Slovic, Paul

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https://hdl.handle.net/1794/18931

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Open Access
Accident probabilities and seat belt usage: A psychological perspective
(Accident Analysis and Prevention, 1978) Slovic, Paul; Fischhoff, Baruch; Lichtenstein, Sarah
Motorists' reluctance to wear seat belts is examined in light of research showing (a) that protective behavior is influenced more by the probability of a hazard than by the magnitude of its consequences and (b) that people are not inclined to protect themselves voluntarily against very low probability threats. It is argued that the probability of death or injury on any single auto trip may be too low to incite a motorist's concern. Maintenance of a "single trip" perspective makes it unlikely that seat belts will be used. Change of perspective, towards consideration of the risks faced during a lifetime of driving, may increase the perceived probabilities of injury and death and, therefore, induce more people to wear seat belts.
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The Affect Heuristic In Early Judgments of Product Innovations
(Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 2014) King, Jesse; Slovic, Paul
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 innovations and the affect heuristic. Implications and suggestions for future research are also discussed.
Open Access
Affect, risk perception and future optimism after the tsunami disaster
(Society for Judgment and Decision Making, 2008-01) Vastfjall, Daniel; Peters, Ellen; Slovic, Paul
Environmental events such as natural disasters may influence the public’s affective reactions and decisions. Shortly after the 2004 Tsunami disaster we assessed how affect elicited by thinking about this disaster influenced risk perceptions and future time perspective in Swedish undergraduates not directly affected by the disaster. An experimental manipulation was used to increase the salience of affect associated with the disaster. In Study 1 we found that participants reminded about the tsunami had a sense that their life was more finite and included fewer opportunities than participants in the control condition (not reminded about the tsunami). In Study 2 we found similar effects for risk perceptions. In addition, we showed that manipulations of ease-of-thought influenced the extent to which affect influenced these risk perceptions, with greater ease of thoughts being associated with greater perceived risks.
Open Access
Affect, Risk, and Decision Making
(2005) Slovic, Paul; Peters, Ellen; Finucane, Melissa; MacGregor, Donald G.
Risk is perceived and acted on in 2 fundamental ways. Risk as feelings refers to individuals' fast, 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 with "the affect heuristic." The authors trace the development of this heuristic across a variety of research paths. The authors also discuss some of the important practical implications resulting from ways that this heuristic impacts how people perceive and evaluate risk, and, more generally, how it influences all human decision making. Finally, some important implications of the affect heuristic for communication and decision making pertaining to cancer prevention and treatment are briefly discussed.
Open Access
Affect, Values, and Nanotechnology Risk Perceptions: An Experimental Investigation
(Yale Law School, 2007-03) Kahan, Dan; Slovic, Paul; Braman, Donald; Gastil, John; Cohen, Geoffrey
Despite knowing little about nanotechnology (so to speak), members of the public readily form opinions on whether its potential risks outweigh its potential benefits. On what basis are they forming their judgments? How are their views likely to evolve as they become exposed to more information about this novel science? We conducted a survey experiment (N = 1,850) to answer these questions. We found that public perceptions of nanotechnology risks, like public perceptions of societal risks generally, are largely affect driven: individuals’ visceral reactions to nanotechnology (ones likely based on attitudes toward environmental risks generally) explain more of the variance in individuals’ perceptions of nanotechnology’s risks and benefits than does any other influence. These views are not static: even a small amount of information can generate changes in perceptions. But how those perceptions change depends heavily on individuals’ values. Using a between-subjects design, we found that individuals exposed to balanced information polarize along cultural and political lines relative to individuals not exposed to information. We discuss what these findings imply for understanding of risk perceptions generally and for the future of nanotechnology as a subject of political conflict and regulation.
Open Access
Affective reactions and context-dependent processing of negations
(Society for Judgment and Decision Making, 2008-12) Rubaltelli, Enrico; Slovic, Paul
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.
Open Access
Analyzing the expert judge: A descriptive study of a stockbroker's decision processes
(Journal of Applied Psychology, 1969) Slovic, Paul
This study illustrates an analysis-of-variance technique for describing the use of information by persons making complex judgments. Ss were two stockbrokers who rated the growth potential of stocks on the basis of 11 factors taken from Standard & Poor reports. The technique proved capable of providing a precise quantitative description of configural and nonconfigural information utilization. Each broker exhibited a substantial amount of configural processing. The technique appears to have promise for providing experts with insight into their own processes and for teaching and evaluating "student" judges.
Open Access
Analyzing the use of information in investment decision making: A methodological proposal
(1972) Slovic, Paul; Bauman, W. Scott; Fleissner, Dan
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
Attentional mechanisms in the generation of sympathy
(Society for Judgment and Decision Making, 2009-06) Dickert, Stephan; Slovic, Paul
Empathic responses, such as sympathy towards others,are a key ingredient in the decision to provide help to those in need. The determinants of empathic responses are usually thought to be the vividness, similarity, and proximity of the victim. However, recent research highlights the role that attention plays in the generation of feelings. We expanded on this idea by investigating whether sympathy depends on cognitive mechanisms such as attention. In two studies we found that sympathy responses were lower and reaction times were longer when targets were presented with distractors. In addition, online sympathy judgments that allow attentional focusing on a target lead to greater affective responses than judgements made from memory. We conclude that attention is an ingredient in the generation of sympathy, and discuss implications for research on prosocial behavior and the interaction between attention and emotions.
