Part Three covers numbers 17 through 25 of the 25 crisis communication recommendations:
The video files are located off this site. The audio files are located on this site.
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Three Mile Island – 25 Years Later 
Published in safety AT WORK, April 24, 2004, pp. 7–11
When the Three Mile Island nuclear accident began in late March of 1979, I was asked by the Columbia Journalism Review to go to the scene and “cover the coverage.” The resulting article, “At Three Mile Island,” was written jointly with Mary Paden. This new article focuses on some of the crisis communication lessons I learned at Three Mile Island – lessons many corporate and government crisis managers have yet to learn.
This is an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file, 
106 kB, located on this site.
This article is categorized as: 
In March 2006, this article was reprinted by the International Atomic Energy Agency in its IAEA Bulletin (vol. 47, no. 2, pp. 9–13) under the title, “Tell It Like It Is: 7 Lessons from TMI.” The IAEA version is available online in the following languages:
These translated Adobe Acrobat (pdf) files are located off this site.
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Managing Stakeholder Outrage: Corporate Citizenship on the Dark Side
Keynote speech presented to the Annual International Corporate Citizenship Conference of the Center for Corporate Citizenship of Boston College, San Francisco, March 30, 2004
This speech was basically my standard intro speech on outrage management – the distinction between “hazard” and “outrage”; the four kinds of risk communication; the risk communication seesaw; and six key strategies for reducing outrage. Since the audience was made up of corporate PR people and Corporate Social Responsibility specialists, comments are interspersed throughout on how risk communication relates to PR and CSR.
This file is located off this site.
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Poster version of (the above) Managing Stakeholder Outrage article
Susan Kelly is a “graphic facilitator” in San Francisco. For every presentation at the International Corporate Citizenship Conference, she produced a poster in real time and posted it immediately afterwards – an incredible tour de force! Even the dull presentations turned into lively posters. Here’s mine.
Title jpg file is 987 kB. Also available: smaller jpg 111kB; a smaller gif file: 86 kB;and a Microsoft PowerPoint version 
1.3MB.
These files are located on this site.
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Because People Are Concerned: How Should Public Outrage Affect Application of the Precautionary Principle?
Report for Vodafone Group Services Limited, 2003
In the fall of 2003 I was commissioned by Vodafone Group Services Limited to think through and write up my opinion on the following question: Assume that a particular risk is probably not serious from a technical perspective, but some people are worried or upset. Should governments impose more stringent precautions in such a situation then they would impose if people were calm or apathetic? The question arose because of a draft document being circulated by the International EMF Project of the World Health Organization, proposing that public concern itself can justify a “precautionary” approach to controversial risks. Originally raised with respect to the risk of mobile telephones and telephone towers (hence Vodafone’s interest), the new standard was – and still is – being floated as a possible extension of the Precautionary Principle to a whole range of risk controversies where hazard is uncertain but probably low, and outrage is undoubtedly high.
The resulting essay turned out more nuanced than Vodafone probably expected. In general, I did reach the conclusion Vodafone was presumably looking for – that government precautions and government warnings are not reliable ways to reduce outrage, and probably should not be deployed for that purpose. I found surprisingly little research on point, but lots of theoretically interesting arguments in both directions to dissect. There is a certain irony that the most thoughtful, tentative, balanced, academic writing I have done in years was done for a corporate client.
This is an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file, 636 kB, located on this site.
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Leading during Bioattacks and Epidemics with the Public’s Trust and Help
by the Working Group on “Governance Dilemmas” in Bioterrorism Response
Biosecurity and Bioterrorism, 2004, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 25–40
I was part of a 30-person “Working Group” that developed a report urging leaders to treat the public more as an ally and less as a problem in crisis situations. The report was drafted by Monica Schoch-Spana of the Center for Biosecurity of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, who later redrafted it as an article for the Center’s Biosecurity and Bioterrorism journal. The writing is a little academic for my taste, but I think the recommendations are wonderful ... and the footnotes are invaluable.
This file is located off this site.
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Emergency Risk Communication CDCynergy video clips
Produced by the U.S. CDC and others as part of a 2003 CD-ROM
The “Emergency Risk Communication CDCynergy” CD-ROM from which these video clips were taken was originally produced in 2003 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Office of Communication), the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, the Prospect Center of the American Institutes for Research, and the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education. The complete CD-ROM can be ordered. Much of the CD-ROM is also available without charge online, but many of the online links no longer work.
I was one of a number of risk communication experts who contributed to the CD-ROM. Three of my written contributions have long been posted on this website:
The following short video clips on various aspects of crisis communication were part of the CD-ROM but no longer load in the online version. So I have posted them here, converted to Flash videos. (Don’t have a Flash player? Download one of these (both free): Adobe Flash Player or FLV Player.)
