Decision Research Faculty Works

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Open Access
The Fear of Personal Death and the Willingness to Commit to Organ Donation
(Sage, 2023-09) Kogut, Tehila; Pittarello, Andrea; Slovic, Paul
In three studies, with samples from different countries (the United States and Israel) and religions (Christians and Jews), we found that individual levels of fear of death significantly predicted lower willingness to register as organ donors (Studies 1 and 2). Moreover, after being asked about their organ donation status (i.e., whether they are registered as donors), fear of death significantly increased among unregistered people. This did not occur among registered people, who had already faced the decision to become donors in the past (Study 2). Finally, providing non-registered (non-religious) people with a defense strategy to manage their fear of death increased their willingness to sign an organ donation commitment, partially by increasing their feelings of hopefulness. The implications of these findings for increasing organ donation registration are discussed.
Open Access
Self-Selected Interval Judgments Compared to Point Judgments: A Weight Judgment Experiment in the Presence of the Size-Weight Illusion
(PLOS, 2022-03-16) Gonzalez, Nichel; Svenson, Ola; Ekstrom, Magnus; Kristrom, Bengt; Nilsson, Mats E.
Measurements of human attitudes and perceptions have traditionally used numerical point judgments. In the present study, we compared conventional point estimates of weight with an interval judgment method. Participants were allowed to make step by step judgments, successively converging towards their best estimate. Participants estimated, in grams, the weight of differently sized boxes, estimates thus susceptible to the size-weight illusion. The illusion makes the smaller of two objects of the same weight, differing only in size, to be perceived as heavier. The self-selected interval method entails participants judging a highest and lowest reasonable value for the true weight. This is followed by a splitting procedure, consecutive choices of selecting the upper or lower half of the interval the individual estimates most likely to include the true value. Compared to point estimates, interval midpoints showed less variability and reduced the size-weight illusion, but only to a limited extent. Accuracy improvements from the interval method were limited, but the between participant variation suggests that the method has merit.
Open Access
People who are bad with numbers often find it harder to make ends meet – even if they are not poor
(The Conversation, 2021-12-20) Bruine de Bruin, Wandi; Slovic, Paul
People who are bad with numbers are more likely to experience financial difficulties than people who are good with numbers. That’s according to our analyses of the Lloyd’s Register Foundation World Risk Poll. In this World Risk Poll, people from 141 countries were asked if 10% was bigger than, smaller than or the same as 1 out of 10. Participants were said to be bad with numbers if they did not provide the correct answer – which is that 10% is the same as 1 out of 10. Our analyses found that people who answered incorrectly are often among the poorest in their country. Prior studies in the United States, United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Peru had also found that people who are bad with numbers are financially worse off. But our analyses of the World Risk Poll further showed that people who are bad with numbers find it harder to make ends meet, even if they are not poor.
Open Access
Low Numeracy is Associated with Poor Financial Well-being Around the World
(PLOS, 2021-11-22) Slovic, Paul; Bruine de Bruin, Wandi
Numeracy refers to the ability to use numbers, including converting percentages (e.g., 10%) into absolute frequencies (e.g., 1 in 10). Studies have suggested that numeracy is correlated to financial outcomes, suggesting its relevance to financial decisions. However, almost all research on numeracy has been conducted in high-income countries in Europe and North America. Our analyses suggest that low numeracy is much more common in low-income countries, thus potentially threatening the financial well-being of the world’s poorest. We analyzed data from the Lloyd’s Register Foundation World Risk Poll, which assessed basic numeracy in 141 countries, including 21 low-income, 34 lower middle income, 43 upper middle income, and 43 high-income countries. Numeracy was associated with being among the poorest 20% of one’s country, and with difficulty living on one’s income, even after accounting for income, education, and demographics. These findings underscore the importance of worldwide numeracy education.
