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Family Change, Intimate Relationships and
Risk
October 2003 - September 2008
This project examines how perceptions of risk affect family relationships
with partners and with teenage children. Rapid and far reaching changes
have introduced more variation in ways of 'doing family': both in the
choice of partnership, and the nature of the contributions (in terms of
paid work and unpaid carework) that men and women make to households.
Marriage, cohabitation and 'living apart together' are possible relationship
choices that may come with different kinds of expectations and notions
of risk. Parents, commonly combining work with family life, also confront
problems of managing risk as their teenager children become more independent.
Contact |
Other Researchers |
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Professor Jane Lewis,
Department of Social Policy
London School of Economics and Political Science
Houghton Street
London WC2A 2AE
Tel:+44(0)20 7955 6754
j.lewis@lse.ac.uk
Homepage: http://www.lse.ac.uk |
Dr Philip Noden
p.noden@lse.ac.uk
Department of Social Policy,
London School of Economics and Political Science |
The research on couples involved interviews with 47 people in intimate
relationships - either married or cohabiting for the first or subsequent
time, or 'living apart together' (LAT). These were carried out in 2004
and 2005. In the case of our exploratory study of people 'living-apart-together',
the interviews have been set in the context of a quantitative survey,
carried out by John Haskey, then at the Office of National Statistics,
which has attempted to find out how important this new form of relationship
is.
- Risk was perceived to attach more to making commitments in the form
of house purchase, or having children, than to the particular status
of cohabitation or marriage. The arrival of children threatened to change
the negotiated settlements that respondents had made.
- Respondents recognised that they were taking a risk in entering a
relationship and sought to minimise it, usually by trying to make sure
that they had something to fall back on financially.
- We think that for our interviewees this approach to entering a relationship
was not so much an expression of selfish individualism and the preparation
of an 'exit strategy', as a precautionary measure that actually enabled
them to take the risk of partnering.
- For those people who had re-partnered, building trust was crucial
and the nature of the relationship they chose to enter was part of this.
Changes in relationship status were often part of the process of building
trust and of achieving the goal of a more traditional partnership.
- Living Apart Together' represented a different kind of shared life
to the people we interviewed. This group did not reject co-residential
relationships but expressed caution about the type of sharing that they
required, for example in terms of financial resources as well as space.
- Divorced LAT respondents often felt that co-residence would be too
difficult for their dependent children from their first marriage. Never-married
LAT respondents had different reasons for continuing to live apart from
their partners
The research on parent-teenager relationships was carried out in 2005-2006
and involved interviews with both parents and children aged 12-16 in 26
dual earner families. . A further 50 interviews were carried out with
14 and 15 year olds in households with a variety of parental working patterns.
- Parents' perceptions of risk were strong, but had little to do either
with their working patterns or with the actual behaviour of the child.
- Parents, especially mothers, tended to put boundaries around their
work, with the aim of monitoring their child's emotional as much as
physical wellbeing.
- Children who spent regular amounts of time in the house alone tended
to welcome the time they had to themselves; however these children nevertheless
expressed reservations about their parents' working hours, which included
anxiety about the parents' well-being and about the effect of parental
stress on parenting style.
- Work was not the most significant factor that separated parents from
their children. Children were as likely to be away from their parents
because of their own activities.
- While parents frequently kept in touch with their children when they
were apart, the facilitation of independence was seen as a key role
for parents.
- There did not appear to be a correlation between parents' work hours
and the degree of independence afforded to their children.
Risk Perceptions and Responses, Transitions
in the Life-Course
October 2003 - September 2008
This project explores how people perceive and respond to risk at different
points in their lives, and the way in which these differ between generations.
A national risk survey interviewed a random sample of 1400 respondents
on perceptions and experiences of a range of potential everyday life risks,
ranging from changing employment and family responsibilities, through
becoming seriously ill, to encountering poor customer services.
- People tend to be much more anxious about the range of everyday life
risks than the incidence of the risks justifies.
- Some risk perceptions are highly correlated. Those who fear crime
are also much more likely to be concerned about accidents and illness.
Those worried about losing their job are also anxious about arrears,
loss of income and divorce.
- Other risk perceptions such as need for social care, or problems with
consumer service, stand alone.
