Patients have the potential to play an important role in preventing medical errors. Yet little is known about how to effectively engage patients in this role as a "vigilant partner" in care. Respondents were asked to assess the perceived effectiveness of fourteen recommended actions for preventing medical errors. The findings indicate that most of the actions are viewed as effective. However, respondents also indicate that they are unlikely to engage in many of the recommended actions. Having a greater sense of self-efficacy in being able to prevent medical errors is significantly linked with a greater reported likelihood of engaging in preventive action.
No abstract is provided for this article.
Very often the risks of driving are expressed in terms of the total number of deaths that occur yearly as the result of motor vehicle operation. Yet, despite the thousands of people who die each year in automobiles in the U.S. alone, driving behavior seems relatively unresponsive to statistical portrayals of risk. Research in risk perception suggests that this apparent unresponsiveness is rooted in the manner by which risks are psychologically evaluated and judged. In general, perceptions of controllability of a hazard are a prime factor in personal assessments of its riskiness. Unfortunately, drivers appear to have an exaggerated sense of their personal control over driving situations and hazard potential, leaving them unrealistically optimistic about their chances of avoiding harm. However, emerging market countries seeking to develop better motor-vehicle risk management are cautious about drawing too heavily upon risk perception research conducted in industrialized countries with mature risk management institutions - risk as a concept appears highly conditioned on the cultural context within which it is experienced. Thus, emerging nations are encouraged to develop risk management approaches within their own cultural matrix, relying on a base of research stimulated by cross-cultural collaboration.
In this article, we present the results of a national survey of 1500 Canadians on their attitudes and opinions about health risks. Ratings of perceived risk, sources of information on health risks and responsibility for risk management were also investigated, with findings reported separately. A high degree of concern about health risks was associated with industrial pollution and chemical products (with the exception of medicines), with almost complete agreement that the land, air and water are more contaminated than ever. In addition, there was widespread belief that a risk‐free environment was an achievable goal, and an unwillingness to accept some health risks to improve the economy. Lifestyle factors such as diet, exercise, and tobacco smoking were perceived to be important modifiers of health risk. On the other hand, many respondents endorsed the idea that they had little control over the risks to their health.
No abstract is provided for this article.
Zero is a special value in our daily lives, and previous research on how zero values affect decision making leaves many questions to be explored. The present research examined the zero effect in life‐saving decisions and found that people expressed strong preferences for options offering a possibility that no one will die , even when the expected loss was relatively high. The prominence effect (the notion that the option with possibly zero deaths is easy to defend and justify) was proposed as one possible explanation. Furthermore, we also found that the zero effect in these life‐saving decisions occurs only in loss framing rather than gain framing. We discuss the relationships between the zero effect, framing, and evaluation mode in life saving and other domains.
Abstract : Decision making requires two sequential actions: assessing what one wants and then figuring how best to obtain that goal. Typically it is assumed that people know what they want and that, with a little care, those values can be elicited. Furthermore, it is assumed that people's values are sufficiently well developed to be elicited in whatever form is most convenient for the elicitor. Research reviewed here suggests that this may not be the case and that a fundamental change may be called for in the way we study and elicit values. The elicitation procedures used may be a major factor in shaping the values of people who do not hold well-formulated values. An elicitor can induce random error, systematic error or unduly extreme judgements. There may be no substitute for an interactive, dialectical elicitation procedures that acknowledges the elicitor's role in helping to create and enunciate values. Respondents might be provided with analytical tools to deepen their perspective and help them make values judgments in their own best interests. However, there is no guarantee that even the greatest of care will resolve fundamental inconsistencies in values, and it may, at times, be necessary to acknowledge that we do not know what we want and structure our actions accordingly.
Significance We cannot assume that the statistics of mass human crises will capture our attention or move us to take action, no matter how large the numbers. The data that we present show that the world was basically asleep as the body count in the Syrian war rose steadily into the hundreds of thousands. The iconic image of a young Syrian child, lying face-down on a beach, woke the world for a brief time, bringing much-needed attention to the war and the plight of its many victims. But this empathic response was short-lived. We outline the need for better laws, institutions, and decision-making procedures to channel empathy into appropriate and effective humanitarian actions by individuals and their governments.
Crises faced by regional or national governments are usually caused by either natural or human disasters or by the actions of terrorists or other nations. Decision making in the face of a crisis is difficult because the context typically is complex, and decision makers often have insufficient time or information to thoughtfully make decisions that will manage the crisis well. As a result, they often rely on brief discussions and past experiences that omit key dimensions of the crisis, which results in selection of an inferior response alternative. This article describes concepts and procedures to guide the initial phases of planning for crises so that if and when a crisis occurs, a proactively developed framework provides a sound foundation for quickly structuring decisions and implementing more detailed analyses in advance of taking specific crisis-response actions. Case-study examples are used to illustrate three main elements of our suggested approach: identifying the main dimensions of the decisions to be faced, articulating the objectives that are to be achieved, and generating a set of potentially desirable alternatives to best achieve these objectives. Although the decision analysis and behavioral science methods that we rely on are not novel, proactive structuring of crisis decisions that likely will need to be made quickly has been given only limited attention by analysts and decision makers. Improved recognition of the importance of decision-focused proactive planning should result in better decisions when a crisis occurs, leading to a reduction in the adverse consequences for countries and their citizens. Funding: This work was supported by Ben Delo and Longview Philanthropy.
