were more likely to report it than social scientists.
On the type indicators, extroversion and feeling
were positively associated, whereas introversion and
perceiving were negatively associated with mean-
inglessness anxiety.
Table II presents the associations between
environmental beliefs, as speci®ed in the New
Ecological Paradigm, and existential anxieties. In-
terestingly, none of the statements about environ-
mental issues correlated with death anxiety or
personal specialness. The ultimate rescuer defense
was associated with two self-orientated beliefs about
environmental protection, that it will provide a
better world for me and my children, and better
opportunities for recreation. This re¯ects the use of
the rescuer defense in maintaining feelings of
security, safety, and certainty, usually focused
around the self and important others, i.e., the
individual's immediate world. Responsibility anxiety
was associated with a number of environmental
beliefs, which con®rms the importance of the themes
of personal and social responsibility running through
the previous two case studies. Interestingly, those
who had this anxiety agreed with statements that
played down the threat to the environment, such as
claims of changing the climate and public health
threats being exaggerated, and the statement that
there has been little effect on biodiversity over the
whole earth. Respondents with responsibility anxi-
ety were also less likely to believe that their own
health would bene®t from environmental protection.
Isolation anxiety was associated with state-
ments that were inclusive of everyone, such as
environmental damage harming people all over the
world, and environmental protection bene®ting
everyone. This displays a compensatory desire for
connectedness and togetherness, as re¯ected in the
hierarchists high score on this anxiety scale com-
mented on above. Meaninglessness anxiety was
positively associated with environmental protection
bringing bene®ts to personal health, perhaps
because those who suffer this anxiety often try
Langford
to ®nd external events or causes to provide them
with temporary meaning to assuage the anxiety.
However, meaninglessness anxiety was also
strongly correlated with belief that environmental
degradation isn't really importantÐan important
feature of this anxiety is often an almost self-
pitying focus on the lack of importance of
anything: things carry on, there is little we can
do, and we merely pass by the world as move
from birth toward death (Langford, 2000a).
The aim in the fairly brief results presented
above is not to demonstrate that exploring exis-
tential anxieties quantitatively is better in some
way than using other psychometric measures,
whether based on temperament, cultural theory,
or the New Ecological Paradigm. Rather, it is to
show that an existential analysis provides comple-
mentary information, and that the measures of
anxiety used (see Appendix) do provide a consis-
tent pattern of relationships with other psycho-
metric measures as discussed above. The gain from
doing existential analysis, whether qualitatively or
quantitatively, is to gain some insight into levels of
human functioning that go beyond parental, social,
or cultural values (Heidegger, 1927), to explore
issues that are common to the condition of being
human. Inevitably, different cultures instill differ-
ent attitudes toward death, for example, but the
common property across all cultures is that people
inevitably die, and there are common elements in
the defenses different cultures use to assuage the
anxiety caused by this knowledge, as well as
differences.
4. DISCUSSION
The above case studies show that other per-
spectives on risk perception can be gained by
examining underlying existential anxieties, and ex-
istential analysis can provide a link between widely
differing risk issues and across very different meth-
odologies. Existential analysis is, of course, only one
of a number of theoretical and practical approaches
that can be taken toward risks, but it is potentially
capable of transcending the difference between
cultures and histories. Although the challenges and
risks posed by living in today's technologically
advanced society are very different from those faced
1,000 years ago in the same geographical locations,
the existential anxieties remain the same, as they
are a common property of being human, although co-
ping strategies may change somewhat. ``Millennium
Existential Approach to Risk Perception
anxiety'' in 1999 was not so different from that
displayed in 999 AD.
Further, existential analysis can re¯ect on the
societal challenges posed by ``modern'' risks as well
as the individual adaptations required to survive in
the 21st century. Giddens (1991) links existential
anxiety to loss of trust, and Beck (1999) comments
on how the World Risk Society brings people
together as well as separating them through opera-
tion of the global political economy. There are
winners and losers, but all are beginning to play on
the same ®eld. Even if one does not accept the
concept of a World Risk Society, existential anxiet-
ies can still be seen as translations of the fundamen-
tal problems of being human in a world where social
trust in institutions and ``people in general'' has
been lost, buried among feelings of alienation,
powerlessness, and lack of control over the political
economy, technology, and the shaping of the future.
Although life in modern technologically oriented
societies may be more comfortable than in the past,
this comfort has been achieved at the expense of a
feeling of connection and integration with the whole,
including nature and societyÐlife histories have
tended to become more individuated and even
isolated.
Although cross-cultural comparisons are not the
focus of this paper, it is worth mentioning that from
research conducted in the United Kingdom, and also
in Greece (Kontogianni et al., 2001), it is possible to
see the commonalities between at least these two
cultures, as well as the differences. With regard to
risks, respondents in the United Kingdom generally
took a more individualistic ``personal specialness''
approach, for example, in the research on percep-
tions of climate change, while in Greece respondents
still held more belief in the divine order of things.
Greek respondents often expressed a belief in
heopqxmia (theopronia), which has no direct English
translation, but can be interpreted as meaning that
``if you do the right thing, God will give you luck.''
So, for example, if you ®sh according to ``natural
laws,'' God will make sure the ®sh don't run out. In
general, Greeks favored the ``ultimate rescuer''
defense.
In terms of individual coping mechanisms, it
appears that death anxiety is particularly prevalent
when people consider their fears of the unknown
and unknowable. The unknown is represented by
uncertainties over the future, given the current rate
of technological change, and con¯icting messages
received from scientists, the government, and the
117
media about a wide range of risk issues. The
unknowable is represented by fear of the complexity
of scienti®c knowledge and its inaccessibility to lay
people, as well as the complex and interwoven
nature of many environmental and health risks.
With many ``20th century diseases,'' such as allergic
and immunocompetence conditions, traditional ep-
idemiological methods of ®nding a single cause for a
single disease fail because the causes are multiple
and synergistic and the conditions ill-de®ned and
variable between individuals.
Existential isolation anxiety is characterized by
feelings of hopelessness and helplessness in the face
of the global political economy, and the striving for
``community'' or ``togetherness'' is often founded on
making joint protests or opting out of conventional
lifestyles and discourses. This can sometimes lead to
``idealistic tribalism,'' which replaces ``geographical
tribalism'' via the sharing and reinforcement of
common ideas among similar thinking people via the
ease of modern-day travel and information/commu-
nication technologies such as e-mail and the Inter-
net. Alienation is often a matter of scale, with
individuals feeling powerless in the face of world
markets and international agreements. However,
modern forms of communication and lifestyles and
the social structures they support may themselves be
alienating in containing little face-to-face human
contact or ``quality time.''
Freedom and responsibility are again often
framed in terms of not being subjugated by the
global political economy or the discourses it pro-
motesÐthe modern equivalent of Hiedegger's im-
personal ``They-Self.'' Individuals and groups can
choose to opt out, give up, try their best, or carry on
regardless, but it is always in opposition to or in
collusion with political and economic forces seen as
being at a scale beyond the individual's power to
change, and individual action is hence usually
framed in terms of personal lifestyle choice to
reduce risks, protect the environment, or promote
social equity.
Meaninglessness anxiety seemed to be in-
volved with many people's responses to environ-
mental and health risks, and especially to climate
change. Identity and self-esteem are either main-
tained by small-scale successes, or reliance on
being informed and using common sense, but
pessimism, crusadism, nihilism, and vegetativeness
are all common responses to technological and
environmental risks. Unfortunately, the great in-
crease in information in technological societies has
118 Langford

