Vulnerability and Social Justice as Factors in Emergent US
Nanotechnology Risk Perceptions1
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ABSTRACT
As an emerging domain of risk research, nanotechnologies engender novel research questions,
including how new technologies are encountered in specific social contexts and how that
encounter affects the way those technologies are perceived. Findings from a recent US national
survey of perceived risks (N=1,100) indicate that vulnerability and attitudes towards
environmental justice significantly influenced risk perceptions of nanotechnology while
controlling for demographic and affective factors. Comparative analyses of different classes of
risk demonstrated heightened ambivalence across acceptability of specific nanotechnology
applications when risk and benefit information was provided on specific applications as
compared to the general category, “nanotechnology,” when no risk or benefit information was
provided. The acceptability of these risks, including the specific nano-applications, varied
significantly by indices of vulnerability and attitudes towards environmental justice. Finally,
experimental narrative analyses show how assessments of risks and benefits are tied to the social
implications of the technology, including social justice. The paper concludes with discussion of
the implications of these findings for risk perception research and public policy related to
nanotechnology and possibly other emerging technologies.
Keywords: nanotechnology; perceived risk; vulnerability; environmental justice; embeddedness
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1. INTRODUCTION
Nanotechnologies are manufactured materials (e.g. quantum dots, carbon nanotubes) and
enabling platforms built at the nanoscale. They promise many novel applications such as
molecular-level targeted drug delivery systems, improved sensors and environmental cleanup
technologies, and lighter more efficient materials. However, their small size and unique
properties mean that they may carry substantial health risks (1-6). Given the newness of
nanotechnologies, their intriguing novel capacities, and yet some potential for harm, risk
researchers have begun investigating how different publics might perceive these technologies,
absent widespread familiarity and well-established toxicological understanding. The question
generally posed by social scientists interested in perceived risk is: How might current growth in
nanotechnology research and development be viewed by different publics and will the products
and capacities derived from nanomaterials be met with optimism or aversion? In particular, will
nanotechnologies be the subject of controversy, as has been the case with some other new
technologies, such as genetically modified organisms or cloning research? Or, will benefit
appreciation prevail over risk aversion and if so why?
This paper explores these possibilities by examining how social justice and experiences
of vulnerability exert meaningful influences over how nanotechnologies are perceived. Using
data from a recent national risk perception survey of American adults, we demonstrate that when
the distribution of risks and benefits from nanotechnologies is perceived as unfair, concomitant
concerns for social justice lead to heightened perception of the nanotechnologies as risky.
Similarly, we show that experiences of vulnerability amplify perceptions of risk associated with
nanotechnologies. Further, we demonstrate significant variation in risk perception between
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application domains. Importantly, assessments of risks and benefits are shown herein to be
linked to the social implications of the technology rather than toxicological or chemical risks that
are normally assumed to be a primary basis for risk. Recognizing the embeddedness of
technological innovation in social contexts, including experiences of vulnerability and normative
evaluations related to social justice, extends the conventional foci of risk perception research and
demonstrates how justice has thus far been under-recognized as a factor in perceptions of risk.
To date, survey research on public perceptions of nanotechnology has confirmed
relatively low levels of familiarity with the technology. A meta-analysis of 22 surveys
conducted in the US, Canada, Europe, and Japan between 2002 and 2009 found that on average
over 51 percent of survey respondents reported knowing “nothing at all” about nanotechnology.
Approximately 20 percent reported knowing “some or a lot”(7). Overall, American and European
publics are optimistic about nanotechnology, with approximately three times as many people
reporting that the benefits will outweigh the risks than the reverse. At the same time,
respondents are also hesitant in assigning judgments to nanotechnologies. Approximately 44
percent of pooled respondents across nations indicated that they were “not sure” about the
relative risks and benefits, demonstrating a striking judgment conservatism(7). Low familiarity
with nanotechnologies may be the source of this judgment conservatism and may also indicate
significant malleability in public perceptions of risks and benefits of nanotechnologies. Low
familiarity, the absence of a notable risk event, and the malleability of risk perceptions
demonstrate the unique opportunities(8) offered risk researchers to better understand how new
technologies are encountered and made sense of given the different social locations or positions
of perceivers.