- “Move in the Uncomfortable Direction” (2 min.)
Crisis communication strategies have a side that practitioners find comfortable and a side they find uncomfortable – withholding information versus total candor, for example. Best practice is somewhere in the middle. To get there, practitioners need to move in the uncomfortable direction.
- “Give People Things to Do” (4 min.)
Giving people things to do – and better yet, choices among things to do – helps them cope with the fear and other feelings that crises arouse.
- “Manage the Risk Communication Seesaw” (3 min.)
Seesaws prevail in crisis communication as they do in most of risk communication, and practitioners need to climb onto the side they don’t want the public on. To get blamed less by others, for example, it helps to blame yourself more.
- “Be Willing to Speculate” (2 min.)
Crisis communication absolutely requires speculation; you can’t confine what you say to things that are certain. The trick is to avoid speculating overconfidently or over-reassuringly.
- “Here’s How to Speculate” (2 min.)
Tell what you know and what you don’t. Sound as sure and as unsure as you actually are. Focus on both likeliest scenarios and worst case scenarios – and keep the distinction clear.
- “Let Your Feelings Show” (1 min.)
To be an effective role model for others, you have to show that you’re feeling what they’re feeling (fear, anger, etc.). Watching you control your feelings helps people control theirs.
- “Tell Stories” (1 min.)
Telling stories about yourself helps humanize you, which helps people bear the crisis better.
- “Choose the Best Spokesperson” (3 min.)
You want someone who has communication skill, risk communication training, and technical expertise. You also want someone who likes the job, is willing to simplify, and has enough stature in your organization to make decisions and keep promises.
- “Find a Crisis Communicator” (1 min.)
You want someone who knows how to guide people who are rightly upset. That isn’t necessarily the same communicator who’s good at arousing concern in people who are unwisely apathetic.
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Risk Communication Recommendations for Infectious Disease Outbreaks
by Peter M. Sandman Ph.D. and Jody Lanard M.D.
Presented to the World Health Organization SARS Scientific Research Advisory Committee, Geneva Switzerland, October 20, 2003
In October 2003, the WHO included social scientists (including me) on its SARS-fighting team for the first time. This invited paper has a list of 24 risk communication principles relevant to a possible second SARS outbreak or to any infectious disease outbreak; it also lists SARS-related risk communication research needs and has a short bibliography.
Ths file is located on this site.
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Peter Sandman on Safety
by Dave Johnson
ISHN E-News, July–September, 2003
This three-part interview was published in ISHN E-News. Excerpts were also published in the September 2003 issue of ISHN (Industrial Safety & Hygiene News) – the paper version, which is also on-line – under the title “Charting your course: 25 keys to safety success – Advice from Dan Petersen, Peter Sandman & John Henshaw.”
These files are located on this site.
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Sars communication: What Singapore is doing right
by Jody Lanard and Peter M. Sandman
The Straits Times (Singapore), May 6, 2003; also in The Toronto Star (Canada), May 9, 2003, under the headline “Canadian Response to SARS Scorned as Whiny”
After a rocky start, the world’s premier performer in SARS risk communication turned out to be the authoritarian city-state of Singapore! In this brief op-ed in Singapore’s biggest newspaper, my wife and colleague Dr. Jody Lanard and I tell the surprising story. A link to the longer, unpublished version of the article is provided.
On September 21, 2004, Jody told another version of this story as one of the keynote presentations at a World Health Organization conference on “outbreak communications.” The conference was scheduled in Singapore in part because of the superlative job Singapore had done communicating with its population about SARS – an accomplishment WHO wanted to help other countries emulate in other outbreaks. Entitled “WHO Expert Consultation on Outbreak Communications – Singapore’s SARS Outbreak Communications,” the speech text was on the website of the Singapore Ministry of Health for a while, but now is available only on this site.
These files are located on this site.
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How to Lead during Times of Trouble (transcript)
A roundtable discussion at “The Public as an Asset, Not a Problem: A Summit on Leadership during Bioterrorism,” Johns Hopkins University Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies, Washington DC, February, 2003
In early February of 2003, I attended a wonderful conference on bioterrorism, focused on “the public as an asset, not a problem.” The panel I participated in was about how to lead a community during times of trouble. Most of the panelists had actually led their communities through various crises, from the 2001 anthrax attacks to Oklahoma City’s bombing; I was added, along with the Washington Post’s Sally Quinn, so there would be at least two panelists whose experience was observing rather than doing.
Both the transcript and audio files are located off this site.
