Risk theory and 'subjective fear': The role of risk perception, assessment, and management in refugee status determinations

International Journal of Refugee Law

Volumn 20, Issue 4, 2008, Pages 567-585

  Cameron, Hilary Evans ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

REFUGEE; RISK ASSESSMENT; RISK PERCEPTION; SELF ASSESSMENT;

EID: 57249107926     PISSN: 09538186     EISSN: 14643715     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/ijrl/een032     Document Type: Review

References (134)

1. Canada (Attorney General) v. Ward [1993] 2 SCR 689 (Supreme Court of Canada).
2. P. Slovic, 'Perceptions of Risk' (1987) 236 Science 280-5 at 282 [Slovic 1987].
3. Ibid.;
4. C. A. Heimer, 'Social Structure, Psychology, and the Estimation of Risk' (1988) 14 Annual Review of Sociology 491-519 at 494.
5. L. Clarke, 'Explaining Choices among Technological Risks' (1988) 35 Social Problems 22-35 at 23.
6. Slovic 1987, above n. 2, 284.
7. Ibid., 283.
8. A. Picard, 'Drug-driving rate doubles in 15 years' The Globe and Mail 12 Dec. 2006.
9. Transport Canada: Frequently Hsked questions (Road): http://www.tc.gc.ca/ road/faq.htm.
10. M. A. Hoyt, C. J. Nemeroff & D. M. Huebner, 'The Effects of HIV-Related Thought Suppression on Risk Behavior: Cognitive Escape in Men Who Have Sex With Men' (2006) 25 Health Psychology 455-61.
11. Statistics Canada: Crime Statistics in Canada, 2004 (Catalogue no. 85-002-XPE, vol. 25, no. 5);
12. G. Graves and O. Wood, 'Indepth: Missing Children: Streetproofing your kids' CBC.ca, 21 Oct. 2003.
13. R. Pshisva & G. A. Suarez, '"Captive Markets": The Impact of Kidnappings on Corporate Investment in Colombia' Working paper in the Finance and Economics Discussion Series, Divisions of Research and Statistics and Monetary Affairs, Federal Reserve Board, Washington D.C., Feb. 2006, 7.
14. D. Williams, 'Kidnapping is big business in Colombia' CNN.com, 7 May 2001.
15. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 'Country Profile: Colombia' (2003), 28.
16. 2,800 Canadians died in traffic fatalities in 2004, out of a population of 33 million (0.008%); 4,000 Colombians were kidnapped for ransom out of a population of 43.5 million (0.009%); 'Car-crash deaths outnumber homicides: Report', CTV.ca, 8 Jan. 2006; CIA World Factbook, 'Colombia' 2006; CIA World Factbook: 'Canada' 2006.
17. Immigration and Refugee Board File TA5-10652. IRB cases cited in this paper were the subject of applications for leave and for judicial review to the Federal Court of Canada and are part of the public record.
18. IRB File TA2-27279.
19. P. Slovic, E. Peters, & M. L. Finucane, 'Affect, Risk, and Decision Making' (2005) 24 Health Psychology (Suppl.) S. 35-40 at S. 36 [Slovic 2005].
20. N. J. Fox, 'Postmodern reflections on 'risk', 'hazards' and life choices' in D. Lupton (ed.), Risk and Sociocultural Theory: New Directions and Perspectives (Cambridge, 1999) 12-33 at 28.
21. S. Rayner, 'Radiation Hazards in Hospitals: A Cultural Analysis of Occupational Risk Perception' (1984) 60 RAIN 10-12 at 10, 12.
22. F. X. Gibbons, T. J. Eggleston & A. C. Benthin, 'Cognitive reactions to smoking relapse: The reciprocal relation between dissonance and self-esteem' (1997) 72 Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 184-95; Slovic 2005, above n. 17, at S. 39.
23. E. R. Blake, 'Commentary: Understanding Outrage: How Scientists Can Help Bridge the Risk Perception Gap' (1995) 103 Environmental Health Perspectives 123-5 at 124.
24. Slovic 1987, above n. 2;
25. N. D. Weinstein, 'Why it won't happen to me: Perceptions of risk factors and susceptibility' (1984) 3 Health Psychology 431-57 [Weinstein 1984]
