Publications

Perception and acceptance of risks associated with nuclear reactors

No abstract is provided for this article.

Who accepts Savage's axiom?

The Effect of Recipient Identifiability and Neediness on Children's Sharing Behavior

The identifiable victim effect refers to people's greater willingness to share resources with identified targets (about whom they have some identifying information) than to share with unidentified or statistical targets. Previous research examining adults' behavior suggests that identifiable targets arouse in the perceiver an intense emotional reaction that, in turn, increases sharing especially when the target is perceived as needy. In the current research, we examine whether the spontaneous reaction toward an identifiable, needy target and the increase in sharing with such a target appears in young children's sharing behavior and when in early childhood it develops. The results suggest that adding identifying information about a needy recipient increases sharing only in older children (above the age of 5.5) and in children who have acquired higher levels of theory of mind (independent of age). Mediation–moderation analysis suggests that theory of mind mediates the relation between age and sharing mainly when a specific, needy recipient is presented. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The perception and management of therapeutic risk

Technology has enhanced our ability to harness our environment, eradicate dread diseases and fashion a life of comfort and leisure. But it has become apparent that these benefits are accompanied by a variety of hazardous side effects. Hardly a day passes that does not reveal some new danger in our foods, our homes, our places of work, our leisure activities, our environment or our medical treatments.

Patient Violence Risk Measure

Differential effects of real versus hypothetical payoffs on choices among gambles.

No abstract is provided for this article.

Motivated Numeracy and Enlightened Self-Government

Why does public conflict over societal risks persist in the face of compelling and widely accessible scientific evidence? We conducted an experiment to probe two alternative answers: the "Science Comprehension Thesis" (SCT), which identifies defects in the public's knowledge and reasoning capacities as the source of such controversies; and the "Identity-protective Cognition Thesis" (ICT) which treats cultural conflict as disabling the faculties that members of the public use to make sense of decision-relevant science. In our experiment, we presented subjects with a difficult problem that turned on their ability to draw valid causal inferences from empirical data. As expected, subjects highest in Numeracy — a measure of the ability and disposition to make use of quantitative information — did substantially better than less numerate ones when the data were presented as results from a study of a new skin-rash treatment. Also as expected, subjects' responses became politically polarized — and even less accurate — when the same data were presented as results from the study of a gun-control ban. But contrary to the prediction of SCT, such polarization did not abate among subjects highest in Numeracy; instead, it increased. This outcome supported ICT, which predicted that more Numerate subjects would use their quantitative-reasoning capacity selectively to conform their interpretation of the data to the result most consistent with their political outlooks. We discuss the theoretical and practical significance of these findings.

Intuitive Toxicology [United States]: A Comparison of Expert and Lay Judgments in Chemical Risk Assessments, 1988

An Analysis-of-Variance Model for the Assessment of Configural Cue Utilization in Clinical Judgment

Culture and Identity-Protective Cognition: Explaining the White Male Effect in Risk Perception

Why do white men fear various risks less than women and minorities? Known as the white male effect, this pattern is well documented but poorly understood. This paper proposes a new explanation: identity-protective cognition. Putting work on the cultural theory of risk together with work on motivated cognition in social psychology suggests that individuals selectively credit and dismiss asserted dangers in a manner supportive of their preferred form of social organization. This dynamic, it is hypothesized, drives the white male effect, which reflects the risk skepticism that hierarchical and individualistic white males display when activities integral to their cultural identities are challenged as harmful. The article presents the results of an 1,800-person study that confirmed that cultural worldviews interact with the impact of gender and race on risk perception in patterns that suggest cultural-identity-protective cognition. It also discusses the implication of these findings for risk regulation and communication.

Choice between equally valued alternatives.

No abstract is provided for this article.

Analyzing the Use Of Diagnostic Signs

The Arithmetic of Compassion and the Future of Risk Management

No abstract is provided for this article.

RISK-TAKING IN CHILDREN: AGE AND SEX DIFFERENCES

No abstract is provided for this article.

Going Beyond the Red Book: The Sociopolitics of Risk

The National Research Council's 1983 study Risk Assessment in the Federal Government: Managing the Process, known as the "Red Book," sought "institutional mechanisms that best foster a constructive partnership between science and government" for informing contentious public decisions about hazards from exposure to toxic substances. More than a decade later, a new National Research Council committee was formed to reexamine the process of risk characterization, which played a central role in the framework developed in the Red Book. In seeking to understand why risk management often breaks down at the stage of risk characterization, this new committee broadened the charge to improve risk characterization in ways that better inform decision-making and resolution of controversies over risk. This led to a report (Understanding Risk: Informing Decisions in a Democratic Society) that carefully examined social, behavioral, economic, and ethical aspects of risk that were not made explicit in the Red Book. This paper will describe some of the research that led to a greater recognition of the importance of these "sociopolitical" factors and discuss the implications of these factors for designing an analytic-deliberative process that informs decision-making and improves the ability of interested and affected parties to participate in the decision process. Keywords: risk assessmentRed Bookrisk perceptionEPArisk managementNational Research Councilunderstanding risk.

Who Fears the HPV Vaccine, Who Doesn't, and Why? An Experimental Study of the Mechanisms of Cultural Cognition

The cultural cognition hypothesis holds that individuals are disposed to form risk perceptions that reflect and reinforce their commitments to contested views of the good society. This paper reports the results of a study that used the controversy over mandatory HPV vaccination to test the cultural cognition hypothesis. Although public health officials have recommended that all girls aged 11 or 12 be vaccinated for HPV - a virus that causes cervical cancer and that is transmitted by sexual contact - political controversy has blocked adoption of mandatory school-enrollment vaccination programs in all but one state. A multi-stage experimental study of a large and diverse sample of American adults (N = 1,500) found evidence that cultural cognition generates disagreement about the risks and benefits of the HPV vaccine. It does so, the experiment determined, through two mechanisms: biased assimilation, and the credibility heuristic. In addition to describing the study, the paper discusses the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

Cue utilization in a numerical prediction task.

: Forty subjects were trained to use scatter plots with regression lines to make numerical predictions of one variable (criterion) from another variable (cue). The subjects were trained on two separate cues, differing in validity. Later, the two cues were presented together, simultaneously for 20 subjects, successively for the rest. Subjects were asked to use both cues to predict the criterion. Instructions emphasized that the two cues were independent of one another, but did not specify how the two should be combined. Initial analyses indicated that a regression model provided an adequate fit to the data, that the subjects showed conservatism similar to the conservatism found in previous Bayesian inference studies. However, more molecular analyses indicated patterns of behavior which consistently deviated from the optimal model. The post hoc hypothesis that subjects were regressing each cue, then averaging the regressed values, was supported by the data for most subjects. Searching for heuristic strategies, rather than relying on the apparent fit of optimal models was advocated fur future research.

Sex differences in the risks a person selects for himself and the risks he selects for someone else

102 undergraduates, working in pairs, selected bets for themselves and bets for the "other subject" -to _play.•It was found that persons chose essentially the same probabi'lity of winning for the other person as for themselves, regardless of the sex of the other person.Women's choices .were more conservative•than men's choices..