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Beyond Panic Prevention: Addressing Emotion in Emergency Communication
In Emergency Risk Communication CDCynergy (CD-ROM), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, February 2003
This is one of three articles I wrote for the CDC’s CD-ROM on emergency risk communication. This one deals with the likely emotional impacts of terrorism (and other major emergencies), and how communicators can best help the public cope with these emotions. The focus is especially on denial and misery as more common emotional reactions than panic – reactions that may be mishandled if the communicator is over-worried about panic prevention instead.
This project was supported in part by an appointment to the Research Participation Program for the Office of Communication, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education through an agreement between the Department of Energy and CDC. The The entire CD-ROM is available at http://emergency.cdc.gov/erc/erc.asp.
This is an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file, 127 kB, located on this site.
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Dilemmas in Emergency Communication Policy
In Emergency Risk Communication CDCynergy (CD-ROM), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, February 2003
This is one of three articles I wrote for the CDC’s CD-ROM on emergency risk communication. Based partly on my earlier Anthrax, Bioterrorism, and Risk Communication: Guidelines for Action, this one deals with ten "dilemmas" facing emergency communication planners:
- Candor versus secrecy
- Speculation versus refusal to speculate
- Tentativeness versus confidence
- Being alarming versus being reassuring
- Being human versus being professional
- Being apologetic versus being defensive
- Decentralization versus centralization
- Democracy and individual control versus expert decision-making
- Planning for denial and misery versus planning for panic
- Erring on the side of caution versus taking chances
For each of the ten dilemmas, my own position leans toward the first of the two poles – and the natural instinct of communicators in mid-emergency leans toward the second.
This project was supported in part by an appointment to the Research Participation Program for the Office of Communication, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education through an agreement between the Department of Energy and CDC. The The entire CD-ROM is available at http://emergency.cdc.gov/erc/erc.asp.
This is an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file, 193 kB, located on this site.
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Obvious or Suspected, Here or Elsewhere, Now or Then: Paradigms of Emergency Events
In Emergency Risk Communication CDCynergy (CD-ROM), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, February 2003
This is one of three articles I wrote for the CDC’s CD-ROM on emergency risk communication. The usual paradigm for emergency communication is the obviously horrific event that is happening right here, right now. This article focuses on communication strategies to address six other paradigms:
- Obvious/here/future
- Obvious/here/past
- Obvious/elsewhere/now
- Suspected/here/now
- Suspected/here/future
- Suspected/here/past
Among the topics covered are worst case scenarios, uncertainty, and dilemma-sharing.
This project was supported in part by an appointment to the Research Participation Program for the Office of Communication, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education through an agreement between the Department of Energy and CDC. The The entire CD-ROM is available at http://emergency.cdc.gov/erc/erc.asp.
This is an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file, 167 kB, located on this site.
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Planning for Bioterrorism Communication
Minnesota Community Health Conference, September 2002
On September 12, 2002, I gave a half-day presentation on “Planning for Bioterrorism Communication” in Breezy Point MN, at the annual Community Health Conference sponsored by the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH). The presentation was based on three chapters I was writing for an emergency communication manual soon to be published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The three chapters have now been posted, but this much shorter (nine pages) summary by MDH’s risk communication specialist Buddy Ferguson is still useful.
The title file, 145kB, and the three chapters are located on this site.
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Responsible Care.® Been There. Done That. What’s Next?
Canadian Chemical Producers’ Association, June 2002
In June 2002 I gave a keynote presentation with the above title to the annual meeting of the Canadian Chemical Producers’ Association. I focused on some ways the chemical industry’s Responsible Care program wasn’t working, and what the industry might want to do next. CCPA followed up with an interview covering roughly the same ground, which was posted on its members-only website. The interviewer was Harvey Chartrand.
This file is located on this site.
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Terrorism, Transparency, and Employee Sabotage
Canadian Chemical Producers’ Association, June 2002
After I gave a June 2002 presentation to the Canadian Chemical Producers’ Association on risk communication aspects of the chemical industry’s Responsible Care program, the CCPA’s Harvey Chartrand interviewed me for the organization’s members-only website. This excerpt from the interview deals with my views on how September 11 should affect chemical industry transparency, and on the relationship between terrorism and employee sabotage.
This file is located on this site.
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CDC Responds: Risk Communication and Bioterrorism
December 6, 2001
This CDC webcast includes excerpts from a November 2001 presentation I made to the CDC in Atlanta, Georgia, plus live discussion of the issue by a panel of other risk communicators. For a longer written version of my CDC presentation, see my December 29, 2001 column “Anthrax, Bioterrorism, and Risk Communication: Guidelines for Action.”
This file in located off this site.
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Motivated Inattention and Safety Management
Published in safety AT WORK, 30 October 2001
This interview focuses on the “other side” of risk communication – how to persuade people to take risk more seriously. It deals mostly with two problems: employees who ignore safety procedures even though they have been well trained, and employers who ignore safety opportunities even though they are cost-effective. Both problems have their roots in outrage.
