Risk Analysis, Vol. 39, No. 4, 2019 DOI: 10.1111/risa.13207 Developing a Broadly Applicable Measure of Risk Perception Robyn S. Wilson , 1,* Adam Zwickle , 2 and Hugh Walpole 1 Decades of research identify risk perception as a largely intuitive and affective construct, in contrast to the more deliberative assessments of probability and consequences that form the foundation of risk assessment. However, a review of the literature reveals that many of the risk perception measures employed in survey research with human subjects are either generic in nature, not capturing any particular affective, probabilistic, or consequential dimension of risk; or focused solely on judgments of probability. The goal of this research was to assess a multidimensional measure of risk perception across multiple hazards to identify a measure that will be broadly useful for assessing perceived risk moving forward. Our results support the idea of risk perception being multidimensional, but largely a function of individual affec- tive reactions to the hazard. We also find that our measure of risk perception holds across multiple types of hazards, ranging from those that are behavioral in nature (e.g., health and safety behaviors), to those that are technological (e.g., pollution), or natural (e.g., extreme weather). We suggest that a general, unidimensional measure of risk may accurately capture one’s perception of the severity of the consequences, and the discrete emotions that are felt in response to those potential consequences. However, such a measure is not likely to capture the perceived probability of experiencing the outcomes, nor will it be as useful at understand- ing one’s motivation to take mitigation action. KEY WORDS: Affect; consequences; emotion; measurement; risk perception 1. INTRODUCTION As scholars in the field of risk and decision mak- ing, we are often asked what is the “best” way to measure risk perception. This is a question that is surprisingly hard to answer given what seems to be widespread agreement on how to define the concept. From a disciplinary perspective, we would argue that risk perception research finds its home in behavioral 1 School of Environment and Natural Resources, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA. 2 Department of Community Sustainability, Environmental Sci- ence & Policy Program, School of Criminal Justice, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA. ∗ Address correspondence to Robyn S. Wilson, School of Environ- ment and Natural Resources, The Ohio State University, 2021 Coffey Road, Columbus, OH 43210, USA; tel: 614-247-6169; Wil- son.1376@osu.edu. decision science, in particular the field of judgment and decision making. Although these are the origins of risk perception from a psychometric standpoint, the concept is now widely used in research rang- ing from health sciences to communication to engi- neering. These origins track back to the 1960s and 1970s, when Daniel Kahneman, Baruch Fischhoff, Paul Slovic, and other scholars identified a discon- nect between public perceptions of risk and techni- cal assessments of risk, and began to study the influ- ence risk had upon decision making (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979; Slovic, 1987; Slovic, Fischhoff, & Lichtenstein, 1982). Their research demonstrated that while technical assessments focus largely on the probability of experiencing particular nega- tive consequences, there are different factors that lead an individual to perceive a particular hazard 777 0272-4332/19/0100-0777$22.00/1 C  2018 Society for Risk Analysis