730 publications from this institution
Modern theories in cognitive psychology and neuroscience indicate that there are two fundamental ways in which human beings comprehend risk. The analytic system uses algorithms and normative rules, such as probability calculus, formal logic, and risk assessment. It is relatively slow, effortful, and requires conscious control. The experiential system is intuitive, fast, mostly automatic, and not very accessible to conscious awareness. The experiential system enabled human beings to survive during their long period of evolution and remains today the most natural and most common way to respond to risk. It relies on images and associations, linked by experience to emotion and affect (a that something is good or bad). This system represents risk as a that tells us whether it's safe to walk down this dark street or drink this strange-smelling water. Proponents of formal risk analysis tend to view affective responses to risk as irrational. Current wisdom disputes this view. The rational and the experiential systems operate in parallel and each seems to depend on the other for guidance. Studies have demonstrated that analytic reasoning cannot be effective unless it is guided by emotion and affect. Rational decision making requires proper integration of both modes of thought. Both systems have their advantages, biases, and limitations. Now that we are beginning to understand the complex interplay between emotion and reason that is essential to rational behavior, the challenge before us is to think creatively about what this means for managing risk. On the one hand, how do we apply reason to temper the strong emotions engendered by some risk events? On the other hand, how do we infuse needed doses of feeling into circumstances where lack of experience may otherwise leave us too coldly rational? This article addresses these important questions.
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No abstract is provided for this article.
Research indicates that many adolescents do not adequately understand and appreciate the risks that smoking entails. Beginning smokers give little conscious thought to risk. They are lured into the behaviour by the prospects of fun, excitement and adventure. Most begin to think of risk only after they have started to smoke regularly, become addicted, and gained what to them is new information and appreciation of smoking's health risks. They then wish they had never begun to smoke. Cigarette advertising and promotion are designed to play a key role in this process by exposing young people to massive amounts of positive imagery associated with smoking. Research in psychology and cognitive neuroscience as well as marketing studies done for and by the tobacco industry demonstrates how powerful such imagery can be in suppressing perception of risk and manipulating behaviour. The message here is that affective feelings are intrinsic to 'value'. These feelings are easily manipulated and exploited. Although statistical and other health-science messages are important in combatting this predatory behaviour, we cannot depend on them alone. We have to learn to play 'the affect game', building images and feelings that promote healthful behaviour and block destructive risk-taking.
Wise policies, effectively implemented, are essential to the successful functioning of any complex organization. We can think of policy as being defined at the executive or command level and communicated throughout the organizational hierarchy in order to guide the decisions that must be taken at all levels. In the business world, for example, executive policies may establish the company philosophy regarding price, quality, and quantity. In the military world, policy may specify the appropriate weight to be given to achievement of some strategic objective relative to the risks to life, equipment, and political alliances that military action may place in jeopardy. In the technological world, policies are often framed within the context of a general analytic model such as cost/benefit or decision analysis. Quantitative tradeoff functions or utility curves may be derived to represent, in precise terms, “executive policy.”
OPINION article Front. Psychol., 15 November 2011Sec. Cognition volume 2 - 2011 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00294
Humans perceive and act on risk in two fundamental ways. Risk as feelings refers to individuals' instinctive and intuitive reactions to danger. Risk as analysis brings logic, reason, and scientific deliberation to bear on risk management. Reliance on risk as feelings is described as affect heuristic. This article traces the development of this heuristic and discusses some of the important ways that it impacts how people perceive and evaluate risk.
Current health care policy emphasizes improving health outcomes and the efficacy of health care delivery by supporting informed consumer choices. At the same time, health information often involves uncertainty, and many people may lack the skills and knowledge to process this information, manage their health and health care, and make informed choices. Innumeracy, an element of poor health literacy, is associated with the comprehension and use of important health information. We review this literature and examine what can be done to help less numerate people act more effectively and take charge of their health.
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We conducted a longitudinal survey of public response to the economic crisis to understand the trajectory of risk perception amidst an ongoing crisis. A nation-wide panel responded to seven surveys beginning in late September 2008 at the peak of the crisis and concluded in October 2009. At least 600 respondents participated in each survey, with 413 completing all seven surveys. Our online survey focused on perceptions of risk (savings, investments, retirement, job), negative emotions toward the financial crisis (sadness, anxiety, fear, anger, worry, stress), confidence in national leaders to manage the crisis (President Obama, Congress, Treasury Secretary, business leaders), and belief in one's ability to realize personal objectives despite the crisis. We employed latent growth curve modeling to analyze change in risk perception throughout the crisis. Our results suggest that, in general, people's perceptions of risk appear to decrease most rapidly during the initial phase of a crisis and then begin to level off. Negative emotion about the crisis was the most predictive of increased risk perception, supporting the notion of risk as feelings. Belief in one's ability to realize personal objectives was also predictive. Confidence in national leaders, however, was not predictive of perceived risk. Finally, our results demonstrate that groups may experience a crisis differently depending on a combination of personal characteristics such as gender, income, numeracy, and political attitude. Risk management and communication should work in sync with these mechanisms and differences across groups.
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According to the affect heuristic, people often rely upon their overall affective impression of a target to form judgments of risk. However, innovation research has largely characterized risk perception as a function of what the consumer knows rather than how they feel. In three studies, this research investigates the use of the affect heuristic in consumer judgments of product innovations. The findings indicate that judgments of risks and benefits associated with product innovations are inversely related and affectively congruent with evaluations of those innovations. Additionally, more affectively extreme evaluations are associated with increasingly disparate judgments of risk and benefit. This research contributes to our theoretical understanding of both consumers' evaluations of product innovations and the affect heuristic. Implications and suggestions for future research are also discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Die Fähigkeit, Gefahren aus der Umwelt zu erkennen und zu vermeiden, ist für fast alle Lebewesen zur Verbesserung ihrer Überlebenschancen nützlich. Die Fähigkeit, Erfahrungen im Umgang mit der Umwelt zu bewahren und daraus zu lernen,...
This article evaluates the psychological correlates of imperative speech through pronouns. We demonstrate that people communicate with more collective immediacy (“we” words) when using imperatives than nonimperatives in an experiment (Study 1, N = 828) and field studies of American politicians (Study 2a: N = 123,678 speeches), and Joseph Stalin (Study 2b: N = 593 speeches). However, respondents experience a psychological distancing effect after an imperative (fewer “I” words). This experimental pattern (Study 3: N = 852) also holds in the field using U.S. Supreme Court dissents from the Roberts Court (Study 4: N = 644). Exploratory findings suggest that third-person plural pronouns (“they” words) are used more when communicating imperative speech relative to nonimperative speech. Our evidence supports an interpersonal imperatives asymmetry: imperatives demand psychological support when communicating how the world must be, but they undermine the autonomy of respondents. Social and psychological implications of these data are discussed.