26. A. M. A. Smith & D. A. Rosenthal, 'Adolescents' perceptions of their risk environment' (1995) 18 Journal of Adolescence 229-45;
27. J. A. Kulik & H. I. M. Mahler, 'Health status, perceptions of risk, and prevention interest for health and nonhealth problems' (1987) 6 Health Psychology 15-27.
28. See, e.g.: Weinstein 1984, above n. 22;
29. N. D. Weinstein & W. M. Klein, 'Resistance of personal risk perceptions to debiasing interventions' (1995) 14 Health Psychology 132-40 at 133 [Weinstein 1995]
30. D. R. Rutter, L. Quine & I. P. Albery, 'Perceptions of risk in motorcyclists: Unrealistic optimism, relative realism and predictions of behaviour' (1988) 8 British Journal of Psychology 681-96;
31. K. J. Prentice, J. M. Gold & W. T. Carpenter, Jr., 'Optimism bias in the perception of personal risk: Patterns in schizophrenia' (2005) 162 American Journal of Psychiatry 507-12 at 510.
32. S. B. Sitkin & A. L. Pablo, 'Reconceptualizing the Determinants of Risk Behavior' (1992) 17 The Academy of Management Review 9-38 at 16-17 [Sitkin 1992].
33. Ibid.;
34. S. B. Sitkin & L. R. Weingart, 'Determinants of Risky Decision-Making Behaviour: A Test of the Mediating Role of Risk Perceptions and Propensity' (1995) 38 The Academy of Management Journal 1573-92 at 1587 [Sitkin 1995].
35. D. W. Massaro, 'Paradoxes of Gambling Behavior' (1990) 103 The American Journal of Psychology 290-7 at 296.
36. R. B. Barsky, F. T. Juster & M. S. Kimball, 'Preference parameters and behavioral heterogeneity: An experimental approach in the Health and Retirement Study' (1997) 112 The Quarterly Journal of Economics 537-79 [Barsky 1997]
37. S. Morgenstern & E. Zechmeister, 'Better the devil you know than the saint you don't? Risk propensity and vote choice in Mexico' (2001) 63 The Journal of Politics 93-119.
38. Sitkin 1995, above n. 25, 1579.
39. The U.N. Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status makes this explicitly clear at paragraph 40: 'An evaluation of the subjective element is inseparable from an assessment of the personality of the applicant, since psychological reactions of different individuals may not be the same in identical conditions'. The Federal Court of Canada has also recognized this principle, e.g., by overturning a decision where the Board found that a claimant should have gone into hiding rather than continue his political activities: 'Such a gratuitous council of cowardice as the only standard of plausible behaviour can hardly be taken as an objective reflection by the Board'. Giron v. MEI 1992 FCJ 418, para. 4.
40. E.g.: Rutter, above n. 23;
41. J. S. Green, M. Grant & K. L. Hill, 'Heart disease risk perception in college men and women' (2003) 51 Journal of American College Health 207-11.
42. Weinstein 1995, above n. 23.
43. A. J. Barsky, D. K. Ahern & E. D. Bailey, 'Hypochondriacal patients' appraisal of health and physical risks' (2001) 158 The American Journal of Psychiatry 783-7.
44. K. R. Fontaine, 'Effect of dispositional optimism on comparative risk perceptions for developing AIDS' (1994) 74 Psychological Reports 843-6. Interestingly, schizophrenics, who 'are often seen as compromised in their ability to appreciate risk information and their decision-making capacity', demonstrate slightly less optimism bias than their peers (and are therefore actually slightly more accurate in their risk perceptions). Prentice, above n. 23.
45. Weinstein 1984, above n. 22;
46. Weinstein 1995, above n. 23, 139.
47. Heimer, above n. 3, 496.
48. D. S. Mileti & P. W. O'Brien, 'Warnings During Disaster: Normalizing Communicated Risk' (1992) 39 Social Problems 40-57 at 44 [Mileti 1992].
49. Ibid., 45.
50. Ibid., 53-4.