- Most of these perceptions are significantly linked to class, age and
social values. Only concern about consumer issues seems unrelated to
social class, but strongly informed by cultural values of independence.
- Risk perceptions and risk experiences change with the life cycle;
worries about social risks decrease with age, but this decrease is much
less rapid with respect to fear of crime and worry about accidents or
illness.
- Risk perceptions are strongly influenced by past experience of risk
events and by whether the individual sought help last time she experienced
a risk event.
- About one-in-five individuals experiencing social risk events do not
seek help or advice from others; not seeking help is inversely related
to economic status and particularly likely with respect to income loss.
- When risks become problems, the family is still the main source of
help.
Qualitative interviews in 2005 with one parent and an adult child in
29 families and 11 further follow-up interviews showed:
- Compared to the parent generation, the offspring generation reports
having more available options and choices when deciding on careers.
The offspring generation looks beyond the local labour market and is
more likely to use formal methods to obtain employment, whereas the
parent generation relied on recommendations, informal networks and on
following 'family traditions'. The latter is particularly strongly represented
among parents from manual worker backgrounds.
- The offspring generation also expresses a heightened sense of insecurity
and risk, but with few, if any, immediate implications for life planning.
An increased risk awareness among the offspring generation did not translate
into greater risk preparedness.
- At the same time, members of the offspring generation express greater
aspirations, expectations and self-determination in shaping their own
lives and labour market experiences.
- There is a general shift from parent to offspring generation away
from a sense that personal development is pre-determined or circumscribed
by restrictive social structures. This shift may be towards a belief
in greater self-determination and control, combined with the perception
that there are now sufficient opportunities available to build a life
or career path through active and strategic choices and decision-making.
- Parent and offspring who are both manual workers often shared the
view that life path choices are limited and possibly determined by external
conditions rather than by personal determination. In general, issues
of class, gender and age remain important to the analysis of risk perceptions.
The research has led to a new project: Testing the 'Risk Society' Hypothesis'
ESRC (with Peter Taylor-Gooby) 2006-7, £84,000.
Perceiving and Responding to Risk: The Impact
of Difference
October 2003 - September 2008
This project is examining the extent to which social and cultural differences
along the dimensions of disability, sexuality, faith and ethnicity influence
responses to financial and economic risk. Current policy-making assumes
people perceive and respond to financial risk in a uniform and rational
way. However, small scale studies indicate that different groups are likely
to frame and respond to risks differently due to cultural and lifestyle
influences as well as to barriers to the full range of income maintenance
and safety-net strategies available to others. The main area of enquiry
is the financial risk associated with being unable to work or losing work/income,
amongst working-aged people.
Eighty in depth interviews with individuals committed to different faiths
(Muslim and Christian), disabled people, gays, lesbians and bisexuals,
and members of Black and minority ethnic groups (Black and Asian) were
conducted in 2005/2006. The research found:
- That difference does 'make a difference' to people's attitudes and
responses to money, risk and planning although membership of some social
groups can be more influential than others. For example, faith is more
important in affecting attitudes than sexuality.
- Fears about the insecurity of relationships, provision for old age
and discrimination from government and private institutions exacerbates
perception of financial risk in particular among gay, lesbian and bisexual
respondents.
- Membership of some social groups can be more influential than other
groups. Faith is more important in affecting attitudes than sexuality.
- Class and lack of income continue to constrain many individuals, and
affect some social groups more than others. Contrary to popular belief,
gays, lesbians and bisexuals, do not have more disposable income than
the rest of the population.
- The existence of multiple social identities and complex relationships
e.g. between faith, ethnicity/culture and sexuality.
- The importance of 'traditional' gender roles in some households in
constraining choice/financial planning.
- Differences between groups in their views on individual responsibility
versus the welfare state.
- Evidence of influence of consumer/credit society, particularly the
pressure to 'live well and look good' reported by gay and lesbian respondents.
- The importance of religiosity rather than religion per se.
- Importance of not making assumptions about e.g. Muslims preference
for Islamic products.
- A general dislike of debt amongst faith and Black and ethnic minority
respondents - but some evidence of a more ambivalent attitude among
younger respondents.
- Overall, respondents from all groups were aware of the need to plan
but for the most part relied on their own resourcefulness or equity
rather than more formal planning.
