Theory and evidence[edit]

Risk and blame, group and grid[edit]

Two features of Douglass work inform the basic structure of Cultural Theory. The first of these is a
general account of the social function of individual perceptions of societal dangers. Individuals,
Douglas maintained, tend to associate societal harmsfrom sickness to famine to natural
catastropheswith conduct that transgresses societal norms. This tendency, she argued, plays an
indispensable role in promoting certain social structures, both by imbuing a societys members with
aversions to subversive behavior and by focusing resentment and blame on those who defy such
institutions.[1][2]
The second important feature of Douglass work is a particular account of the forms that competing
structures of social organization assume. Douglas maintained that cultural ways of life and affiliated
outlooks can be characterized (within and across all societies at all times) along two dimensions,
which she called group and grid.[3] A high group way of life exhibits a high degree of collective
control, whereas a low group one exhibits a much lower one and a resulting emphasis on individual
self-sufficiency. A high grid way of life is characterized by conspicuous and durable forms of
stratification in roles and authority, whereas a low grid one reflects a more egalitarian ordering. [4]
Although developed in Douglass earlier work, these two strands of her thought were first
consciously woven together to form the fabric of a theory of risk perception in her and Wildavskys
1982 book, Risk and Culture : An Essay on the Selection of Technical and Environmental Dangers.
Focusing largely on political conflict over air pollution and nuclear power in the United States, Risk
and Culture attributed political conflict over environmental and technological risks to a struggle
between adherents of competing ways of life associated with the groupgrid scheme: an egalitarian,
collectivist (low grid, high group) one, which gravitates toward fear of environmental disaster as a
justification for restricting commercial behavior productive of inequality; and individualistic ("low
group") and hierarchical ("high grid") ones, which resist claims of environmental risk in order to
shield private orderings from interference, and to defend established commercial and governmental
elites from subversive rebuke.
Later works in Cultural Theory systematized this argument. In these accounts, groupgrid gives rise
to either four or five discrete ways of life, each of which is associated with a view of nature (as
robust, as fragile, as capricious, and so forth) that is congenial to its advancement in competition
with the others.[5][6]

Survey studies[edit]
A variety of scholars have presented survey data in support of Cultural Theory. The first of these was
Karl Dake, a graduate student of Wildavsky, who correlated perceptions of various societal risks
environmental disaster, external aggression, internal disorder, market breakdownwith subjects

scores on attitudinal scales that he believed reflected the cultural worldviews associated with the
ways of life in Douglass groupgrid scheme.[7] Later researchers have refined Dakes measures and
have applied them to a wide variety of environmental and technological risks. [8][9][10] Such studies
furnish an indirect form of proof by showing that risk perceptions are distributed across persons in
patterns better explained by culture than by other asserted influences.

Case studies[edit]
Other scholars have presented more interpretive empirical support for Cultural Theory. Developed in
case-study form, their work shows how particular risk-regulation and related controversies can
plausibly be understood within a group-grid framework.[11][12]

Relationship to other risk perception theories[edit]

Cultural Theory is an alternative to two other prominent theories of risk perception. The first, which is
grounded in rational choice theory, treats risk perceptions as manifesting individuals implicit
weighing of costs and benefits.[13] Douglas and Wildavsky criticized this position in Risk and Culture,
arguing that it ignores the role of cultural ways of life in determining what states of affairs individuals
see as worthy of taking risks to attain.[14] The second prominent theory, which is grounded in social
psychology and behavioral economics, asserts that individuals risk perceptions are pervasively
shaped, and often distorted by heuristics and biases.[15] Douglas maintained that this psychometric
approach naively attempted to depoliticize risk conflicts by attributing to cognitive influences beliefs
that reflect individuals commitments to competing cultural structures.[16]
More recently, some scholars, including Paul Slovic, a pioneer in the development of the
psychometric theory, and Dan Kahan have sought to connect the psychometric and cultural theories.
This position, known as the cultural cognition of risk, asserts that the dynamics featured in the
psychometric paradigm are the mechanisms through which group-grid worldviews shape risk
perception.[17] Considering such a program, Douglas herself thought it unworkable, saying that [i]f we
were invited to make a coalition between group-grid theory and psychometrics, it would be like going
to heaven.[18] Such deeply ironic statements are scattered through her work as indicating an
unattainable mirage of 'positionlessness': understanding and knowledge must, for Douglas, always
emerge from a particular, partial, position, as is evident from the opening chapters of her 1982 book
with Wildavsky.

Application beyond risk perception[edit]

Theorists working with Cultural Theory have adapted its basic components, and in particular the
group-grid typology, to matters in addition to risk perception. These include political science,[19] public
policy,[20] public management andorganizational studies,[21] law[22] and sustainability.[23]

Criticism[edit]
The Cultural Theory of risk has been subject to a variety of criticisms. Complexities and ambiguities
inherent in Douglass group-grid scheme, and the resulting diversity of conceptualizations among
cultural theorists, lead sa Boholm to believe the theory is fatally opaque. [24] She also objects to the
theorys embrace of functionalism,[6][25] a controversial mode of analysis that sees the needs of
collective entities (in the case of Cultural Theory, the ways of life defined by group-grid), rather than
the decisions of individuals about how to pursue their own ends, as the principal causal force in
social relations.[26] Commentators have also critiqued studies that purport to furnish empirical
evidence for Cultural Theory, particularly survey studies, which some argue reflect unreliable
measures of individual attitudes and in any case explain only a modest amount of the variance in
individual perceptions of risk.[27][28] Finally, some resist Cultural Theory on political grounds owing to
Douglas and Wildavskys harsh denunciation of environmentalists in Risk and Culture.[29]

Ref:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Theory_of_risk