51. J. K Riad, F. H. Norris & R. B. Ruback, 'Predicting evacuation in two major disasters: Risk perception, social influence, and access to resources' (1999) 29 Journal of Applied Social Psychology 918-34 at 922.
52. Sitkin 1992, above n. 24, 14; B. L. Halpern-Felsher, S. G. Millstein & J. M. Ellen, 'The role of behavioral experience in judging risks' (2001) 20 Health Psychology 120-66 at 122-4.
53. Gibbons, above n. 20.
54. F. P. McKenna & M. S. Horswill, 'Risk Taking from the Participant's Perspective: The Case of Driving and Accident Risk' (2006) 25 Healthy Psychology 163-70 at 168.
55. M. Billig, 'Is My Home My Castle? Place Attachment, Risk Perception, and Religious Faith' (2006) 38 Environment and Behavior 248-65 at 249.
56. Ibid.
57. Ibid., 263.
58. J. S. Lerner & D. Keltner, 'Fear, anger and risk' (2001) 81 Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 146-59 [Lerner 2001]
59. J. S. Lerner, R. M. Gonzalez & D. A. Small, 'Effects of Fear and Anger on Perceived Risks of Terrorism: A National Field Experiment' (2003) 14 Psychological Science 144-50 [Lerner 2003].
60. Immigration and Refugee Board 'Response to Information Request' USA43419.E, Apr. 2005.
61. Wei Wei Da, Latin American Research Group, 'Colombians in Canada: Contexts for Departure and Arrival' 2002: http://www.yorku.ca/cohesion/ LARG/PDF/Colombia-WWD-2002.pdf, 5.
62. K. Ellingwood, Hard Line: Life and Death on the U.S.-Mexico Border (New York: Pantheon Books, 2004), 232-3.
63. D. R. Francis, 'Time to get real about enforcing immigration laws' Christian Science Monitor, 8 Aug. 2005.
64. Immigration and Refugee Board File TA2-15669.
65. Fox, above n. 18, 15.
66. D. Lupton, 'Introduction: Risk and sociocultural theory' in D. Lupton (ed.), above n. 18, 1-11 at 4 [Lupton, Introduction]
67. J. Tulloch & D. Lupton, Risk and Everyday Life (London: Sage, 2003), 3;
68. M. Bell & J. Sheail, 'Experts, publics and the environment in the UK: twentieth-century translations' (2005) 31 Journal of Historical Geography 496-512.
69. Tulloch, above n. 53, 129-30;
70. M. Balshem, 'Cancer, Control, and Causality: Talking about Cancer in a Working-Class Community' (1991) 18 American Ethnologist 152-72.
71. D. S. Mileti & J. D. Darlington, 'The Role of Searching in Shaping Reactions to Earthquake Risk Information' (1997) 44 Social Problems 89-103 at 89 [Mileti 1997].
72. A. Grinyer, 'Risk, the real world and naïve sociology' in J. Gabe (ed.), Medicine, Risk and Health (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1995);
73. quoted in Fox, above n. 18, 21.
74. Fox, above n. 18, 21;
75. J. Popay & G. Williams, 'Public Health Research and Lay Knowledge' (1996) 42 Social Science Medicine 759-86.
76. In one study, e.g., a hospital issued guidelines to its staff about how to avoid needlestick injuries. The staff was 'doubtful' about the usefulness of these guidelines, in light of their past experiences with needlestick accidents. When this was brought to management's attention, management simply denied the validity of the lay data, without considering how the staff's perception might affect their response to the guidelines. The study concluded that management's failure to take the staff's lay knowledge into account significantly weakened the policy's effectiveness. Grinyer, above n. 56,
77. quoted in Fox, above n. 18, 21.
78. Balshem, above n. 54;
79. Popay, above n. 57.
80. Tulloch, above n. 53, 25.
81. Ibid., 41 .
82. Billig, above n. 43.
83. Tulloch, above n. 53, 43.
84. Barsky 1997, above n. 27, 555.
85. Heimer, above n. 3, 497, 507;
86. Lerner 2001, above n. 46, 148.
87. Heimer, above n. 3, 497.
88. Billig, above n. 43, 262.
89. Weinstein 1984, above n. 22, 454.
90. Ibid.
91. Rutter, above n. 23, 693-4.
92. Kulik, above n. 22, 25.