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Other attempts to identify the factors driving risk perceptions of nanotechnology have
largely attended to the demographic characteristics of perceivers, levels of familiarity with these
technologies, and trust in their regulation(7). Gender and race are predictive of increased
perceived risk(9) as is religiosity(10), but less attention has been paid to how demographic
variables interact with other attitudinal factors(7). Investigation of attitudinal dispostions has
been limited to attitudes about trust in science and identification with political parties. Concern
for sociopolitical or environmental values and how they affect risk perceptions has also been
very limited, with some noteable exceptions. Kahan et al.(9,11) demonstrated how cultural values
or ‘worldviews’ influence risk-related cognitions. In this work, shared values are shown to help
shape the social meanings associated with new technologies or other potentially risky activities,
and underlay the cognitive processes by which individuals encounter and make sense of new
information(11). Thus we might expect, and others have found, that cultural cognition is a good
indicator of just how risk perceptions related to nanotechnology might unfold. Specifically,
those with uninformed views about nanotechnologies tend to ‘use’ their cultural worldviews as
heuristics for making sense of and evaluating this new class of technologies and any risks they
may engender.
Research to date has also tended to treat “nanotechnology” as a discrete, singular risk
object. Where scholars have examined specific nano-applications they have found a greater
diversity of risk perceptions than research on “nanotechnology” alone anticipates. For instance,
a study by Siegrist et al.(12, 13) on risk perceptions of nano-related applications in food and food
packaging in Switzerland found that people were hesitant to purchase food products that
incorporated nanotechnology, but more willing to buy food packaging that did. Similarly,
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Pidgeon et al.(14) found differences in US and UK publics in the perceived risks and benefits of
nanotechnologies for health and enhancement versus nanotechnology applications in energy.
While affirming the importance of these early findings, a more precise rendering of just
how nanotechnologies will be confronted in diverse social contexts remains absent. This is so
despite the prosaic fact that new technologies are encountered in quite localized and specific
ways. They are encountered at the store or at work or on a neighborhood street. And thus, it
could be expected that how cultural values help individuals make sense of new technologies
might also be affected by how that technology is encountered, particularly when it is directly
experienced (through interaction in one’s own environment) or embodied (ingested, inhaled or
absorbed be that unintentionally or via cosmetics, medicines, etc.).
Social studies of risk also recognize that the distribution of new technologies and any
hazards they may engender necessitates questions of social or environmental justice. For
instance, Burningham and Thrush(15) argue that concerns about the quality of the environment are
caught up in concerns about local life and the effectiveness of public management of the
environment. By extension, the meanings associated with technologies can be understood to be
perceived not just as a function of their attributes (the technology is charismatic, new or bright in
color), but also as a function of how they are nested in social contexts, including attributions of
who in particular will face any risks introduced by the new technology and who will garner its
benefits. In tracking risk perceptions about unfamiliar risk objects, individuals might be
expected to weigh the implications of new technologies for fairness and justice(16), an estimation
that might extend to their judgments of how the risks and benefits of that object may be
distributed across and between social groups as well as concerns for procedural fairness that
governs that distribution(17,18).
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Justice and experiences of marginality have been closely examined by scholars of
environmental injustice and racism, which has found that poor and minority communities tend to
bear a disproportionate share of environmental hazards(19-25). While these factors have been
under-researched in the domain of risk perception survey work, in one risk study experiences of
vulnerability and attitudes towards environmental inequality are predictive of risk perceptions(26).
These factors were shown to be partially explanatory of persistent demographic differences in
risk perception, wherein a strong “white male effect” or risk tolerance amongst this demographic
group is in part seen to be produced by variables other than race and gender(27). Thus, awareness
of and experience with how new technologies are embedded in social contexts and taken up by
social groups(28) affects how those technologies are understood.
Extending ideas developed by economic sociologists(29,30), we use “embeddedness” to
refer to how a technological object aquires its meaning in reference to its social contexts.