This is an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file, 470 kB, located on this site.
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September 11 and Risk
Published in safety AT WORK, 30 October 2001
This very brief interview discusses the events of 9/11. For a much (MUCH) longer treatment of the same topic, see my October 22, 2001 column “Risk Communication and the War Against Terrorism: High Hazard, High Outrage.”
This Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file, 216 kB, and my column are located on this site.
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Risk Communication: Evolution and Revolution
by Vincent Covello and Peter M. Sandman
In Solutions to an Environment in Peril, Anthony Wolbarst (ed.) (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), pp. 164–178
Back in the 1980s, Vincent Covello and I gave back-to-back presentations on risk communication as part of a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lecture series. When Tony Wolbarst of EPA decided to collect the presentations into a book, he offered everyone a chance to revise and update. Vincent and I decided to merge our efforts into a single article on the state of risk communication, based loosely on what we had said originally plus what we now consider important. The result is a pretty good overview of the shared opinions of two well-seasoned practitioners.
This file is located on this site.
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The Connection
National Public Radio, February 27, 2001
This NPR program, produced by WBUR in Boston, was mostly an interview with Sheldon Rampton, author of a book about the untrustworthiness of experts whose research supports industry positions on risk issues. But I was discussed in the book, so they decided to include me in the interview too.
This audio file is located off site.
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Review: The Mad Cow Crisis: Health and the Public Good
Journal of Health Psychology, January 2000
This review of a book on England’s “mad cow disease” crisis is relevant for its discussion of how to communicate about a small problem that threatens to become a big problem. Think anthrax. As always, over-reassurance turns out to be the wrong approach.
This file is located on this site.
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Progress and Promise: Community Involvement at the MMR Cleanup
by Tara O’Toole, M.D., M.P.H. and Peter M. Sandman, Ph.D.
Technical Peer Review for the Massachusetts Military Reservation (with Michael C. Kavanaugh, Andrea Leeson, James W. Mercer, Tara O’Toole, and Resha M. Putzrath), Air Force Center for Environmental Excellence (Environmental Restoration Division), Brooks Air Force Base, TX, October 1999
In 1999, I was part of a review team analyzing a groundwater contamination controversy at the Massachusetts Military Reservation on Cape Cod. Most of the team focused on technical issues, but Tara O’Toole and I wrote a chapter arguing that MMR should take community involvement even more seriously than it already was doing, and should consider a range of other outrage management strategies as well.
This Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file, 94 kB, is located on this site
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Risk = Hazard + Outrage: Coping with Controversy about Utility Risks
Engineering News-Record, October 4, 1999, pp. A19–A23.
This short overview was written for public utilities – sewage treatment plants, water companies, power companies, etc. The focus is especially on the benefits of sharing control ... or even abandoning control altogether. Includes a sidebar article: Managing Outrage: A Primer.
This file is located on this site.
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Responsible or Responsive?
by Peter M. Sandman, John Elkington, and Chris Marsden
SustainAbility Monthly Review, February 1999, pp. 10–13, and March 1999, pp. 8–10
SustainAbility is an international consultancy devoted to founder John Elkington’s concept of a “triple bottom line” (economic, environmental, and social sustainability) for corporations. I have long admired it, and in recent years have been a member of its “faculty,” a sort of board-of-old-farts. This exchange of letters with John and with Chris Marsden, another faculty member, points to a key difference between SustainAbility’s work and mine: the distinction between corporate responsibility (doing what’s right) and corporate responsiveness (doing what stakeholders want).
This file is located on this site.
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Managing controversy: Key to corporate reputation
Company Director (Australian Institute of Company Directors), 14:8, September 1998, pp. 24–25
This short article features a rationale for focusing more on outrage management, and a summary of five key strategies for managing outrage. It was aimed at corporate directors in the Australian mining and minerals industry. The editor’s introduction includes a thinly disguised advertisement for my outrage management software; that was my price for the article.
This file is located on this site.
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Experimental Evidence for Stages of Health Behavior Change: The Precaution Adoption Process Model Applied to Home Radon Testing
by Neil D. Weinstein, Judith E. Lyon, Peter M. Sandman, and Cara L. Cuite
Health Psychology, 1998, Vol 17. No. 5, pp. 445–453
This is one of two articles I have posted dealing with the Precaution Adoption Process Model, developed mostly by Neil Weinstein and tested by Neil and me (and colleagues) using radon as the test case. The other article, A Model of the Precaution Adoption Process: Evidence From Home Radon Testing, is statistically heavier going and methodologically less rigorous, but covers more ground: It says more about how people decide to test their homes for radon, and contains a more detailed description of the model itself. This one has more convincing evidence that people decide to take precautions – in this case to test for radon – in stages, and that different interventions work best at different stages.
