A brief unidimensional scale capturing a person's belief that a specified health condition is severe, serious, and significant. Originally used across five studies examining how temporal framing of health warnings affects risk perception, with conditions ranging from gingivitis and obesity to various skin-related concerns. The blank in each item is replaced with the name of the health condition under study. Despite its health origins, the authors suggest the scale may generalise to non-health threats (e.g., environmental hazards, life events) with appropriate psychometric re-evaluation.
Murdock, M.R., & Rajagopal, P. (2017). The sting of social: How emphasizing social consequences in warning messages influences perceptions of risk. Journal of Marketing, 81(2), 83–98.
Free access to 2023+ psychometric scales at PsychScales