Open Access
Under pressure: conservation choices and the threat of species extinction
(Springer Nature B.V., 2021-05-03) Gregory, Robin; Kozak, Robert; Peterson St-Laurent, Guillaume; Nawaz, Sara; Satterfield, Terre; Hagerman, Shannon
Shifts in species ranges and viability introduced by climate change are creating difficult challenges for scientists and citizens. In many cases, the seriousness of threats to endangered species is forcing policy makers and resource managers to consider novel species protection strategies, either to complement or replace existing conservation approaches. This paper seeks to deepen understanding of public views on a range of conventional and novel management initiatives designed to protect species under the threat of extinction, based on results from an online survey conducted in the USA and Canada. Participants first selected a preferred intervention strategy and were then pre- sented with a series of scenarios, focused on protection of the endangered bristlecone pine, which allowed them to explore their willingness to shift to a new policy regime with a better chance of protecting the species. The use of a decision-pathways survey design allowed us to examine the strength of the nudge required to elicit a shift in their position and the reasoning underlying selection of a preferred management alternative. Results generally support the conclusion that, so long as a clear rationale is provided, there exists surprisingly widespread support for the adoption of novel management approaches to save threatened or endangered species even if this requires more intensive genetic and transformational interventions that are costly or ethically challenging.
Open Access
Characterizing public perceptions of social and cultural impacts in policy decisions
(Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2021-04-22) Dieckmann, Nathan F.; Gregory, Robin; Satterfield, Terre; Mayorga, Marcus; Slovic, Paul
Social scientists and community advocates have expressed con- cerns that many social and cultural impacts important to citizens are given insufficient weight by decision makers in public policy decision-making. In two large cross-sectional surveys, we exam- ined public perceptions of a range of social, cultural, health, eco- nomic, and environmental impacts. Findings suggest that valued impacts are perceived through an initial lens that highlights both tangibility (how difficult it is to understand, observe, and make changes to an impact) and scope (how broadly an impact applies). Valued impacts thought to be less tangible and narrower in scope were perceived to have less support by both decision makers and the public. Nearly every valued impact was perceived to have more support from the public than from decision makers, with the exception of three economic considerations (revenues, profits, and costs). The results also demonstrate that many valued impacts do not fit neatly into the single-category distinctions typically used as part of impact assessments and cost–benefit analyses. We pro- vide recommendations for practitioners and suggest ways that these results can foster improvements to the quality and defensi- bility of risk and impact assessments.
Open Access
Norm Avoiders: The Effect of Optional Descriptive Norms on Charitable Donations
(Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 2021-03-01) Andersson, Per A.; Erlandsson, Arvid; Västfjäll, Daniel
Knowing the descriptive norm concerning others' prosociality could affect your behavior, but would you seek out or avoid such knowledge? This high-powered preregistered experiment explores the effect of both forced and optionally revealed descriptive norms on real monetary donations. These norms were established by learning the proportion of previous participants who had donated to a charitable organization that the respondent now was asked to donate to. For those learning about a norm, participants were more likely to donate if they were shown that a majority donates, compared with if they were shown that a minority donates. For the participants who were asked if they wanted to reveal the norm or not, we found that about half choose to reveal the norm. Those who avoided revealing the norm donated less frequently; both compared with revealers and with those who were forced to view the norm. However, these norm avoiders also donate a higher mean amount. Taken together, this hints at norm avoiders being composed of both altruistic and non-altruistic people, with fewer of those who are undecided. This type of norm avoidance may be more related to information avoidance motives rather than mere curiosity or reactance. The present findings can inspire further research into the motives of norm avoidance.
Open Access
The Troubling Logic of Inclusivity in Environmental Consultations
(Science, Technology, & Human Values, 2017) Gregory, Robin
Inclusivity is widely considered a requirement of defensible environmental risk consultations and is often either mandated or recommended to help ensure attention to stakeholders’ diverse views. Experience suggests the opposite: the emphasis on an inclusive consultation process often makes it impossible for decision makers to listen carefully to stakeholders and for citizens’ views to influence the design and choice of proposed actions. This paper briefly reviews the promise of environmental risk consultations before outlining several of the more serious problems associated with an emphasis on inclusivity: long lists of undifferentiated concerns, facts tainted by stakeholders’ perspectives and worldviews, little access to clarifying dialogue or tests of expertise, few opportunities to scrutinize knowledge quality, avoidance of controversial issues, and an overwhelming abundance of information. As a result, the promotion of inclusivity often serves as a convenient excuse for decision makers to silence citizens by substituting quantity for quality, breadth for depth, and an adversarial approach for dialogue and informed understanding.
