Publications

We undertake a series of tests examining the extent to which the affect heuristic (Slovic et al., 2002) is or is not triggered by changes in the framing and hence context of assessments of hypothetical gamble tasks using a rating scale response mode. Our initial investigations examine the replicability of findings using the same parameters used by Slovic et al. We then examine the robustness of the affect phenomena across a number of previously unexplored dimensions. These latter tests can be subdivided into two types. First we consider the persistence of affective responses to changes in the parameters of a given gamble. Second, we consider whether or not certain individuals are relatively more or less ‘immune’ to the affect heuristic as a decision making rule. We find that the affect heuristic is a commonly applied decision rule in a variety of contexts.

The present report describes an expanded replication of the previous experiments in a nonlaboratory real-play setting unique to the experimental literature on decision processes - a casino in downtown Las Vegas.

Three experiments demonstrate how the processing of negations is contingent on the evaluation context in which the negative information is presented. In addition, the strategy used to process the negations induced different affective reactions toward the stimuli, leading to inconsistency of preference. Participants were presented with stimuli described by either stating the presence of positive features (explicitly positive alternative) or negating the presence of negative features (non-negative alternative). Alternatives were presented for either joint (JE) or separate evaluation (SE). Experiment 1 showed that the non-negative stimuli were judged less attractive than the positive ones in JE but not in SE. Experiment 2 revealed that the non-negative stimuli induced a less clear and less positive feeling when they were paired with explicitly positive stimuli rather than evaluated separately. Non-negative options were also found less easy to judge than the positive ones in JE but not in SE. Finally, Experiment 3 showed that people process negations using two different models depending on the evaluation mode. Through a memory task, we found that in JE people process the non-negative attributes as negations of negative features, whereas in SE they directly process the non-negative attributes as positive features.

Risks tend to be judged lower by men than by women and by white people than by people of colour. Prior research by Flynn, Slovic and Mertz [Risk Analysis, 14, pp. 1101-1108] found that these race and gender differences in risk perception in the United States were primarily due to 30% of the white male population who judge risks to be extremely low. The specificity of this finding suggests an explanation in terms of sociopolitical factors rather than biological factors. The study reported here presents new data from a recent national survey conducted in the United States. Although white males again stood apart with respect to their judgements of risk and their attitudes concerning worldviews, trust, and risk-related stigma, the results showed that the distinction between white males and others is more complex than originally thought. Further investigation of sociopolitical factors in risk judgements is recommended to clarify gender and racial differences.

People respond to the hazards they perceive. If their perceptions are faulty, efforts at public and environmental protection are likely to be misdirected. In order to improve hazard management, a risk assessment industry has developed over the last decade which...

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Risk management has become increasingly politicized and contentious. Polarized views, controversy, and conflict have become pervasive. Research has begun to provide a new perspective on this problem by demonstrating the complexity of the concept “risk” and the inadequacies of the traditionalview of risk assessment as a purely scientific enterprise. This paper argues that danger is real, but risk is socially constructed. Risk assessment is inherently subjective and represents a blending of science and judgmentwith important psychological, social, cultural, and political factors. In addition, our social and democratic institutions, remarkable as they are in many respects, breed distrust in the risk arena. Whoever controls the definition of risk controls the rational solution to the problem at hand. Ifrisk is defined one way, then one option will rise to the top as the most cost‐effective or the safest or the best. If it is defined another way, perhaps incorporating qualitative characteristics and other contextual factors, one will likely get a different ordering of action solutions. Definingrisk is thus an exercise in power. Scientific literacy and public education are important, but they are not central to risk controversies. The public is not irrational. Their judgments about risk are influenced by emotion and affect in a way that is both simple and sophisticated. The same holds true for scientists. Public views are also influenced by worldviews, ideologies, and values; so are scientists' views, particularly when they are working at the limits of their expertise. The limitations of risk science, the importance and difficulty of maintaining trust, and the complex, sociopolitical nature of risk point to the need for a new approach‐one that focuses upon introducing more public participation into both risk assessment and risk decision making in order to make the decision process more democratic, improve the relevance and quality of technical analysis, and increasethe legitimacy and public acceptance of the resulting decisions.

success stories throughout our history [place] a high premium on taking a chance. The pioneers took a chance; they were courageous killers of bears. These themes are instilled into the growing child without regard to sex. This is what Davy Crockett did, this is what the space cadet does. . . . Girls emerging from common patterns of babyhood suddenly learn, however, that their adult role is to be a different one [Alpenfels & Hayes, 1961, p. 107].

One of the main themes that has emerged from behavioral decision research during the past two decades is the view that people's preferences are often constructed-not merely revealed-in the process of elicitation.This conception is derived in part from studies demonstrating that normatively equivalent methods of elicitation often give rise to systematically different responses.These "preference reversals" violate the principle of procedure invariance fundamental to theories of rational choice and raise difficult questions about the nature of human values.If different elicitation procedures produce different orderings of options, how can preferences be defined and in what sense do they exist?Describing and explaining such failures of invariance will require choice models of far greater complexity than the traditional models.

An effort was made to construct two strupturaliy similar risk-taking tasks in order to evaluate inter-task consist�ncy of individual differences.•Only the mode of response differed between tatks.In one task; isub::fects' cho�e i' �---