93. Rutter, above n. 23, 693-4;
94. Weinstein 1984, above n. 22.
95. J. Herman, M.D., Trauma and Recovery (New York: Basic Books, 1997), 42;
96. quoted in M. Bossin & L. Demirdache, 'A Canadian Perspective on the Subjective Component of the Bipartite Test for "Persecution": Time for Re-evaluation' (2004) 22 Refuge 108-18 at 112.
97. Ibid.
98. Riad, above n. 39, at 919-20.
99. D. G. MacGregor, M. Finucane & A. Gonzalez-Caban, 'Risk Perception, Adaptation and Behavior Change: Self-protection in the Wildland-Urban Interface', in B. Kent & C. Raish (eds.), Wildfire and fuels management: Risk and human reaction (Washington, D.C. [In press]);
100. J. M. VanderMeer, 'Psychological Aspects and Family Dynamics of Adolescent Rape Victims', National Criminal Justice Reference Service Abstracts, 1976.
101. MacGregor, ibid.
102. Balshem, above n. 54, 163.
103. Ibid., 161-2.
104. Ibid., 162.
105. Ibid.
106. Riad, above n. 39, 920.
107. Lerner 2003, above n. 16.
108. This response dovetails conveniently with our 'status quo bias', our clinically observed aversion to change; see Barsky 1997, above n. 27, 569-71.
109. Government of Toronto: 'The Bike Helmet Law and Fines' http://www.toronto.ca/cycling/safety/helmet/helmet_law.htm.
110. Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute: 'The History of the Bicycle Helmet' http://www.helmets.org/history.htm.
111. English children in the Middle Ages were 'left alone for long periods', largely unprotected and unsupervised, and often came to bad ends. Deaths by drowning burning, falling and suffocating were common. One famous study of medieval coroners' records found that 68% of accident victims were children under the age of four (compared with 7.5 % in the modern United States). B. A. Hanawalt, 'Childrearing among the Lower Classes of Late Medieval England' (1977) 8 Journal of Interdisciplinary History 1-22 at 14, 17.
112. Lupton, Introduction, above n. 53, 4.
113. Ibid.
114. Stephen Crook, 'Ordering risks', in D. Lupton (ed.), above n. 18, 160-85 at 171;
115. Tulloch, above n. 53, 4.
116. Crook, ibid.
117. Tulloch, above n. 53, 3-4;
118. Bell, above n. 53, 507.
119. D. Lupton, 'Risk and the ontology of pregnant embodiment' in D. Lupton (ed.), above n. 18, 59-85 at 75 [Lupton, Ontology].
120. Crook, above n. 90, 180.
121. Lupton, Ontology, above n. 53, 75.
122. Tulloch, above n. 53, 10.
123. Ibid.
124. In the Canadian context, e.g., the Federal Court has held that the Board 'should not be quick to apply North American logic and reasoning to the claimant's behaviour' (R.K.L. a Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) [2003] FCJ No. 162, para. 12),
125. and the cultural preconceptions of Board members were recently explored in a comprehensive study (F Crépeau, & D. Nakache, 'Critical Spaces in the Canadian Refugee Determination System: 1989-2002' 20 IJRL, 50-122 (2008)).
126. Although, on a related point, Bossin and Demirdache note that 'culture may be a factor in how people respond to danger', as cultural expressions of trauma may differ. Bossin, above n. 73, 111.
127. S. Wally & J. R. Baum, 'Personal and Structural Determinants of the Pace of Strategic Decision Making' (1994) 37 The Academy of Managernent Journal 932-56 at 936;
128. C. Snowdon, D. Elbourne & J. Garcia, "'It was a snap decisionW": Parental and professional perspectives on the speed of decisions about participation in perinatal randomized controlled trials' (2006) 62 Social Science & Medicine 2279-90 at 2287.
129. Wally, ibid.; Snowdon, ibid., 2286.
130. Bossin, above n. 73, 112.
131. Snowdon, above n. 100, 2283.
132. Ibid.
133. Riad, above n. 39, 918.
134. For a fuller discussion, see Bossin, above n.73, 113-16.