Risk and Interpersonal Affect
October 2004 - September 2008
This project examines how people are affected by other people's emotions
when appraising risk during everyday life decisions such as buying furniture,
taking a new job or where to go for a meal and how they take each other's
emotions into account when doing so.
Two diary studies have been completed, one with 24 participants, using
paper questionnaires, the second with 41, using hand-held computers on
which the participant recorded the data. In both studies the diary keeping
period was followed by an interview which explored the decision situation,
the risk involved and the potential consequences in more detail.
Findings from both diary studies suggest that:
- People perceive risk in a wide variety of decisions including buying
a house, undergoing a medical operation, and telling a friend something
that might potentially upset them.
- Our anxiety and excitement about decisions is affected by the perceived
emotions of (close) others.
- Appraisals of risk and importance also affect our emotions.
- Effects of others' emotions do not only depend on changed appraisals of risk severity and decision importance, or even on interpretations of the other's feelings, but also operate more directly suggesting that emotional contagion may also play a role.
- Overall the findings suggest that it is important to understand how our own feelings interact with those of others in risky decision situations rather than simply looking at the effect of our own feelings in isolation.
- The hand-held computer method is a successful and efficient way of
gathering information on events in people's everyday life. It has a
higher compliance rate than the paper and pen method and it is possible
to get additional data such as daily mood measures.
We have also completed two experimental studies investigating the effects of visual access to another person's facial expressions during risky decision-making. Both studies involved pairs of participants (contestants and helpers) collaborating in a computer-controlled quiz-game with varying access to the facial expression of the other.
The first study compared one way visual access (contestant could see helper) with no viual access. Results were as follows:
- Surprisingly, when contestants had one-way visual access to the helper's face while
choosing the correct answer performance on the quiz became worse rather than better. Seeing helpers seemed to interfere with appropriate responses to their advice.
- Participants who were more emotionally expressive were affected more
negatively by one-way visual access to their partners, suggesting that
expectations about reciprocated emotion may distort interpretations
of expressions when direct interaction is impossible.
- Helpers who were more emotionally expressive did not provide more helpful visual feedback than partners who were less emotionally expressive.
The second study compared one-way and two-way visual access to check whether the effects found in the first study depended on lack of interactivity between partners. Results showed that:
- Contestants' confidence in their own initial answers was reduced and their eventual performance was improved in the two-way access condition.
- Seeing someone else's face leads to different effets depending both on contextual variables (such as interactivity and differential availability of information) and no individual differences relating to expressivity and emotion regulation.
Media Discourses and Framing
October 2003 - September 2008
This project explored the role of the media in risk debates around emerging science and technology. It focused particularly on the way in which media communication about risk involves providing context, prompting hopes and fears, invoking images and associations, inviting identification and stimulating the imagination as well as providing factual material.
The research involved interviews with key stakeholders (n=38); analysis of media coverage (six months); focus groups with diverse ‘publics’ (n=20 groups) and follow up interviews (n=45). We examined the framing of GM food, stem cell research and nanotechnology.
Our research shows that the frames used to define the risks and the benefits may be more important in shaping how people respond to risks than the balance of 'factual' information. Key 'discursive cues' in framing of risks are:
- Contrasting labels: e.g. In the GM debate terms such as 'cross-pollination' compete with 'contamination'.
- Competing historical templates: e.g. Stem cell research may be linked to 'medical breakthroughs' such as penicillin, or to the more sinister historical association of eugenics.
- Visual imagery: e.g. The embryo/blastocyst is the central visual icon in the stem cell debate - magnified images of the cluster of cells used by stem cell researchers compete with representations of more developed embryos, with tiny fingers and toes.
- We also identified recurring points of appeal across the coverage e.g. to ‘Nature’ and to National interest/identity
The success of such framing devices in penetrating popular discourse varies. The notion of contamination, for example, dominates media/public discourse about GM crops and the term 'embryo' has been more successful than terms such as 'blastocyst' in the stem cell debate. However, even an evocative term such as 'embryo' may be associated with acceptable risk-taking if the benefits (e.g. medical advances through stem cell research) are sufficiently highlighted. Our focus group research highlighted the fact that:
- People are willing to negotiate around ‘instinctive reactions’ such as distrust of the ‘unnatural’ or the ‘Yuk factor’ if convinced of the value of a new development.
