Affect and Self–Other Risk Judgments: Evidence for Target-Invariant Influence

Affective evaluations play a central role in risk perception, yet it remains unclear whether affect shapes judgments differently when risks are evaluated for oneself versus others. Across two studies, we tested whether hazard-directed affect exerts a differential influence on self-focused and other-focused risk judgments. Study 1 (N = 77) featured a repeated-measures design in which participants rated affect, perceived risk, and perceived benefit for 13 technologies for themselves and for a random other, allowing within-person comparisons of self- and other-focused judgments. A linear mixed-effects model indicated that although negative affect predicted higher perceived risk and positive affect predicted lower perceived risk, the influence of affect did not differ across judgment targets. With the same design, Study 2 (N = 150) experimentally manipulated hazard-directed affect using negatively versus positively valenced images across five technologies. The positive affect manipulation lowered perceived risk while negative affect increased perceived risk. The influence of the manipulation did not differ across judgment targets. Additionally, we examined whether the inverse association between perceived risk and perceived benefit, an indicator of the affect heuristic, varied by target: evidence for a stronger inverse association for other-focused judgments emerged in Study 1, suggesting affective cues may be relied upon more readily when making judgements for others. This finding did not replicate in Study 2. Together, our findings refine affect-based accounts of risk perception by suggesting affective evaluations of hazards are applied similarly across judgment targets, even when self–other differences in risk level are present.