Risk Assessment: The Consumer as an Intuitive Statistician - Innovation and Marketing in the Pharmaceutical Industry - page 299

of perceived closeness: time, space, social, and probability, that “affect mental
construal and … in turn, guide prediction, evaluation, and behavior” (see Trope
et al. 2007 for a review). As such, constructing base rates such that they are more
proximate using one or more of the dimensions of proximity is likely to be more
effective than base rates constructed for an overall population. The distinct ways in
which each dimension of proximity affects risk perceptions is discussed next.
Temporal proximity . The closer an event is in time, the more temporally proximate
it is. A proximal consequence is perceived to have a greater risk than a distant con-
sequence (Paterson and Neufeld 1987 ). Consumers appear to not engage in preven-
tive behaviors until they feel a risk is imminent (Luce and Kahn 1999 ; Weinstein
1993 ). Trope et al. ( 2007 ) argue that this is because the distant future is seen as more
abstract while the immediate future is seen as more concrete and spurring action.
Chandran and Menon ( 2004 ) examined the effect of framing a risk for
Mononucleosis using a per-day vs. a per-year frame. Estimates of incidence of a dis-
ease, perceptions of risk, and a greater concern for Mono were higher when the frame
used a day (vs. year) frame. They argued that this was because a “day” frame makes a
threat more concrete and proximal using construal level theory (Trope and Liberman
2003 ). These results are consistent with the idea that base rates constructed on a
smaller and temporally closer population (the day frame) lead to a higher perceived
risk than those based on a larger and temporally distant population (the year frame).
Geographical proximity . Geographical proximity is the actual or perceived physical
distance between a consumer and the population for which a base rate is provided.
Maderthaner et al. ( 1978 ) first showed that physical proximity (perceived closeness)
to a danger increased perceptions of risk. Recently, Fischhoff et al. ( 2003 ) demon-
strated that US citizens assessed higher risk of terrorism in the future, not only in
general but also for themselves, the closer they were located to the World Trade
Center. Raghubir ( 2008 ) also showed that base rates framed using smaller denomi-
nators were more effective when the denominators were geographically close.
Social proximity . Social proximity pertains to the perceived similarity that a person
feels to a social group, irrespective of whether the group is cultural, family-based,
friends, professional, or other (Teigen 2005 ). The perceived similarity between the
individual and the group can affect people's risk judgments (Brown et al. 1992 ),
with higher risk perceptions when people can relate to the population of the threat
(Rothman et al. 1999 ).
Carvalho et al. ( 2008 ) showed that greater cultural similarity, an aspect of social
proximity, with the origin of a food-contamination threat, increased risk perceptions
and intentions to engage in preventative behaviors, especially when personal rele-
vance for the risk was low. However, they also found that cultural proximity back-
fired (i.e., risk was assessed as higher the less culturally similar its origin) when
personal relevance was high.
Social proximity relates to how similar another person is to oneself. Raghubir
and Menon ( 1998 ) demonstrated that people believe that their best friend (most
similar) is perceived to be less at risk that an average undergraduate (less similar)
who, in turn, is perceived to be less at risk than the average person (least similar).