- Attitudes toward emerging technology are closely linked to ‘branding’ and ‘clusters of associations’ (e.g. GM was associated with junk food but nanotechnology triggered associations with keyhole surgery and neat little Ipods).
- People take from the media ‘why’ (the science is done) rather than ‘how’ (it is done) and ‘who’ (is doing it) than ‘what’ (it involves).
- Common concerns focus on where a technology might lead, whether consequences can be predicted and the threat of misuse. Such concerns are reiterated through historical templates linked to economics and politics(e.g. with discussion of BSE, global arms race, The Iraq war)
- Identities and experiences of citizenship mediate concerns (e.g. the only group who were very wary of nanotechnology linked this to their concerns about civil liberties and surveillance as Muslims in a post 9/11 world).
- The fictional image of a technology is significant, but less important than news reports addressing who is developing the technology, why they are developing it, and who will benefit from it.
Public Understanding of Regimes of Risk Regulation
October 2003 - September 2008
This project examines the approaches of new agencies, the Financial Services
Authority and the Office of Communications, to managing risk. Privatisation
and globalisation have led to a shift from state to co- or self-regulation
and individuals are increasingly expected to take responsibility in making
prudent investment choices, insuring against welfare risks and in managing
internet and media usage for their families.
The project analysed the documentation of the regulatory agencies, carried
out interviews with 32 stakeholders and interviewed 114 people in 16 focus
groups:
- Regulators experience contradictory demands: between treating individual
service-users as consumers and confining their role to ensuring that
they are properly protected, and taking on a wider public interest role,
which treats them as citizens.
- The focus-groups indicate users are also confused. Many express enthusiasm
for the role of autonomous consumer in preference to the paternalism
of a 'nanny state'. This is combined with a strong sense of insecurity
in making market choices and desire for interventions to protect individual
investors or viewers and their families.
Further research continues.
Risk in Perspective: Private Choices and
Public Decisions
October 2003 - September 2008
Most research on how people make decisions about risk issues focuses
on behaviour in separate hazard contexts such as transport, food, crime
or new technology in isolation. However, studies which ask their respondents
to focus on particular risks separately, rather than in the real life
context of their activities and behaviour, may distort the absolute and
relative impact of these risks on people's daily lives. This gives a mistaken
impression of how people think about or respond to risks when they actually
confront them.
This study examines responses to risk in the context of the other risks
and uncertainties people face.
Contact |
Other Researchers |
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Professor Graham Loomes
Department of Economics
University of East Anglia
Norwich NR4 7TJ
Tel: +44(0)1603 592099
g.loomes@uea.ac.uk
http://www.uea.ac.uk |
Dr Judith Mehta
j.mehta@uea.ac.uk
Centre for the Economic and Behavioural Analysis
of Risk and Decision
University of East Anglia
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A small scale survey of 30 people and two large scale surveys (234 and
280 interviews) in 2005 and 2006 were carried out:
- People's judgements about the likelihood of adverse events occurring
departs significantly and systematically from the rational model that
is central to economics.
- People find it difficult to assess the likelihood of different events
happening. This applies even to those with high levels of education.
- The way in which risks are presented makes a substantial difference
to how people assess risks. This is more marked for events in one's
personal life than for public events.
- People are poorly informed about the incidence of events, even those
about which they are concerned such as burglaries on road accidents.
However the provision of information on the actual rates of such events
locally makes little difference to their responses.
- The impact of the time period in which the likelihood of an event
occurring (for example, 12 months against 3 years) makes much less difference
than expected to people's estimate of the likelihood of its happening.
Further research continues.
Living with Nuclear Power in Britain
September 2003 - October 2008
Case studies of two communities living near nuclear power stations carrying
out highly detailed studies of how people think about risk in the context
of their every day lives.
Detailed narrative interviews carried out and studies of the two communities
show that people living near the power stations are able to use their
place-based and biographic experiences to arrive at a range of ways of
living with risk.
- Familiarisation/normalisation: the risk is for the most part a background
issue and only enters their awareness when they are faced with proposals
to change the use of the site on which the power station is built or
extend its operation. Other risk issues are of higher significance in
the context of local opinion and people's values and lives: for example,
from other forms of 'rural industrialisation', modern development pressures,
threats to valued aspects of the local environment or declining standards
in local schools.