This file is located on this site.
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Communications to Reduce Risk Underestimation and Overestimation
by Peter M. Sandman, Neil D. Weinstein, and William K. Hallman
Risk Decision and Policy 3 (2), 93–108 (1998)
The experiment reported in this article deals with ways of depicting risk when you’re trying to get people to realize how serious the risk is ... or how serious it isn’t. In other words, how do you explain risk data so your audience will neither underestimate nor overestimate seriousness? The study shows some strategies that help, even in the face of outrage. The study also documents – for readers who need it documented – that outrage does make people consider a risk more serious.
This file is located on this site.
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When Outrage Is a Hazard
The Synergist, April 1995
This short column deals with sabotage – and the important possibility that outraged employees can pose a hazard to everyone else. It was written (obviously) before 9/11, but resonates even more powerfully now.
This file is located on this site.
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Mass Media and Environmental Risk: Seven Principles
RISK, Volume 5, Summer 1994, vol. 5, pp 251–260
This article organizes my thinking and research on media coverage of risk into seven principles. Not included is the “principle” I now emphasize most with clients: that media relations usually matters a great deal less than stakeholder relations, and usually follows it. The article overlaps the media portion of Explaining Environmental Risk, but it has newer thinking.
This file is located off this site.
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Quantitative Risk Communication: Explaining the Data 
American Industrial Hygiene Association, Fairfax VA, 1994
In my approach to risk communication, explaining the data is secondary; addressing outrage – raising it, reducing it, or helping people cope with it – is what’s crucial. Nonetheless, the time comes in most risk communication efforts when you’ve got to explain the data. This studio-produced 1994 video focuses on three key aspects of quantitative risk communication:
- Motivation – getting people to want to understand the data
- Simplification – making the data understandable
- Orientation – keeping people from getting lost
There’s also some discussion of how to address uncertainty and how to handle risk comparisons.
(This video was produced in 1994 by the American Industrial Hygiene Association. It went out of print in 2007. With AIHA’s permission, the entire video is now available free of charge online.)
This 87-min. file is located off this site.
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Implementing Risk Communication: Overcoming the Barriers
American Industrial Hygiene Association, Fairfax VA, 1994
This 76-minute video, produced in 1994, went out of print in January 2011. In February 2011, with the AIHA’s permission, I posted it on Vimeo.
When people are excessively concerned about a small risk, the biggest problem isn’t figuring out what to do. It’s getting your company or agency to do it. After a 6-minute introduction, this video is devoted to three kinds of barriers to implementation … and ways to overcome them:
- Cognitive barriers (34 min.) – the “yes buts” that organizations give as their reasons for not moving forward.
- Organizational barriers (18 min.) – the characteristics of organizations that actually keep them from moving forward.
- Psychological barriers (18 min.) – the reasons even people who consider themselves committed may hesitate to move forward.
In 1994 I wasn’t yet routinely using the term “outrage management.” In the terminology I now use, this video is all about overcoming cognitive, organizational, and psychological barriers to outrage management.
If you’d rather read than watch/listen, I cover the same ground as this video in Chapters 5, 6, and 7 of my 1993 book, “Responding to Community Outrage: Strategies for Effective Risk Communication.” The book was also published and sold by AIHA, but is now available on this site without charge.
This file is located off this site.
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Straight from the Sandman
The Hanford Reach, May 9, 1994, pp 12–13
In the mid-1990s I consulted on and off for two years at the Hanford nuclear waste cleanup. My client was Westinghouse, then a major Hanford contractor. This interview with Westinghouse’s Peter Bengston was published in the site newsletter. It’s a pretty decent overview of what I was trying to accomplish there. Roughly a decade later, by the way, I was brought to Hanford again, on and off, for a year. The contractor wasn’t Westinghouse any longer and the technical issues had evolved some. But the basic problem of insufficient attention to the outrage half of the risk equation was unchanged. (Doesn’t say much for the value of consultants, does it?)
This file is located on this site.
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Risk Communication
Encyclopedia of the Environment, 1994
Being asked to summarize the whole of risk communication in a short encyclopedia article was a challenge (even a decade ago, when much less was known). For me the biggest challenge was to summarize risk communication, not just my approach to it. I think I partially succeeded.
This file is located on this site.
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Responding to Community Outrage: Strategies for Effective Risk Communication
Published by the American Industrial Hygiene Association, Fairfax VA, 1993
This short book sold briskly for nearly 20 years until AIHA decided to stop distributing it in January 2012, giving me permission to post it on my website instead.
