Perceiving environmental risks
Since its inception, the Journal of Environmental Psychology has demonstrated its pre-eminence through publishing original, innovative papers. By bringing them together in one volume, ready access has been provided to the first-hand accounts of a range of explorations that are central to the growth and development of environmental psychology itself. In his helpful opening chapter to the present volume, the editor, Timothy O'Riordan, discusses the variety of perspectives that have to be taken into account when studying the perception and management of risk, thereby indicating the multidisciplinary perspective that needs to be embraced if risks are to be effectively managed. Many psychologists are uncomfortable in such a sea of viewpoints, and this is probably one reason why there have been so few of them to tackle these important topics. The dearth of research serves to enhance the significance of the studies that have been published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology. By bringing them together in one volume therefore provides direct and convenient access to the original studies that are laying the basis for a growing area of significant research. Perhaps paradoxically for issues of such current topicality, the areas of psychological study that are opened up by the consideration of papers in the present volume are also central to many questions asked in the heartland of academic psychology; the most appropriate ways to categorize cognitions, the impact of context on perception, ways of summarizing and resolving differing conceptual systems. The present volume will thus be of value to cognitive and social psychologists who wish to inject major real world issues into what might otherwise be arid debates.