- Trade-offs between potential harm from the risk and the benefits it
can bring. These include economic expansion and employment opportunities
and also such factors as deterring further urban development in the
area. This makes the roads safer and protects the countryside.
- Experiential threat: there are some indirect indicates of feelings
of anxiety or fear. More important is distrust, expressed as concern
about perceived mismanagement and lack of consideration shown for local
communities by the authorities that are responsible for operations and
safety at the power station, and also from government.
- The combination of methods in the project throws into relief the way
biography intersects with understandings of risk.
Further research continues.
Towards a Theory of Risk and Risk Response in
its Social Contexts
October 2003 - September 2008
This project will seek to improve understanding of framing processes
and of risk discourse among different groups and in a range of different
social settings, and to evaluate the contribution of different disciplinary-based
approaches to risk.
This project has organised
3 international conferences and 5 sessions at conferences of other organisations;
3 presentation seminars and 2 methodological workshops to promote
the work of the network for academics and for broader communities. It
has established new permanent risk research groups as part of the International
Sociological Association and European Sociological Association. It also
published books and articles designed to draw work together across different
disciplinary backgrounds and advance understanding of risk:
- Recent developments in social science approaches to risk provide opportunities
for cross-fertilisation. Psychology and social psychology increasingly
address the cultural and social factors in understanding risk that were
at one time the domain of sociology. At the same time, sociological
theorizing has paid more attention to individualist and to some extent
realist accounts more typically associated with psychology.
- A rapid growth of interest in the non-rational and pre-rational prerequisites
of action among economists, psychologists and sociologists. This has
influenced the understanding of risk and risk-responses. While sociology
becomes more engaged in questions of how uncertainties can be managed
when methods of probabilistic calculation meet their limits, decision-making
research in psychology and economics increasingly acknowledges the 'rationality'
of non-rational aspects of action
- All these approaches highlight affect and emotion. Trust is widely
acknowledged as central to the social management of risks and uncertainties
when rational control and knowledge are limited, but the emotional and
value-based aspects of trust often receive less attention than the rational
aspects. Both rational and the emotional sides of trust are important
in understanding public and individual understandings of and responses
to risk.
- New research on trust and emotions on both national and international
levels:
- Institutional Trust and Health Care Reform, ESRC,
2007-8, £98,000.
- Testing the 'Risk Society' Hypothesis' ESRC (with Andreas Cebulla)
2006-7, £84,000.
- Sustainable Welfare and Sustainable Growth, Anglo-German Foundation,
2006-9, £150,000.
- Soldiers' and Veterans' Management of Risk and Uncertainty, (British
Academy, 2007-8, £6465.
- Emotion and Decision-Making in Finance, (with Jocelyn Pixley, University
of New South Wales)
Further research continues.
Institutional Trust and Health Care Reform
December 2006 to January 2008.
The current government is devoting considerable resources to welfare
state reform and (arguably) achieving real improvements in services such
as the NHS and education. Despite this, the reforms remain highly controversial
and there is considerable concern about lack of public trust in and satisfaction
with the new policies. Rational judgements and non-rational values both
contribute to trust. However, the reform programme operates by manipulating
incentives and opportunities through market competition, entirely within
a rational actor framework. The risk is that the reforms fail to address
the non-rational foundations of public trust, and improve provision but
damage public support.
Contact |
Other Researchers |
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Professor Peter Taylor-Gooby
SSPSSR
University of Kent
CT2 7NF
Tel: +44(0)1227 827514
p.f.taylor-gooby@kent.ac.uk
http://www.kent.ac.uk |
Dr Andrew Wallace
a.wallace@kent.ac.uk
University of Kent
Tel: +44(0)1227 823970
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48 interviews with members of the public from a range of groups have
been carried out. Analysis shows:
- Limited awareness of the recent NHS reforms;Strong commitment to
the traditional model of a universal and conveniently accessible NHS
reforms;
- Support for NHS as a unique UK institution which should be preserved
as a public institution;
- Strong concerns about greater private sector involvement;
- Limited support for patient 'choice' as a reform mechanism;
- Substantial age and gender differences in concerns about the reform
programme.