Technological objects are not encountered in the abstract or only in their toxicological
dimensions but are incorporated in complex social relationships that help to define what the
object is, what it is good for as well as who benefits from it and who bears the costs. Such
embeddedness is laden with power to the degree that technological risk objects are entangled in
social institutions structuring opportunties for individuals and communities to control how the
benefits and risks of that technology are distributed(31, 32). For instance, cross-national,
deliberative research on nanotechnologies have shown how participants felt greater concern for
social risk, including fairness in the distribution of benefits and risks across a stratified society,
than for the technological or toxicological risks of nanotechnology(14). Social risks include the
possibilities of an unequal disitribution of benefits and risks across a society, assessments of the
fairness of that distribution, and recognition that some social groups are more vulnerable to
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bearing a disproportionate share of the ill effects of technological innovation while others
monopolize the benefits(32-34). Participants’ concerns were focused on how nanotechnology
applications would enter into, or become embedded in, complex sets of social relationships.
Attitudes towards social justice thus provide cues for the public to understand and evaluate the
full range of likely social impacts of new technologies. Judgments about risk are linked not just
to cultural values, demographics, trust, or other variables, but also to social context, including the
lived experience and cultural knowledge of both the object and society.
This suggests that such judgments of embedded technological risk objects likely
reference not only the object itself, but the processes by which it is manufactured, and the
audience for whom the product is made. In other words, a given object or system, such as nanoenabled cosmetics or medical devices, are not only evaluated as a discrete “thing” but as part of
an extended process of production, consumption, and disposal. This point can be illustrated
through an analogy to another, more familiar, set of technologies: clothing and global supply
chains. Companies such as The Gap and Nike have faced attempts to stigmatize their products
based on treatment of workers and oversight of globally dispersed supply chains. In this
analogue, the social relations embedded in a piece of clothing became the target of a social
movement. Similar concerns have developed around pharmaceutical and cosmetics testing. If
the analogy holds for nanotechnologies, and our research suggests that it might, it is not just the
toxicological risks of a nano application that will face scrutiny, but the process by which that
application is produced, disseminated (sold) and disposed of and the associated implications for
equity and social justice.
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2. DATA
The data reported here were collected through a U.S. national telephone survey (N=
1,100) designed to assess public perceptions of nanotechnology. The survey was administered
by telephone in the fall of 2008.2 Significant effort was made to contact participants. Numbers
were dialed a minimum of seven times until either an interview was conducted or the potential
respondent refused to participate. Every reasonable effort was made to encourage participation.
Of those numbers that were deemed to be eligible to participate in the survey (residential
numbers only) the response rate was 51.9% and the refusal rate was 38.8%, based on actual
contacts. The mean age was 57, with 43% women and 57% men. Eighty-two percent of
paritcipants were white, 7 percent black, and 3 percent hispanic.3
The instrument included experimental conditions for evaluating how specific risk/benefit
information, under varying conditions, influenced the acceptability of nano-enabled applications.
There were three relevant question sets for this analysis, which included (1) self-assessments of
experiences of vulnerability and attitudes about environmental inequality; (2) acceptability
ratings of both a broad class of conventional risk events or objects (e.g., climate change,
vaccines, nuclear power, etc.) as well as nano-specific risk objects; and (3) experimental
narratives that systematically manipulated four dimensions of specific nano-enabled applications,
including information related to the location of production sites for nano-enabled applications.
As described above, while most public surveys about nanotechnology to date have found that the
public views the benefits of nanotechnology as outweighing the risks, the evidence also suggests
that these views have not stabilized. As a result, public risk perceptions may be sensitive to how
the risks and benefits of nanotechnology are framed. We test this assertion in our research
design by empirically manipulating how the risks and benefits of nanotechnology are described.
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In the sections below, each of these is described in detail along with how they were analyzed and
the results.
3. ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
3.1 Vulnerability and Environmental Justice Scales
We elicited self-reports of experiences with vulnerability and attitudes towards
environmental inequality with six items:
1.
I think hazardous facilities are more common in minority communities.
2.
Minority communities lack the political clout to stop hazardous facilities from
being located near them.
3.
The government should restrict the placing of hazardous facilities in minority
communities.
4.
I often feel discriminated against.
5.
I have very little control over risks to my health.
6.
How would you rate the quality of medical care that is available to you and your
family?
