title: Are College Students' Assessments of Threat Shaped by the Dangers of Their Childhood Environment?
abstract: Humans internalize environmental cues of mortality risk at an early age, which influences subsequent risk perceptions and behavior. In this respect, an individual's current risk assessment may be viewed as an adaptive response to the dangers present within his or her early local environment. Here we examine the relationship between several variables indicating threat within an individual's early environment (e.g., prevalence of violent and property crimes, registered sex offenders) and their perception of crime risk within both the childhood and current adult environments. We recruited a group of 657 students who hail from diverse geographic backgrounds to provide the zip code location of their childhood residence along with subjective ratings of danger of that and their current location, which enabled us to compare their ratings of risk/danger with the federally reported crime statistics of each setting. Our results indicate that the early prevalence of registered sex offenders indeed influences an individual's risk perception in adulthood, and that these factors have a differential effect on males and females. Our findings provide support for the theory that early environmental factors signaling danger affect how individuals assess risk within their adult environment.
authors: Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY, USA shermaak@clarkson.edu.
authors: Amanda K
authors: AK
authors: Sherman
authors: Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY, USA.
authors: Steven H
authors: SH
authors: Minich
authors: Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY, USA.
authors: Tom A
authors: TA
authors: Langen
authors: Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY, USA.
authors: Joseph
authors: J
authors: Skufca
authors: Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY, USA.
authors: Andreas
authors: A
authors: Wilke
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003415:Crime / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D057237:Criminals / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005239:Fear; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012111:Residence Characteristics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012737:Sex Factors; D012742:Sex Offenses / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012931:Social Environment; D012938:Social Perception; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: decision making; early environment; fear of crime; life-history theory; risk perception; risk-taking