created more confusion and, in many people's
opinion, devalued all information, leading to more
reliance on ``folklore,'' lay epidemiology, and
``common sense'' to evaluate uncertain and ill-
de®ned risks. Rebellion against political and insti-
tutional structures has often been reduced to
stigmatization of particular organizations (such as
the privatized water companies, see Langford
et al., 1999a; Georgiou et al., 1998) or products
(such as GM foods). This atomization of protest
increases the sense of meaninglessness because
one can only hope to achieve something smallÐ
and hence potentially meaninglessÐor else give up
hope of things ever being different and merely ®nd
a comfortable way to survive the inevitable.
In conclusion, this article has attempted, via
theoretical argument, case studies, and discussion to
present a different analysis of risk perception by
individuals within social and political systems by
exploring existential issues and anxieties that are
common to being human across space and time,
while examining the relationship between humans
and risk in contemporary postindustrial society. One
conclusion that can be drawn from this analysis is
that the range of individual and social responses to
risk are symptomatic of far more global anxieties
about the functioning and future of the world in
general. Risk issues and con¯icts are therefore not
merely a product of a risk-oriented society, but an
integral part of its operation. Only by providing
people with a genuine chance to understand, have
hope, and believe in the possibility of instigating
change can risk managers provide risk communica-
tion strategies that actually communicate about risk
due to the complex and profound role that risk
perception plays in structuring identities, de®ning
discourses, and bringing order and sense to the
world. Otherwise, fear of the unknown, alienation,
helplessness, and reactions to these states of mind
will always win the day.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Work reported in this paper was supported in
part by the Programme on the Public Understand-
ing of Risk funded by a grant from the Lever-
hulme Trust. I would like to thank Ellen Sieg and
Stavros Georgiou of the University of East Anglia
for their helpful comments on an earlier draft, and
also two anonymous referees. I am also very
grateful to Irene Lorenzoni and AnneÂ-Lige McDo-
nald of the University of East Anglia for use of
the climate change perceptions and food risk data
set.

APPENDIX
The section of the questionnaire dealing with existential issues was as follows: The next twelve questions deal with your feelings about
existential issues, which are of concern to all of us. Again, there are no right or wrong answers. Please write at the end of each line which
number on the scale given below indicates how much you agree or disagree with it. Please try to answer every statement even if you don't
have a strong opinion about it. Again, I would like your immediate response, so please do not spend too much time on any one question.

Disagree Disagree Neither Agree Agree Agree

strongly a little or disagree a little strongly
1 2 3 4 5

1. I am frightened by the prospect of my own death

2. I am frightened by the prospect of important
others in my life dying
3. I am afraid of losing all my material possessions
4. I believe there is some ultimate power overseeing my life
5. I believe that it is entirely up to me
to make a success of my life
6. I am solely responsible for my own thoughts and actions
7. I have complete freedom in my life to choose
how I want to live
8. Life is fundamentally random and meaningless
9. We are all basically alone Ð we are born alone,
and we die alone
10. No-one can ever know how I really think
and feel because they are not me
11. The thought of having complete freedom
to do what I want disturbs me
12. My life only has meaning if I choose to give it meaning
Existential Approach to Risk Perception
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