Except for item 6, respondents were asked to report on a four point scale how strongly they
agreed to disagreed with the following statements. For item 6, the response categories ranged
from poor to excellent.4 A factor analysis of these items produced two reliable scales. Items 1
through 3 loaded on the first dimension, named “attitudes towards environmental inequality”
(Cronbach alpha = .66) and the remaining items loaded on the second dimension, “vulnerability”
(Cronbach alpha = .56). Vulnerability combines aspects of health inequality, particularly a lack
of control over one’s health and inadequate medical care, with experiences of discrimination.5
To examine this scale further, item four was removed from the factor scale to see if the
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underlying factor was better defined as health inequality or inadequate health care. This resulted
in a less than satisfactory solution (c.a. = <.35), indicating that the underlying factor, while
heavily defined by inadequacy in health care and a lack of agency over health, is also defined by
experiences of discrimination.
Those that reported experiences of vulnerability were disproportionately of lower income
(70%, <$50K) and without a college degree (63%). While most in our sample who were
reporting vulnerability were white (74%), nearly 25 percent of non-white men and women
reported experiences of vulnerability compared to between 13 and 15 percent of white men and
women (see Appendix Table I).
The vulnerability and environmental inequality scales correlate with race and sex as well
as income. Non-white males are more likely to report experiences of vulnerability (p. = .000)
and confirm that environmental inequality exists (p. = .000). Low income and low educational
achievement also correlate with experiences of vulnerability (for both, p. = .000). The
correlation between attitudes towards environmental inequality and income is insignificant.
Democrats are more likely to believe in environmental inequality than Republicans (p. = .001).
Table I reports the share of white men who agree that environmental inequality exists and also
those who report experiencing vulnerability. While there is significant overlap between
experiences of vulnerability and belief in environmental inequality with low income, women,
and people of color, the relationship is not perfect. Where a small minority of white males report
experiences of vulnerability, a slight majority agree that environmental inequality exists. As
with Satterfield et al.(26), a number of white men also report experiences of vulnerability and
agree that environmental inequality exists.
TABLE I HERE
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The OLS regression results presented in Table II confirm how experiences with
vulnerability and attitudes about environmental justice inform risk perceptions related to race and
gender. In this test, an assessment of the risks and benefits of nanotechnology served as the
dependent variable. The independent variables included binary indicators for race (white versus
non-white) and gender (male versus female), an affective rating of nanotechnology, and the two
factor scales for vulnerability and environmental justice. The model demostrates that, contolling
for the effects of gender and race, experiences of vulnerability and attitudes towards
environmental inequality are negatively associated with benefits outweighing the risks. White
and male participants perceived the benefits of nanotechnology as outweighing the risks as
compared to women and non-whites. Consistent with Satterfield et al.(26), this also demonstrates
how vulnerability and environmental inequality do not fully account for the effects of race and
gender and are also distinct from generalized affect, which is significant and predictive of the
perceptions of benefits outweighing the risks(35). Vulnerability and environmental justice
constitute distinct factors affecting percpetions of the risks and benefits of nanotechnologies.
TABLE II HERE
3.2 Comparing Nanotechnology with Conventional Risk Objects
Prior to being informed that the survey focused on nanotechnology, participants were
asked to provide acceptability ratings of 9 conventional risk objects plus the generic
“nanotechnologies”. Conventional risk items included: “vaccines for children,” “nuclear
power,” and “climate change,” among others. Participants were subsequently provided a
definition of nanotechnology, which read:
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Nanotechnology involves human made materials or devices that are extremely
small, for instance 10,000 times smaller than a fine grain of sand. Because
they’re so small, they can have unique physical, chemical, electrical or other
properties. This may produce new health or environmental risks because these
nano-materials can get into the human body through breathing, skin contact, or
eating, or they may end up in the environment with unexpected or unknown longterm effects. They’re being developed because they may provide new ways to
treat disease, clean up pollution, improve food, and provide cheaper energy.
This tutorial was constructed with the goal of balancing risk and benefit information and is
similar to definitions provided by Kahan et al.(36) and Hart(37). Shortly thereafter, participants
were asked to provide ratings of the acceptability of a range of specific nano-applications, each
described in vignette form. These nano-applications were designed to present either benefit only
information first, or risk-information only first, followed by its opposite.6 For instance, an
initially risk-centric vignette appeared in the following form:
Tiny nano silver particles can be used in bandages to stop infections by killing
bacteria. But nanosilver is considered a water pollutant; if it turns up in our rivers
or oceans, fish and other marine life may be widely harmed (followed by the fourpoint acceptability scale).
