Subjective causal scenarios for global environmental change

Two studies are presented that investigate the assumptions that risk evaluation is based on subjective causal scenarios, and that the cognitive representation of global environmental risks is structured according to five causal levels: human attitudes, human activities, emissions or pollutions, environmental changes, and negative consequences. In study 1, 30 subjects listed in free-response format causes, consequences, and remedial measures for 14 environmental risks. Differences between predictive and diagnostic inferences were found: whereas subjects tend to assign immediate rather than mediated causes, they predominantly assign negative consequences for humans, irrespective of the length of the causal chain that leads to these consequences. In study 2, 41 subjects judged the overall similarity between 25 environmental risks. A multidimensional scaling analysis of these similarity judgments replicates the theoretically assumed five causal levels. Results of both studies support the assumptions that risk evaluation is based on implicit causal hypotheses and that the proposed five-level structure adequately describes the cognitive representation of environmental risks.