The book is a distillation of what I knew about outrage management as of the early 1990s – which is, frankly, not that different from what I know about outrage management in 2012. By far the longest chapter in the book (nearly half its length) is Chapter 2, which discusses the 12 principal components of outrage and how best to manage each component. These days I focus less on individual outrage components and more on generic outrage management strategies, so this is the most detailed treatment of the 12 components on the site.
Also unavailable elsewhere on the site is the discussion of cognitive, organizational, and psychological barriers to outrage management in Chapters 5, 6, and 7 respectively.
If you’d rather watch/listen than read, I cover the 12 components in my 1991 “Risk = Hazard + Outrage” video and the barriers in my 1994 “Implementing Risk Communication” video. Both videos were also produced and sold by AIHA, but are now available through this site without charge.
Contents
- Front matter
- Chapter 1: Risk = Hazard + Outrage
- Chapter 2: Components of Outrage
- Chapter 3: Implications of the Hazard/Outrage Distinction
- Chapter 4: Acknowledgment: Key to Risk Communication
- Chapter 5: Yes, Buts: The Cognitive Barriers
- Chapter 6: Will They Let You? The Organizational Barriers
- Chapter 7: Will You Let Yourself? The Psychological Barriers
- End matter
This .pdf file (393 kB) is located on this site.
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Agency Communication, Community Outrage, and Perception of Risk: Three Simulation Experiments
by Peter M. Sandman, Paul M. Miller, Branden B. Johnson, and Neil D. Weinstein
Risk Analysis, Vol 13, No. 6, 1993, pp. 585–598
My conviction that the “outrage” component of risk influences public responses more than its “hazard” component is grounded in two decades of consulting experience ... and a scant handful of empirical research studies. This article reports most of the latter.
This file is located on this site.
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Tips on EMF Risk Communication
Management Quarterly (Public Service Electric & Gas Company), Summer 1993, pp. 32–34
Power line EMFs have greatly declined as a public controversy since this short article was written in 1993 – mostly because the industry took the issue seriously and learned with us that the risk was low. But comparable issues (cell phone EMFs come to mind) are still hot, and the article’s advice is relevant to any risk controversy.
This file is located on this site.
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Outrage and Technical Detail: The Impact of Agency Behavior on Community Risk Perception
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, November 1992
This DEP “Research Project Summary” reports research comparing the impact of outrage management and technical detail on public perception of risk. Guess which one wins.
This is an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file, 95 kB, located on this site.
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Testing the Role of Technical Information in Public Risk Perception
by Branden B. Johnson, Peter M. Sandman and Paul Miller
RISK: Issues in Health and Safety, Fall 1992, pp. 341–364
A recurring question among my clients is: “Why can’t we just explain the data so people won’t be outraged any more?” This article reports some research on the efficacy of technical information as a way to shape risk perception. The results are not encouraging to my clients’ fondest hopes.
This file is located on this site.
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Siting Controversial Facilities: Some Principles, Paradoxes, and Heresies
Consensus, July 1992
This short article starts with the assumption that coercion is an unreliable way to site controversial facilities, and tries to offer some better answers grounded in risk communication. An earlier and much longer treatment of the same themes can be found in Getting to Maybe: Some Communications Aspects of Siting Hazardous Waste Facilities.
This file is located on this site.
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A Model of the Precaution Adoption Process: Evidence From Home Radon Testing
by Neil D. Weinstein and Peter M. Sandman
Health Psychology, 1992, 11(3), pp. 170–180
For about a decade, Neil Weinstein and I (with colleagues) did research on radon – a high-hazard low-outrage risk that first became important in the mid-1980s. This article uses several of our radon data sets to illustrate Neil’s Precaution Adoption Process Model (PAPM). The PAPM is one of several contending models of how people actually decide whether or not to protect themselves from risks. Different models lead to different interventions, so the competition over which model best explains people’s behavior is important for those trying to persuade publics to take precautions about serious hazards.
(I’ve also posted another article, Experimental Evidence for Stages of Health Behavior Change: The Precaution Adoption Process Model Applied to Home Radon Testing, on the PAPM and radon, this one reporting a later experiment demonstrating that the decision to test does happen in separate stages.)
Both files are located on this site.
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Emerging Communication Responsibilities of Epidemiologists
Industrial Epidemiology Forum’s Conference on Ethics in Epidemiology
Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, Supplement I to Volume 44, 1991, pp. 41S–50S
I wish I could publish an article like this for all the professionals I work with who tend to do their jobs in ways that make my job harder. Two come immediately to mind: emerging communication responsibilities of toxicologists ... and of lawyers. Still, epidemiology has the worst communication problems of the three – especially when public outrage is high, hazard is probably low, the epidemiologist is working for the company that made the mess, and the science falls far short of definitive. This article focuses on my wishful recommendations for such situations. I feel them today even more strongly than I did when I wrote the article more than a decade ago.