The
Biographical Management of Risk and Uncertainty - British Veterans
May 2007 - August 2008
Contact
Dr Jens O. Zinn
SSPSSR
University of Kent
CT2 7NF
Tel: +44(0)1227 824165
j.zinn@kent.ac.uk
It is increasingly important to understand how soldiers and veterans cope with high risk and uncertainty, since a growing number suffer mental health problems during and after duty. The project analyses how soldiers’ experiences before they became a soldier, their motivation to enlist to the army and the experiences during training and duty shape their strategies and ability to cope with high risk and uncertainty.
Preliminary findings are:
- The occupational culture of the military is paramount for soldiers’ and veterans’ strategies to cope with risk and uncertainty.
- Most soldiers gained confidence and self-worth from their job but some experience major problems in employment, and it was particularly difficult for many of them to cope with the challenges of civil life.
- Veterans who adapted most and almost exclusively to the military culture and considered being a soldier the central source of self-worth and confidence suffered most. They failed to cope with the occupational experiences and are particularly at risk of failing in civilian life.
- The drinking culture within the army is a source for considerable problems, even for the ones who have successfully managed the transition into civil life.
- There is a fundamental contradiction between what is expected from soldiers in their job and in civil life.
- The contradiction between how soldiers are considered by the public and their experience of warfare can become a major problem for ex-service men’s problems to find their way back into civil life.
Shifting Paradigms of
Social Justice
September 2006 - August 2009
As social life becomes increasingly uncertain for many people ideas about social citizenship are changing. This project analyzes national survey material and carried out focus groups in Germany and the UK to investigate people's views on what government should provide and who should be entitled to receive services and benefits under what conditions.
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Contact |
Other Researchers |
Professor Peter Taylor-Gooby
SSPSSR
University of Kent
CT2 7NF
Tel: +44(0)1227 827514
p.f.taylor-gooby@kent.ac.uk
http://www.kent.ac.uk |
Professor Steffen Mau,
University
of Bremen
Graduate School of Social Sciences
University of Bremen
Postfach 330 440
28334 Bremen
Germany
Tel:0049 (0)421-218-4131
http://www.bigsss-bremen.de |
Preliminary findings are that:
- Over three quarters of the population in Germany and the UK think inequality is too high. Many fewer (just over half in Germany, just under in the UK) think it is the job of government to do something about this. Even fewer (about 40 per cent in Germany, about a third in the UK) are willing to support government spending on the poor if it means higher taxes.
- Middle class people in the UK are more likely to see migrants as net contributors and routine working class people as net beneficiaries. In addition, non-EU migrants are seen as acquiring a moral right to welfare fairly quickly, after some two years.
- Initial analysis of UK focus group data indicates a division in ideas about fairness: middle class people are more likely to assent to the agenda of ‘equality of opportunity’ while routine working class people are more likely to see fairness in terms of ‘equality of outcome’.
Testing the 'Risk Society'
Hypothesis
October 2006 - September 2007
Contact |
Other Researchers |
Professor Peter Taylor-Gooby
SSPSSR
University of Kent
CT2 7NF
Tel: +44(0)1227 827514
p.f.taylor-gooby@kent.ac.uk
http://www.kent.ac.uk |
Dr Andreas Cebulla
National Centre for Social Research
35 Northampton Square
London EC1V OAX
Tel:+44(0)20 7250 1866
a.cebulla@natcen.ac.uk |
A prominent strand in recent sociological theorising claims that people have experienced a transition to a ‘Risk Society’ in which they are more likely to believe that the course of their lives is uncertain and difficult to predict. This study tests this idea using data from three longitudinal surveys: the National Child Development Study, the Birth Cohort Study and the British Household Panel Survey. The research focuses on people’s expectations about school leaving age, first jobs and marriage and compares it with the eventual outcomes.
Further analyses will use explore the extent to which, from earlier to more recent cohorts, individuals have developed different social networks and distanced themselves, in the way they live their lives, from their parents.
Risk Actors and the Media
(Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform)
This short project is one of five commissioned by the BERR to explore how key risk actors operate (e.g. insurance industry, judiciary, publics). It is designed to produce a policy relevant summary of how risk reporting operates and how journalists interact with other key players (e.g. their ‘expert’ sources) and reflect on levers for change.
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