Gallup Korea

Risk perception research, targeting the general public, necessitates the study of the multi-faceted aspects of perceived risk through a holistic approach. This study aimed to investigate the association between the two dimensions of risk perception of COVID-19, i.e., risk as a feeling and analysis, trust in the current government, political ideologies, and socio-demographic factors in South Korea. This study used a year-long repeated cross-sectional design, in which a national sample (n = 23,018) participated in 23 consecutive telephone surveys from February 2020 to February 2021. Most factors differed in the magnitude and direction of their relationships with the two dimensions of risk perception. However, trust in the current government, alone, delineated an association in the same direction for both dimensions, i.e., those with a lower level of trust exhibited higher levels of cognitive and affective risk perception. Although these results did not change significantly during the one-year observation period, they are related to the political interpretation of risk. This study revealed that affective and cognitive risk perceptions addressed different dimensions of risk perception. These findings could help governments and health authorities better understand the nature and mechanisms of public risk perception when implementing countermeasures and policies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and other public health emergencies.

Abstract This study examined the gap between the consumers' subjective propensity to engage in sustainable consumption and their actual behavior to develop an understanding of the consumers' practical contribution to sustainable development. This study examined the gaps between the consumers' subjective propensity to hold sustainable consumption attitudes or beliefs and their practical behavior by focusing on the value consumers assign to sustainable consumption while engaging in such behavior. Additionally, the effects of the consumers' social relationships and civic participation on sustainable consumption and the propensity‐behavior gap were investigated. Survey data were collected by a professional market research organization from 422 panel consumers. The results indicate that functional value influences actual behavior, while subjective propensity is affected by emotional and altruistic values, as well as by functional value. Bridging social capital negatively affects actual practice of sustainable consumption, whereas the consumers' civic roles have the opposite effect. Finally, the gap between propensity and actual behavior is more likely to occur when consumers are led by emotional and altruistic values of sustainable consumption.

Do large cities suffer from an even greater incidence of crime? According to the Urban Scaling Theory, the number of crimes committed may follow a superlinear relationship as a function of the population size of city. For example, if the population size increases by 100%, the incidence of crime may increase by 120%. We analyzed a total of 11 types of crimes which had occurred in about 250 cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants in the United States during the period of 1995-2010. We found that the relationship between the number of crimes counts and the population size of cities have followed a superlinear power function without exception in all 176 cases. However, significant variations exist among the superlinear relations by types of crime. We also found that the values of scale exponents display time-invariant pattern during the 16-year period.