Open Access
Iconic photographs and the ebb and flow of empathic response to humanitarian disasters
(National Academy of Sciences, 2016-12-08) Slovic, Paul; Vastfjall, Daniel; Erlandsson, Arvid; Gregory, Robin
The power of visual imagery is well known, enshrined in such familiar sayings as “seeing is believing” and “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Iconic photos stir our emotions and transform our perspectives about life and the world in which we live. On September 2, 2015, photographs of a young Syrian child, Aylan Kurdi, lying face-down on a Turkish beach, filled the front pages of newspapers worldwide. These images brought much-needed attention to the Syrian war that had resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and created millions of refugees. Here we present behavioral data demonstrating that, in this case, an iconic photo of a single child had more impact than statistical reports of hundreds of thousands of deaths. People who had been unmoved by the relentlessly rising death toll in Syria suddenly appeared to care much more after having seen Aylan’s photograph; however, this newly created empathy waned rather quickly.We briefly examine the psychological processes underlying these findings, discuss some of their policy implications, and reflect on the lessons they provide about the challenges to effective intervention in the face of mass threats to human well-being.
Open Access
Response: Commentary: Greater emotional gain from giving in older adults: Age-related positivity bias in charitable giving
(Frontiers Media, 2016-11-30) Bjalkebring, Par; Vastfjall, Daniel; Dickert, Stephan; Slovic, Paul
We thank Hargis and Oppenheimer (2016) for their interesting commentary to our article (Bjälkebring et al., 2016). Age-related changes in decision making are indeed a relatively unexplored phenomenon especially when it comes to more specific decision situations such as prosocial acts.
Open Access
Developing Responsive Indicators of Indigenous Community Health
(MDPI, 2016-09-09) Donatuto, Jamie; Campbell, Larry; Gregory, Robin
How health is defined and assessed is a priority concern for Indigenous peoples due to considerable health risks faced from environmental impacts to homelands, and because what is “at risk” is often determined without their input or approval. Many health assessments by government agencies, industry, and researchers from outside the communities fail to include Indigenous definitions of health and omit basic methodological guidance on how to evaluate Indigenous health, thus compromising the quality and consistency of results. Native Coast Salish communities (Washington State, USA) developed and pilot-tested a set of Indigenous Health Indicators (IHI) that reflect non-physiological aspects of health (community connection, natural resources security, cultural use, education, self-determination, resilience) on a community scale, using constructed measures that allow for concerns and priorities to be clearly articulated without releasing proprietary knowledge. Based on initial results from pilot-tests of the IHI with the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community (Washington State, USA), we argue that incorporation of IHIs into health assessments will provide a more comprehensive understanding of Indigenous health concerns, and assist Indigenous peoples to control their own health evaluations.
Open Access
Greater Emotional Gain from Giving in Older Adults: Age-Related Positivity Bias in Charitable Giving
(Frontiers Media, 2016-06-15) Bjalkebring, Par; Vastfjall, Daniel; Dickert, Stephan; Slovic, Paul
Older adults have been shown to avoid negative and prefer positive information to a higher extent than younger adults. This positivity bias influences their information processing as well as decision-making. We investigate age-related positivity bias in charitable giving in two studies. In Study 1 we examine motivational factors in monetary donations, while Study 2 focuses on the emotional effect of actual monetary donations. In Study 1, participants (n D 353, age range 20–74 years) were asked to rate their affect toward a person in need and then state how much money they would be willing to donate to help this person. In Study 2, participants (n D 108, age range 19–89) were asked to rate their affect toward a donation made a few days prior. Regression analysis was used to investigate whether or not the positivity bias influences the relationship between affect and donations. In Study 1, we found that older adults felt more sympathy and compassion and were less motivated by negative affect when compared to younger adults, who were motivated by both negative and positive affect. In Study 2, we found that the level of positive emotional reactions from monetary donations was higher in older participants compared to younger participants. We find support for an age-related positivity bias in charitable giving. This is true for motivation to make a future donation, as well as affective thinking about a previous donation. We conclude that older adults draw more positive affect from both the planning and outcome of monetary donations and hence benefit more from engaging in monetary charity than their younger counterparts.
