Small town, big risks: natural, cultural and social risk perception

Abstract

Benavente (Portugal) is a small town which, compared to the rest of the country, has higher levels of the following three types of risks: earthquakes (natural risk), criminality (social risk) and the running of the bulls (cultural risk). This has allowed us to explore spatial bias, i.e., whether people have lower perceptions of risk at the local level than at the national or international levels, or if there are any risks strongly related with the local culture that show a different pattern. We also test whether risk perception dimensions identified by a psychometric paradigm relate to the three risk types that are highly prevalent in Benavente. The results support the spatial bias in relation to earthquakes and criminality but reveal a reverse pattern regarding the running of the bulls (cultural risk). The results also showed that people scored higher on the Dread dimension for earthquakes, followed by criminality, with lower scores in regard to the running of the bulls. The opposite was verified regarding the Control dimension.