The issue of public responses to technological risks has attracted attention from social and behavioral scientists, and also from policy spokespersons. Three main viewpoints can be discerned: the public as ignorant/irrational, selfish, and prudent. These three perspectives are different in their implications for policy as well as for empirical research, and it has often been easier to see the influence of policy preferences on the existing research literature than to see the influence of empirical research on policy debates. The ignorance/irrationality perspective, once widely held, has repeatedly failed to be supported by empirical research. The selfishness and prudence perspectives both change the focus from blaming the citizen opponents of technology to attempting to understand the differences between citizens and specialists, albeit using different explanations. We argue that a more fruitful approach may be to focus on understanding the broader system that creates such conflicts in the first place, and to seek greater balance in the frames of reference used in discussions.