Open Access
The Arithmetic of Emotion: Integration of Incidental and Integral Affect in Judgments and Decisions
(Frontiers Media, 2016-03-08) Vastfjall, Daniel; Slovic, Paul; Burns, William J.; Erlandsson, Arvid; Koppel, Lina; Asutay, Erkin; Tinghog, Gustav
Research has demonstrated that two types of affect have an influence on judgment and decision making: incidental affect (affect unrelated to a judgment or decision such as a mood) and integral affect (affect that is part of the perceiver’s internal representation of the option or target under consideration). So far, these two lines of research have seldom crossed so that knowledge concerning their combined effects is largely missing. To fill this gap, the present review highlights differences and similarities between integral and incidental affect. Further, common and unique mechanisms that enable these two types of affect to influence judgment and choices are identified. Finally, some basic principles for affect integration when the two sources co-occur are outlined. These mechanisms are discussed in relation to existing work that has focused on incidental or integral affect but not both.
Open Access
Mental Imagery, Impact, and Affect: A Mediation Model for Charitable Giving
(PLoS ONE, 2016-02-09) Dickert, Stephan; Kleber, Janet; Vastfjall, Daniel; Slovic, Paul
One of the puzzling phenomena in philanthropy is that people can show strong compassion for identified individual victims but remain unmoved by catastrophes that affect large numbers of victims. Two prominent findings in research on charitable giving reflect this idiosyncrasy: The (1) identified victim and (2) victim number effects. The first of these suggests that identifying victims increases donations and the second refers to the finding that people’s willingness to donate often decreases as the number of victims increases. While these effects have been documented in the literature, their underlying psychological processes need further study. We propose a model in which identified victim and victim number effects operate through different cognitive and affective mechanisms. In two experiments we present empirical evidence for such a model and show that different affective motivations (donor-focused vs. victim-focused feelings) are related to the cognitive processes of impact judgments and mental imagery. Moreover, we argue that different mediation pathways exist for identifiability and victim number effects.
Open Access
Conflicting health information: a critical research need
(Wiley Open Access, 2015-11-22) Carpenter, Delesha; Geryk, Lorie; Chen, Annie; Nagler, Rebekah; Dieckmann, Nathan; Han, Paul
Conflicting health information is increasing in amount and visibility, as evidenced most recently by the controversy surrounding the risks and benefits of childhood vaccinations. The mechanisms through which conflicting information affects individuals are poorly understood; thus, we are unprepared to help people process conflicting information when making important health decisions. In this viewpoint article, we describe this problem, summarize insights from the existing literature on the prevalence and effects of conflicting health information, and identify important knowledge gaps. We propose a working definition of conflicting health information and describe conceptual typology to guide future research in this area. The typology classifies conflicting information according to four fundamental dimensions: the substantive issue under conflict, the number of conflicting sources (multiplicity), the degree of evidence heterogeneity and the degree of temporal inconsistency.
Open Access
Scope insensitivity: The limits of intuitive valuation of human lives in public policy
(2015-11-04) Dickert, Stephan; Vastfjall, Daniel; Kleber, Janet; Slovic, Paul
A critical question for government officials, managers of NGOs, and politicians is how to respond to situations in which large numbers of lives are at risk. Theories in judgment and decision making as well as economics suggest diminishing marginal utility with increasing quantities of goods. In the domain of lifesaving, this form of non-linearity implies decreasing concern for individual lives as the number of affected people increases. In this paper, we show how intuitive valuations based on prosocial emotions can lead to scope insensitivity and suboptimal responses to lives at risk. We present both normative and descriptive models of valuations of lives and discuss the underlying psychological processes as they relate to judgments and decisions made in public policy and by NGOs.