The risk associated with radioactive and other hazardous waste disposal may be expected to interact with societal processes to enlarge or attenuate the consequences of risks and events. Using a data base of 128 hazard events that have ocurred largely over the past ten years, the authors examine the role of physical consequences, media coverage, and public perceptions of risks in generating social and economic impacts. The analysis concludes that social amplification processes substantially shape the nature and magnitude of those impacts but also that such social amplification appears to be systematically relate to characteristics of the risks and risk events.
No abstract is provided for this article.
Our understanding of the psychology of human judgment, preference and choice is continually evolving. Behavioral researchers are coming to recognize that there is an aspect of information-processing that has been rather neglected. This is the, experiential, affect-based side of our mental life, which appears every bit as important as the analytic/deliberative side that has been the focus of much prior research and the foundation for multi criteria decision analysis. This essay will briefly describe new research demonstrating the powerful influence of affect on decision-making. Reliance on affect is essential to rational behavior yet it sometimes misleads us. In such circumstances we need to ensure that reason also is employed.
A series of laboratory studies of insurance decision making shows that people buy more insurance against events having a moderately high probability of inflicting a relatively small loss than against low-probability, high-loss events. Two explanations are discussed, both contrary to traditional utility theory. One postulates a utility function convex over losses. The second asserts that people refuse to protect themselves against losses whose probability is below some threshold. This research provides insight into other, often puzzling, facts about people's insurance behavior. Relevance for public policy is discussed. What determines whether people will act to protect themselves from the severe consequences arising from a low probability event? The answer to this question is vital for understanding how people cope with the risks from accidents, diseases, and natural hazards and for helping them to manage their lives more effectively in the face of such risks. The importance of this question has motivated a major research project concerned with one class of risks, those from natural hazards (floods and earthquakes), and one class of protective mechanisms, insurance.' The project staff, under the direction of Howard Kunreuther, interviewed 2,000 homeowners residing in flood-prone areas, half of whom were insured and half uninsured. In addition, 1,000 homeowners residing in earthquakePaul Slovic, Ph.D., Baruch Fischhoff, Ph.D., and Sarah Lichtenstein, Ph.D., are Research Associates; Bernard G. Corrigan, M.A., is Research Programmer/Analyst; and Barbara J. Combs, M.A., is Research Assistant, all with Decision Research in Eugene, Oregon. Slovic, Fischhoff, and Lichtenstein have worked together for a number of years on psychological studies of judgment, risk taking, and decision processes. They have recently reviewed this field for the Annual Review of Psychology. Slovic and Fischhoff are consultants to the National Research Council's Committee on SocioEconomic Effects of Earthquake Predictions. Slovic is a member of the socio-political resource group of the National Academy of Sciences Study of Nuclear and Alternative Energy Systems and is Adjunct Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Oregon. 1 This research was supported by NSF-RANN Grant ATA 73-03064-A03 to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania under subcontract to the Oregon Research Institute. We thank Howard Kunreuther, Daniel Kahneman, and Amos Tversky for their invaluable contributions to this project. Frank Conklin supplied us with a prototype for the farm game. Comments and reprint requests may be addressed to the authors at Decision Research, 1201 Oak Street, Eugene, Oregon 97401.
No abstract is provided for this article.
I believe that my most important scientific contribution has been to participate in a decades-long collaboration with many fine colleagues in a program of research exploring the perception of risk. I shall briefly review the path this research has taken, its main contributions, and its importance to science and society.
Abstract Public attitudes toward nuclear weapons remain a critical issue in international security, yet the thinking behind individuals’ support or opposition to their use is not well understood. This study examines how the American public reasons about whether to deploy nuclear weapons in a hypothetical war between the United States and Iran. Participants were asked to state their preference between continuing a ground war, deploying a nuclear strike resulting in 100,000 civilian casualties, or deploying a strike killing 2 million civilians. They then provided an open-ended answer where they described the reasons for their decision. Using Structural Topic Modeling, we identified 10 distinct patterns in participants’ thinking. Some responses emphasized concerns about deterrence or saving lives, while others focused on national security, or retaliation, among other reasons. The type of thinking participants employed was found to be related to their preceding choice, as well as to individual characteristics, such as gender, political affiliation, punitive–authoritarian–nationalist attitudes, and the influence of the relative emotional impact of the 2 bombs (i.e., the better bomb effect). These findings highlight the complexity of the thinking underlying nuclear decision making and help shed light on potential avenues for reducing the risk of a nuclear weapon being deployed again.
