What drives people’s perceptions of risks and benefits associated with novel technologies? Although various psychological models of risk perception have been proposed, it has not yet been systematically tested how well such models can account for interindividual differences in large population samples, as well as for intraindividual variability that may occur across time. This article capitalizes on the current deployment of 5G—the latest generation of cellular network technology—as a topical case study to model the psychological drivers of risk perception and its associations with policy-related attitudes (e.g., voting intention). Study 1 collected a representative population sample (N = 2,919) to directly compare three psychological models of risk perception, finding that predictors such as trust, feelings of dread, and objective knowledge provide a good account for interindividual differences in perceived risk and benefit, which in turn were strongly associated with policy-related attitudes. Study 2 corroborated these findings in a cross-sectional sample (N = 960); moreover, in a longitudinal sample (N = 780), variations in the same psychological drivers were also systematically associated with intraindividual changes in perceived risk and benefit—and consequently, with policy-related attitudes. In sum, this article provides a systematic investigation of the drivers of risk perception at the level of individual participants, and corroborates the important role of risk perception in shaping policy-related attitudes.
The Risk Perception COVID-19 Scale (RP-COVID19-S): Initial Validation and Its Relationship with Gender and Age in a Cuban Population Sample