Open Access
Public perceptions of expert disagreement: Bias and incompetence or a complex and random world?
(2015-11-04) Dieckmann, Nathan, F; Johnson, Branden B.; Gregory, Robin; Mayorga, Marcus; Han, Paul, KJ; Slovic, Paul
Expert disputes can present laypeople with several challenges including trying to understand why such disputes occur. In an online survey of the U.S. public, we used a psychometric approach to elicit perceptions of expert disputes for 56 forecasts sampled from seven domains (climate change, crime, economics, environment, health, politics, terrorism). People with low education, or with low self-reported knowledge of the topic, were most likely to attribute expert disputes to expert incompetence. People with higher self-reported knowledge tended to attribute disputes to expert bias due to financial or ideological reasons. The more highly educated and cognitively able were most likely to attribute disputes to natural factors, such as the irreducible complexity and randomness of the phenomenon. We highlight several important implications of these results for scientists and risk managers and argue for further research on how people perceive and grapple with expert disputes.
Open Access
Psychological aspects of the rejection of recycled water: Contamination, purification and disgust
(2015-11-04) Rozin, Paul; Haddad, Brent; Nemeroff, Carol; Slovic, Paul
There is a worldwide and increasing shortage of potable fresh water. Modern water reclamation technologies can alleviate much of the problem by converting wastewater directly into drinking water, but there is public resistance to these approaches that has its basis largely in psychology. A psychological problem is encapsulated in the saying of those opposing recycled water: “toilet to tap.” We report the results of two surveys, one on a sample of over 2,000 Americans from five metropolitan areas and the second on a smaller sample of American undergraduates, both assessing attitudes to water and water purification. Approximately 13% of our adult American sample definitely refuses to try recycled water, while 49% are willing to try it, with 38% uncertain. Both disgust and contamination sensitivity predict resistance to consumption of recycled water. For a minority of individuals, no overt treatment of wastewater will make it acceptable for drinking (“spiritual contagion”), even if the resultant water is purer than drinking or bottled water. Tap water is reliably rated as significantly more desirable than wastewater that has undergone substantially greater purification than occurs with normal tap water. Framing and contagion are two basic psychological processes that influence recycled water rejection.
Open Access
Pseudoinefficacy: negative feelings from children who cannot be helped reduce warm glow for children who can be helped
(2015-11-04) Vastfjall, Daniel; Slovic, Paul; Mayorga, Marcus
In a great many situations where we are asked to aid persons whose lives are endangered, we are not able to help everyone. What are the emotional and motivational consequences of “not helping all”? In a series of experiments, we demonstrate that negative affect arising from children that could not be helped decreases the warm glow of positive feeling associated with aiding the children who can be helped. This demotivation from the children outside of our reach may be a form of “pseudoinefficacy” that is non-rational. We should not be deterred from helping whomever we can because there are others we are not able to help.
Open Access
Scope insensitivity in helping decisions: Is it a matter of culture and values?
(Journal of Experimental Psychology: General., 2015-09-14) Kogut, Tehila; Slovic, Paul; Vastfjall, Daniel
The singularity effect of identifiable victims refers to people’s greater willingness to help a single concrete victim, as compared with a group of victims experiencing the same need. We present three studies exploring values and cultural sources of this effect. In the first study, the singularity effect was found only among western Israelis and not among Bedouin participants (a more collectivist group). In study 2 individuals with higher collectivist values were more likely to contribute to a group of victims. Finally, the third study demonstrates a more causal relationship between collectivist values and the singularity effect by showing that enhancing people's collectivist values using a priming manipulation produces similar donations to single victims and groups. Moreover, participants' collectivist preferences mediated the interaction between the priming conditions and singularity of the recipient. Implications for several areas of psychology and ways to enhance caring for groups in need are discussed.