Whereas an initially benefit-centric vignette appeared as:
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Tiny nanoparticles are being developed for targeted delivery of medicine at the
cellular level, a process that means that chemotherapy will only kill diseased cells.
This new technology will be available for the poor or those with limited or no
healthcare (followed by the same four-point acceptability scale).
Each participant received two paired (risk-benefit) vignettes, creating four sub-samples of
approximately 275 responses.
We then used the indices for vulnerability and attitudes towards environmental justice to
analyze responses to the 9 conventional and 9 nano-related risk items. The findings are
presented in figures 1 and 2.7 In both figures, the rank order of the risk objects is the same, with
the most acceptable at the bottom and the most unacceptable at the top. Attitudes about
environmental inequality and experiences with vulnerability consistently demarcate differences
in acceptability of the risk objects. In figure 1, those who acknoweldge environmental inequality
significantly differ from those that do not on 14 of 18 items, including all non-nano risk objects.
“Nanotechnologies” is rated as relatively acceptable and the most acceptable of all risk objects
examined. However, those who agree that environmental inequality occurs rate this category
significantly less acceptable than those who disagree that environmental inequality occurs. The
distribution of risk judgments becomes more complex when we turn to nano-specific
applications. These applications were given specific risk and benefit framings. Logically, those
with benign or beneficial attributes tended to be perceived as acceptable; those with risk or
distributional injustice valences were pecrceived as unacceptable. Importantly, attitudes towards
environmental inequality are insignificant for nano applications with only benefit information.
The scale becomes salient for nano applications only when risk information is introduced, three
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of which frame risk in environmental terms, posing a striking contrast between known and
unknown technological risk objects. It is possible that this is an artifact of the differences in
sample size between the conventional risk objects (N=~1,000) and the nano-specific applications
(N=~275).
FIGURE 1 HERE
Reported experiences of vulnerability also resulted in significantly lower acceptability
ratings for 14 of 18 risk objects (Figure 2). This is the case for the general category of
“nanotechnologies” but also for most nano-specific applications. In contrast to the
environmental inequality scale, there are significant differences for nano-applications with
benefit framings, suggesting that differences in sample size are not wholly determinative of
significant effects. Interestingly, medical diagnostics for the poor were perceived as slightly
unacceptable by persons with experiences of vulnerability (an index that, again, includes items
on health and health care), while those without such experiences reported them as acceptable.
Together, this suggests a profound skepticism among likely targets of medical intervention about
claims that the medical applications of nanotechnology will actually benefit the poor.
FIGURE 2 HERE
3.3 Narrative Analysis
In a third question set we sought to examine more elaborated narrative scenarios of nanoapplications wherein the effect of particular combinations of variables could be inferred. We
used the longer narrated framings because we recognized that the preponderance of short
descriptions of nano-enabled products in the literature thus far relies on a brevity that omits the
‘realism’ of more complex descriptions of nano-technologies that people are likely to encounter
in real life. Narrative framings also enhance the ability of people to comprehend complex
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information and consider multiple dimensions of a problem at one and the same time(39). We
tested four binary variables expressed as statements within each narrative. These variables
included expert risk judgments, controllability of the technology, the potential for bodily
invasion, and whether the nanotechnology application was produced in a socially just manner.
The first three variables were selected because they are known to influence risk judgments and
thus provided an opportunity to examine social justice alongside well-examined risk perception
factors. Eight scenarios, built from combinations of the four variables, were derived from a 24
fractional replication design, which ensured that they are uncorrelated.
We tested this design in the context of three nano-enabled application domains: nanofood additives (food), nano-pharmeceuticals (medicine), and nano-fuel additives (energy) (Table
III). For instance, the following narrative scenario about nanotechnology-enabled food begins
with a statement describing the application and the rationale for developing it (a benefit
statement):
Nanotechnology may be used in food to improve its taste and nutritional value.
(1) Scientists are positive about the benefits of this. (2) Because nanoparticles are
so small, they may be absorbed into the bloodstream through the intestines. (3)
We may not be able to control or retrieve these nanoparticles if this happens. (4)
Currently, the production of nano-foods is occurring in both poor and well-off
neighborhoods. How acceptable is this on a scale between 1 and 7, where 1 is
strongly support it, 4 is neutral, and 7 is strongly oppose it?
