Investigating heterogeneity in food risk perceptions using best-worst scaling

Caroline Millman, Dan Rigby and Davey L. Jones

Journal of Risk Research, 2021, vol. 24, issue 10, 1288-1303

Abstract: The psychometric paradigm has dominated the field of empirical work analysing risk perceptions. In this paper, we use an alternative method, Best-Worst Scaling (BWS), to elicit relative risk perceptions concerning potentially unsafe domestic food behaviours. We analyse heterogeneity in those risk perceptions via estimation of latent class models. We identify 6 latent segments of differing risk perception profiles with the probability of membership of those segments differing between experts and the lay public. The BWS method provides a practical approach to assessing relative risks as the choices made by the participants and subsequent analysis have a strong theoretical basis. It does so without the influence of scale bias, the cognitive burden of ranking a large number of items or issues of aggregation of data, often associated with the more commonly used psychometric paradigm. We contend that BWS, in conjunction with latent class modelling, provides a powerful method for eliciting risk rankings and identifying differences in these rankings in the population.

Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1080/13669877.2020.1848902

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