This file is located on this site.
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Two-Way Environmental Education
EPA Journal (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency), September/October 1991, pp. 39–41
This short article argues that dialogue works a lot better than monologue, especially when people are outraged about a technically small but nonetheless frightening or offensive risk. It ends with a list of questions sources should ask themselves when trying to convince an audience some risk isn’t worth worrying about.
This file is located on this site.
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“Risk = Hazard + Outrage”
Produced by the American Industrial Hygiene Association, Fairfax VA, 1991
This 111-minute video sold briskly for more than 20 years until the American Industrial Hygiene Association stopped distributing it in January 2012. Now it’s available for free on Vimeo (video) and on this site (audio). Unlike many of my videos, this one was professionally produced in a studio, with multiple cameras and an actual set. Although my standard spiel has changed some since 1991, everything here is still true and still useful. The video is especially valuable for its detailed discussion of the 12 principal outrage components and how to deal with them. These days I talk more about generic outrage management strategies, and less about these component-specific strategies. (Note that I’m using the original files from the AIHA DVD; some of the “parts” begin and end arbitrarily.)
If you’d rather read than watch/listen, I cover the same ground as this video in Chapters 1, 2, and 3 of my 1993 book, “Responding to Community Outrage: Strategies for Effective Risk Communication.” The book was also published and sold by AIHA, but is now available on this site without charge.
- Part One (17:10)
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Part One introduces the distinction between hazard and outrage, and explains my signature formula, “Risk = Hazard + Outrage.”
- Part Two (17:10)
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Part Two discusses three components of outrage (and part of a fourth) and what to do about them: voluntary versus coerced; natural versus industrial; familiar versus exotic; and memorable versus not memorable.
- Part Three (12:00)
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Part Three continues my discussion of the 12 principal components of outrage and what to do about them. This segment discusses risks that are not memorable versus memorable, not dreaded versus dreaded, and chronic versus catastrophic.
- Part Four (33:26)
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Part Four covers six more outrage components and what to do about each: knowable versus unknowable; controlled by me versus controlled by others; fair versus unfair; morally irrelevant versus morally relevant; trustworthy versus not trustworthy; and responsive versus not responsive. (The last one is finished in Part Five.)
- Part Five (31:27)
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Part Five finishes the discussion of responsive process versus unresponsive process, the last of my 12 principal outrage components. Then it briefly addresses eight additional outrage components. Finally, I draw seven conclusions about risk communication in low-hazard, high-outrage controversies.
The video files are located off this site. The audio files are located on this site.
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Addressing Skepticism about Responsible Care
Based on Remarks at a Chemical Manufacturers Association meeting, New York, NY, November 6, 1990
In the late 1980s, the Chemical Manufacturers Association (now the American Chemistry Council) inaugurated its “Responsible Care” program in the U.S. In 1990, I spoke at a national CMA meeting on how to address skepticism about the program – not just external skepticism, but skepticism inside the industry as well. I later massaged the speech into a CMA pamphlet. Most of the advice is generic; any company or trade association can expect to encounter the same sorts of skepticism today about its “pro-social” initiatives. As for Responsible Care, it continues to be an influential internal initiative, ratcheting performance ever-upward in such areas as process safety and product stewardship. But the industry has pretty much given up on persuading outsiders that it’s meaningful. There’s a nice irony here. Critics assume the industry has terrific rhetoric and poor performance – but Responsible Care has been much more successful as performance than as rhetoric.
This file is located on this site.
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Promoting Remedial Response to the Risk of Radon: Are Information Campaigns Enough?
Science, Technology, & Human Values, Vol. 14 No. 4, Autumn 1989, pp. 360–379
Most of the research on radon risk response – mine as well as others’ – has focused on how to persuade people to test. This article shows that even after people have tested and found a high radon level, persuading them to do something about the problem isn’t easy ... and mere information isn’t what does the trick. When this research was done, radon was a new issue; the findings reported here may be more useful for those working on other new issues than for those working on the now-familiar radon problem.
This file is located on this site.
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Risk, Drama and Geography in Coverage of Environmental Risk by Network TV
by Michael R. Greenberg, David B. Sachsman, Peter M. Sandman, and Kandice L. Salomone
Journalism Quarterly, Summer 1989, pp. 267–276
This was one of several articles written jointly with Michael Greenberg, David Sachsman, and Kandice Salomone summarizing our research on media coverage of environmental risk. This one looked at 26 months worth of network coverage. Not surprisingly, we found that visually interesting stories got more coverage than ones that were more serious in health terms but harder to photograph. We also found that the networks were much likelier to cover environmental stories near one of their bureaus than comparable stories requiring more travel. The coverage patterns for the three networks were more striking in their similarities than in their differences.