In this example, the first variable statement (expert risk judgment) is positive. The second
variable statement (bodily invasion) is negative and indicates that nanoparticles may invade the
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body. The third variable provides a negative statement about the controllability of the
nanomaterial. The final variable statement descibes the location of production, in this case, it is
equitably distributed (social justice). This example illustrates condition 4 for “Nanofood” in
Table III. Each participant received one scenario from one application domain for a sample size
of between 315 and 362 per domain. After reading a narrative, participants were asked to rate
the acceptability of the scenario on a seven point scale. We then used these ratings as the
dependent variable against which we could infer the weight of each variable.
TABLE III HERE
Responses ranged from 1 to 7, where 1 equals “strongly support,” 7 equals “strongly
oppose” and 4 equals “neutral.” Except for two conditions (condition 8 for Nanopill and
NanoFuel), all conditions were on average rated neutral to strongly oppose (mean > 4.00). No
overall mean score for any application scenario can be read as supportive. The two conditions
that were (weakly) supported were defined by all positive attributes. In other words, they were
defined by expert assessment of low risk, controllability, impossibility or low consequence of
bodily invasion by nanoparticles and by a socially just production process. Except for these two
instances of guarded support for applications framed as entirely beneficial, paricipants tended to
be neutral or opposed to these nano-applications. All nano food applications were unsupported,
including the entirely positive condition 8.
Condition 8 of the narratives, where all attributes were offered in their most positive
form, is akin to how people are ‘hearing’ about nano right now. This typical description of a
nanotechnology application takes the form of a description of the object plus a rationale for what
it will be useful for in the form of a claim of benefit. Nonetheless, the acceptance of these highly
positive accounts is marginal at best. These findings reveal an overall a portrait of participants
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as risk averse that contrasts with the benefit-centricity reported by most of the of nano-related
surveys.
At first glance, the mean differences between application scenarios (4.64/pill; 4.94/fuel to
5.43/food) does not seem large, suggesting a lack of sensitivity to application domain. However,
there are noticeable differences between experimental conditions within domains and these help
define some important differences between domains. For nanopill and nanofuel, the change in
mean scores between condition 8, the most positive, and condition 1, the most negative,
corresponds to a change from roughly neutral/slight support to firm opposition. Compared to
those two domains, there is less variation in the mean scores of conditions within the nanofood
application domain ( 1.21 for nanofood versus 2.17 for nanopill and 2.73 for nanofuel) and
ranges roughly from minimally to strongly oppose. Thus, the nanofood application is roundly
unsupported, even in its most positive versions, suggesting that the domain as a whole (unlike
the other two domains where some scenarios are supported) is the subject of heightened risk
aversion. This is consistent with prior findings of risk aversion in the context of nano-food and
food packaging applications(12,13).
To further assess the acceptability of a domain, weights were derived by regressing the
four variables against the acceptability ratings for each domain (Table IV). Each narrative
variable was treated as binary for the presence or absence of the condition. The dependent
variable is the 7-point response scale where 1 equals “strongly support” and 7 equals “strongly
oppose.” All factors except the controllability of the technology were significant predictors of
support or opposition for these nano applications. Bodily invasion is negative, indicating an
increase in opposition to these nano-enabled applications under circumstances where
nanotechnologies cannot be prevented from entering the human body. This finding is consistent
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with the psychometric literature on risk perception(40, 41). The insignificance of controllability,
however, is both surprising and inconsistent with that literature, and as a result poses the
question of when and for whom controllability becomes important in the formation of risk
perceptions.
TABLE IV HERE
Expert risk judgments of risk are significant for nanopill and nanofuel but not for
nanofood. In the two domains where this variable is significant, the findings are also negative
indicating that expert statements of concern about the safety of a nano-application are predictive
of public opposition. By extension, this implies some degree of trust in expert judgments in
these two application domains – but not when it comes to nano-enabled food. This again
suggests that food may be a unique domain (at least when compared to nanopills and nanofuel)
that provokes risk aversion that is less susceptible to expert assessments and perhaps pre-empted
by concerns about bodily invasion and social justice.
