Perceptions of
SARS Health Risk
14
SARS risks judgments.
Gender. Studies are inconclusive regarding gender differences. Morton
and Duck (2001) examined impersonal impact in the context of skin cancer risk
among Australian college students. They found that females were more likely to
perceive greater societal risk. Basil and Brown (1997) discovered that female
students were more likely to report greater perceived AIDS or HIV risk.
Conversely, Chapin (2000) found no gender differences studying optimistic bias
in a sample of minority at-risk youth and their perceptions of their AIDS and HIV
risks. Tiedge et al. (1991) also failed to find gender effects when examining
perceived effects of media on self-other judgments.
Ethnicity. Few studies have included ethnicity as a variable. Chapin
(2000) asserted that ethnicity is another variable that produces differences in
health risk assessments. In Snyder and Rouse’s (1995) study of perceived AIDS
risk, they found that individuals with lower incomes, Latinos, and African
Americans perceived greater personal risk.
Summary
The impersonal impact hypothesis, optimistic bias, and third-person
perception suggest that the greater social and psychological distance between the
“self” and “other,” the greater the perceptual bias. Findings from studies of the
impersonal impact hypothesis indicate that direct and indirect experience
(interpersonal communication and mass media) may differentially affect self-
Convention