This is an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file, 7MB, located on this site.
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Risk Communication, Risk Statistics, & Risk Comparisons: A Manual for Plant Managers 1988
by Vincent T. Covello, Peter M. Sandman, and Paul Slovic
Published by the Chemical Manufacturers Association (now the American Chemistry Council), Washington DC, 1988
This manual on how to use risk comparisons and risk statistics was commissioned to help chemical plant managers explain air emissions to their neighbors. Chapter III on risk comparisons, especially, is still relevant. Later research hasn’t borne out all its seat-of-the-pants conclusions, but the advice at the end of the chapter about the worst risk comparisons holds firm – in my terms these comparisons fail (especially when people are outraged) because they try to compare the hazard of high-outrage and low-outrage risks. The other chapters are also useful and not really outdated, I think. The appendices are both outdated and all too likely to be misused. They’re what the client originally wanted most. Vincent Covello, Paul Slovic, and I wrote the rest of the manual to soften them.
This (multi-part) file is located on this site.
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Risk Communication: Facing Public Outrage
EPA Journal (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency), November 1987, pp. 21–22
This is one of the earliest – and the shortest and most often cited – of my articles about the distinction between hazard and outrage. The focus is on the factors that determine whether people will over-react or under-react to a risk.
The translation is an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file, 40 kB, located on this site.
The article is categorized as:
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Explaining Risk to Non-Experts: A Communications Challenge
Emergency Preparedness Digest, October–December 1987, pp. 25–29
I have long been convinced that explaining risk data is not the essence of risk communication. Addressing people’s outrage is far more important. Still, you do have to explain the data! And it’s not an easy task – especially when being interviewed by a journalist on a hot story. This article is a primer on three aspects of the problem: simplifying, personalizing, and using risk comparisons.
This file is located on this site.
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Explaining Environmental Risk
Published by TSCA Assistance Office, Office of Toxic Substances, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, November 1986
This EPA booklet has long been out-of-print. It predates my articulation of the hazard-versus-outrage distinction, but contains much of the thinking that went into that distinction. In fact every time I reread this it reminds me of principles and examples I ought to reinstate in my presentations.
These files are located on this site.
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Getting to Maybe: Some Communications Aspects of Siting Hazardous Waste Facilities
Seton Hall Legislative Journal, Spring 1986, pp. 437–465
This article got its start as a 1985 report for the New Jersey Hazardous Waste Facilities Siting Commission. New Jersey never sited a facility; on the other hand, most of the advice in the article was never implemented either. I’ve since been involved in dozens of siting controversies (some of them over facilities that actually got built!), and I’ve learned a lot that isn’t in this article – but the basics haven’t changed, and this is a pretty solid summary of them. (P.S. Jim Lanard, who helped develop the ideas in this article and wrote the foreword, is also my brother-in-law; he introduced me to his sister in 1985 and we were married in 1990.)
This file is located on this site.
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Scared stiff – or scared into action
by Peter M. Sandman and JoAnn M. Valenti
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January 1986, pp. 12–16
This 1986 article aimed at helping peace activists develop communication strategies that wouldn’t deepen people’s “psychic numbing” about nuclear weapons. Though its political content is out of date, its prescription – anger, love, hope, and action – is relevant today to coping with public denial about terrorism. (For terrorism I would want to add to the prescription the need to acknowledge and share the underlying fears – what people are “really” afraid of.)
This file is located on this site.
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Holding Your Volunteers
New Jersey Campaign for a Nuclear Weapons Freeze, Spring 1984
In 1983–84 I was media and outreach coordinator for the New Jersey Campaign
for a Nuclear Weapons Freeze. This article was originally written for committed freeze activists, warning them about the things they (we) did or failed to do that turned off newcomers. In the years that followed, it was reprinted in the newsletters of all sorts of activist groups.
This file is located on this site.
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Nukes, the Freeze, and Public Opinion
An interview by Mary Jones, Matrix (Rutgers University), Spring 1984, pp. 9–12
In 1983–84, I took a sabbatical from my professorship at Rutgers University and worked on communication for the nuclear freeze movement. This interview was published in the Rutgers alumni magazine during my sabbatical. It talks about people’s fear of nuclear war and their reluctance to get involved in the peace movement. I have to say that both the world and my political values have changed some – though I do like the young man who gave this interview. What hasn’t changed much is my analysis of nuclear denial, which resonates today for current issues like the fear of terrorism. (The book I said I was writing, by the way, never got written; I still have a hundred or so pages of draft somewhere.)
This file is located on this site.
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Many other articles by Peter Sandman are available from non-electronic sources. The list of publications is periodically updated and modified, and is available as a part of the Curriculum Vitae.
Audio (they’re pretty different)