The effect of social justice is particularly interesting, in part because it is not a recognized
component of psychometric risk perception. In each application domain, it is negative and
significant, indicating that support increases when nano-applications are produced under just
circumstances. In contrast, opposition to nano-applications increases when the social
distribution of production is inequitable, placing disproportionate burdens on poor and minority
neighborhoods.
4. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
This research demonstrates that social justice and experiences of vulnerability play an
important role in the formation of risk perceptions related to novel technological risk objects.
They provide mechanisms for assessing the possible implications of largely unfamiliar risk
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objects, based on prior experiences and awareness of inequalities in the social distribution of
risks and benefits of technological change. The insignificance of controllability in our narrative
analysis contradicts a stable finding in the psychometric risk literature. Perhaps, this is a result
of the “upstream” moment and over time concern for controllability may grow alongside
familiarity. A contrasting hypothesis might be that the emphasis placed on the small scale of
nanotechnologies leads to a conflation of control and bodily invasion by participants. This
would indicate that the insignificance of controllability is less a product of the upstream moment
than the particular characteristics of nano-enabled applications examined here, each of which
emphasized how the human body may encounter nanoparticles. Given the robustness of
controllability in other risk contexts, controllability deserves greater attention as it relates to
nanotechnologies. This could be accomplished by examining a different set of applications that
more clearly distinguish the possibilities for control from bodily invasion. It would also be
worth assessing more nuanced questions, such as controllability by whom? This line of
questioning transforms the psychometric approach to controllability as a perceived property of a
risk and places it in an explicitly social context, opening further questions, raised here and
elsewhere, about trust in scientific experts, government regulation, and business.
These findings also demonstrate the need for greater specificity of application type and
domain in nanotechnology risk perception research. Some domains, such as food, appear to be
perceived differently from other domains. To the degree that risk perceptions of
nanotechnologies are driven by the benefits (rather than the risks) of new applications, the
absence of convincing benefits may undermine acceptability. Perhaps nano-foods lack
persuasive benefits and this could explain why the public does not support this domain. This
analysis suggests an alternative account. First, the benefit-centricity of nanotechnology risk
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perceptions has been challenged by the demonstrated judgment conservatism that appears to
accompany positive ratings of nanotechnology(7). Second, when the focus is placed on specific
nano-applications, as in this analysis, public support tends more towards neutrality and
unsupportiveness. This is clear in the difference between generic “nanotechnologies” and
specific applications in the comparative risk object analysis. It is also evident in the
experimental narrative analyses. Only when all four variables were positive (safety/benefit
oriented) were two of three applications rated as acceptable. Together this suggests that the
public’s likely acceptance of nano-enabled products is reliant upon a confluence of multiple
factors. Not only must experts declare it safe, but nano-enabled products must not cause harm
when introduced into the body and they must be manufactured in ways perceived as socially just.
And even then, as the Nanofood applications demonstrate, public acceptance may still not be
forthcoming. While we were careful to ensure balance across positive and negative framing, it
appears that people are more sensitive to the negative information. This is consistent with the
negativity bias in risk perception work(42). Finally, in terms of nano-enabled food, the robustness
of bodily invasion in our experiments indicates that food may trigger particularly strong
reactions and concerns because it is intentionally, but possibly consumed unknowingly(12). This
provides evidence that it is the specific application and the particular way in which the public
anticipates encountering it that drives perceptions of risk, not inadequate rationalization of
benefits. Nonetheless, this also suggests the importance of future research that attends to
perceived risks related to ingestion pathways, or more broadly, how nanotechnology is embodied
as this may help explain when factors such as bodily invasion and controllability are salient and
when they are not.
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The narrative analysis also demonstrated how acceptability is linked not only to the
product, but also directly to the social processes of how it is made. The findings reveal an
implicit “commodity fetishism”(43) in survey work on nanotechnology risk perceptions to the
degree that this literature treats “nanotechnology” as a singular, meaningful category largely
detached from how it is encountered, an approach that obscures questions of social and
environmental justice. Public perceptions of nanotechnologies are not just about toxicology or
even psychometric and attitudinal variables, but are likely to be shaped by how they are expected
to effect the distribution of risks and benefits across a diverse and unequal society including the
organizational and institutional processes for managing them. Future research should adopt a
more nuanced focus both on application domain and the social contexts in which they will be
encountered and understood differently by social groups and persons in different social locations.
