Cultural worldviews and risk perceptions: Development and validation of the United Kingdom worldview scales
Year: 2018
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Cultural worldviews describe preferences for modes of social organisation, or “ways of life”, \nconceptualised according to two orthogonal dimensions of grid (hierarchism vs egalitarianism) and \ngroup (individualism vs communitarianism), and have been linked to perceptions of various hazards. \nSeveral scales are available to measure worldviews. However, these have been developed within the \nUS context, and exhibit poorer psychometric and predictive performance in other cultural contexts. \nThis thesis presents the development of the United Kingdom Worldview Scales (UKWS), as well as the \nresults of experiments testing the long-assumed causal relationship between worldviews and risk \nperceptions posited by Cultural Theory, and Cultural Cognition theory. An initial item-pool was \ndeveloped with reference to existing worldview measures and socio-political attitudes in the UK. \nFollowing cognitive interviewing, items were revised and administered in a pilot survey (n=190). \nPsychometric analyses identified poorly performing items. The remaining items were then \nadministered in a nationally representative survey (n=1,533), alongside measures of related \nconstructs and risk perceptions. Following further psychometric analyses, a 9-item hierarchy and a 6- \nitem individualism scale were rendered. Correlations with related constructs supported the \nconvergent validity of the scales, and regression models revealed that they broadly predicted risk \nperceptions in patterns hypothesised. After piloting a cultural worldview manipulation, the causality \nof these relationships was then tested in a survey experiment (n=594). In the experimental condition, \nparticipants were exposed to an egalitarianism prime under mortality salience, designed to increase \ntheir egalitarianism. All participants completed the UKWS and risk perception measures. Neither \nhierarchy nor individualism scores differed between the experimental and control condition, \nsuggesting that the worldview manipulation was ineffective. MANOVA revealed that risk perceptions \ndid not differ across conditions. Implications for the valid cross-cultural measurement of cultural \nworldviews and strategies for experimentally manipulating these constructs are discussed, as well as \nreal-world implications for risk communication strategies.
Author: Joshua Lord
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2920865767