食品安全事件中公众感知风险的动态变化——以问题奶粉为例

Dynamic Changes of Public's Perception of Risk in Food Safety Incidents——The Case of Milk Powder Incidents

大多数感知风险领域的文献仅从静态角度考察不同情境中人们的感知风险,极少研究感知风险的动态变化情况。本文基于问题奶粉事件,剖析了该风险事件中公众的感知风险及其动态变化趋势,并以家里有无小孩或婴儿、有无认识或熟悉的人因问题奶粉受到影响这两个变量来细分人群,对比了不同细分人群的感知风险差异及其持久性变化情况,揭示了感知风险变化对公众应对行为和消费行为变化的影响。最后对研究结果进行讨论并提出了食品安全管理建议。

Most literatures examine perceived risk from a static point of view. Very few studies focus on the dynamic changes of perceived risk. Recent food scandals and incidents in China have had significant impact on consumers＇ risk perception and consumption behaviors. However, the changes of consumption psychology or behavior in the short run do not represent the future since consumption is a long-standing process. Therefore, investigation of the dynamic changes of perceived risk in the long run will provide a more systematic understanding of the impact of risky events. This paper collects dynamic data related to Sanlu milk powder incidents from Sep. 2008 to Oct. 2008 and from Dec. 2008 to Jan. 2009. We then propose hypotheses regarding the dynamic changes of perceived risk in total samples as well as in different groups. The hypotheses are tested by a comparative analysis based on these dynamic data. The findings show that perceived risk decreases significantly in the second time period. The data from Google Trends is used for explanation. The total samples are divided into four groups by two variables： whether a family has young children or infants and whether the surveyed subjects are familiar with people influenced by any food-related incidents. We find that the perceived risk of these four groups significantly decreases during the second time period. Moreover, the perceived risk lasts longer in the group with young children or infants in the family than the group with no young children or infants in the family. Perceived risk lasts longer in the group with someone you are familiar with and influenced by the incidents than the group with nobody you are familiar with and influenced by the incidents. In addition, we find that public＇s main concerns significantly decrease when perceived risk decreases. Coping strategies should be used at different time periods for government and companies. Coping strategies should focus on the decreased perceived risk right after an incident because the public perceives a higher risk. Coping strategies may include constructingan effective food safety detection monitoring system, increasing the level of familiarity and controllability, decreasing the level of fear and so on. Although the public may perceive a lower risk long after an incident, coping strategies can focus on marketing mix strategies in order to promote consumption and industry recovery.