Additional research on social justice is also required for nanotechnology and other risk objects.
Under what conditions are concerns for justice made salient and when are they muted or trumped
by other concerns?
These findings should also be of interest to policy makers and supporters of the
nanotechnology commercial enterprise as they point to a need to articulate and perhaps rethink
the link between public policy around technology commercialization, equality, and social safety
nets. Successful nanotechnology commercialization will be affected by how the product is
made, who benefits from it, and who is likely to carry the burden of any negative implications.
From a public welfare point of view, ensuring the toxicological safety of nano-enabled products
reaching consumers will be necessary, but by itself, insufficient to ensure public acceptance of
nanotechnologies. Concerns for the equity of the production process identified in this research
suggest that the roll-out of nano-products will be most effective if equity-related features of
22
production processes are made transparent for public evaluation. Developing standard practices
for ensuring worker health and best health and safety practices in the workplace will facilitate the
acceptance of nanotechnologies, as will proactive systems for limiting the creation of new
environmental hazards. Given the geographic dimensions of contemporary manufacturing
processes, ensuring the safety and equity of nano-enabled commodity chains is no small feat and
will require extensive local, national, and international coordination as well as responsible
corporate governance. Much of this work is underway but it is important to emphasize how
safety and equity impact perceptions of risk above and beyond questions of exposure to hazards.
This research suggests that explicit restrictions on the placement of hazardous facilities of
all types in close proximity to poor and minority communities would also enhance the
acceptability of nanotechnology. This claim, however, ought to be weighed against the
possibilities of job creation that such facilities may generate and other such possible benefits.
Initial evidence suggests that while the public is optimistic about overall economic growth
related to nanotechnology, concern for job loss was among the highest perceived risks of this
new technology(44). How the public, and the specific communities affected by the placement of
hazardous facilities, prefer to strike this balance should be the subject of future research on the
context of nanotechnologies.
Beyond research, this suggests that building democratic participation of poor and
minority communities in decision-making about the location of potentially hazardous facilities,
including but not limited to the location of nanomaterials manufacturing and R&D facilities,
would likely increase levels of support for new technologies overall. How to go about doing that
is not necessarily clear, but it is clear that the perceived problem of environmental inequality
threatens opposition to some new technologies. Most broadly, our findings suggest that
23
acceptability of new technology is greatly undermined by the experience of vulnerability of the
kind indicative of absent or minimal social safety nets, such as access to health care. Questions
of equity, vulnerability, and distributional justice should be addressed as new nano-applications
are developed as they appear critical to the success of the nanotechnology enterprise, above and
beyond toxicological health and safety.
24
5. APPENDIX
APPENDIX TABLE 1 HERE
25
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1
This paper is based on work supported primarily by the United States National Science Foundation (SES 0531184)
at the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at University of California at Santa Barbara (CNS-UCSB). The authors
would like to thank Laura DeVries.
2
The survey was administered by Northwest Data Services for the NSF Center for Nanotechnology in Society at
University of California, Santa Barbara.
3
We relied on categories of race and ethnicity used by the US Census. Random digit dialing produced response
rates by gender and race/ethnicity that differ somewhat from the US national profile. The survey was conducted in
English, which could partially explain the low participation rates by Hispanics. It is possible that the differential
response rates reflect a bias in favor of technology. We strove to avoid this by investing significant effort in
contacting the randomly identified telephone numbers. Further, for potential participants, we described the survey
as being about “how society is changing and how technology is involved” and did not mention nanotechnologies.
For the factor analysis, the response categories for item six “poor”, “fair,” “good,” or “excellent” were treated as
equivalent to the response categories of the other items such that, for instance, “poor” equals “strongly agree” on
statement asserting the experience of vulnerability and “excellent” equals “strongly disagree.”
4
5
Item 6 potentially conflates two distinct factors producing health inequality: access to and quality of health care,
but nonetheless emphasizes the adequacy of care overall .
6
In results reported elsewhere wherein we provide the full risk-plus-benefit paired vignettes, we used the withinsubject change to determine the relative influence and/or stability of judgments(38).
7
For both Figures 1 and 2, we employed a Kruskall Wallis nonparametric test to determine significance.
30