Open Access
Attitudes and Perceptions Associated with Osteoporosis and Its Treatments
(Decision Research, 1997-08) Satterfield, Terre; Johnson, Stephen; Neil, Nancy; Slovic, Paul
Open Access
Behavioral decision theory
(1977) Slovic, Paul; Lichtenstein, Sarah; Fischhoff, Baruch
Open Access
Behavioral decision theory perspectives on protective behavior
(Cambridge University, 1987) Slovic, Paul; Fischhoff, Baruch; Lichtenstein, Sarah
Open Access
Behavioral problems of adhering to a decision policy
(1973-05-01) Slovic, Paul
In my talk today, I am going to analyze the problems of adhering to policy from a psychological viewpoint. Some research will be described which indicates that we do indeed deviate from the policies we wish to follow. There are two key elements behind such deviations. The first sterns from changes over time in the goals, aspiration levels, or criteria that underlie our policies. Often, these changes are triggered by the fact that we are earning money or losing money. The second facet of nonadherence involves certain deficiencies in our thought processes. These deficiencies allow two villains—random error and systematic bias—to obliterate our policies, often without our awareness of the fact that this is happening. After reviewing research that demonstrates the ways in which we fail to adhere to policy, I'll close with a discussion of some techniques aimed at helping decision makers to follow their policies.
Open Access
Can word associations and affect be used as indicators of differentiation and consolidation in decision making?
(Decision Research, 2002-02) Svenson, Ola; Slovic, Paul
Two studies investigated how free associations to decision alternatives could be used to describe decision processes. Choices between San Francisco and San Diego as a vacation city were investigated in the first study with US participants. The participants were asked to list any association that occurred to them while thinking about each of the cities in turn. After this, the attractiveness values of these associations were elicited from each individual. Half of the subjects gave the associations before the decision and half after having made their decisions. In congruence with Differentiation and Consolidation theory (Svenson, 1996), the attractiveness values of the associations were more supportive of the chosen alternative after the decision than before primarily on more important attributes. The results also showed that a significant number of associations were neutral and had no affective positive or negative value. The participants in the second very similar study were also asked to rate their immediate holistic/overall emotional reactions to each of the vacation cities (in this case Paris and Rome with Swedish subjects) before the start of the experiment and the associations. After having given their associations, rated them and made their decisions, the participants were asked to go back to their earlier attractiveness ratings and judge the strengths of the emotional/affect and cognitive/rational value components of each of the earlier associations. The results replicated the results from the first study in that the average rated attractiveness of the associations to a chosen alternative was stronger after a decision than before. However, the change was smaller than in Study 1, which was interpreted as a possible result of the initial holistic associations given in Study 2. It was concluded that the technique of free associations is a valuable tool in process studies of decision making, here based on the Diff Con theoretical framework.
Open Access
The causes of preference reversal
(American Economic Association, 1990) Tversky, Amos; Slovic, Paul; Kahneman, Daniel
Observed preference reversal (PR) cannot be adequately explained by violations of independence, the reduction axiom, or transitivity. The primary cause of PR is the failure of procedure invariance, especially the overpricing of low-probability high-payoff bets. This result violates regret theory and generalized (nonindependent) utility models. PR and a new reversal involving time preferences are explained by scale compatibility, which implies that payoffs are weighted more heavily in pricing than in choice. (JEL 215)
Open Access
Characterizing perception of ecological risk
(1995) McDaniels, Timothy; Axelrod, Lawrence J.; Slovic, Paul
Relatively little attention has been paid to the role of human perception and judgment in ecological risk management. This paper attempts to characterize perceived ecological risk, using the psychometric paradigm developed in the domain of human health risk perception. The research began by eliciting a set of scale characteristics and risk items (e.g., technologies, actions, events, beliefs) from focus group participants. Participants in the main study were 68 university students who completed a survey instrument that elicited ratings for each of 65 items on 30 characteristic scales and one scale regarding general risk to natural environments. The results are presented in terms of mean responses over individuals for each scale and item combination. Factor analyses show that five factors characterize the judgment data. These have been termed: impact on species, human benefits, impact on humans, avoidability, and knowledge of impacts. The factor results correspond with initial expectations and provide a plausible characterization of judgments regarding ecological risk. Some comparisons of mean responses for selected individual items are also presented.
Open Access
A comparative analysis of risk perception in Hungary and the United States
(1986) Slovic, Paul; Fischhoff, Baruch; Englander, Tibor; Farago, Klara
Studies of risk perception attempt to determine how people characterize and evaluate the hazards of daily life. In the present study, questionnaires that have been used to study risk perception in the United States were translated and administered in Hungary, a country with a different hazard ecology and with different social and political processes for managing risks. Although Hungarians were found to classify hazards in ways similar to Americans on qualities such as catastrophic potential, knowability, and dread, there were strong differences in the level of perceived risk. Americans saw a greater degree of risk than Hungarians for 84 out 90 hazards that were studied. There were also systematic differences between Hungarian and American respondents in the ordering of risks. The Americans were most concerned about the risks from new, high technology hazards associated with the use of radiation and chemicals. In contrast, Hungarians were relatively more concerned about common, everyday hazards such as those associated with cars, trains, electric appliances, home gas furnaces, and childbirth. The social and psychological implications of these results are discussed.
Open Access
Compassion fade and the challenge of environmental conservation
(Society for Judgment and Decision Making, 2013-07) Markowitz, Ezra; Slovic, Paul; Vastfjall, Daniel; Hodges, Sara
Compassion shown towards victims often decreases as the number of individuals in need of aid increases, identifiability of the victims decreases, and the proportion of victims helped shrinks. Such “compassion fade” may hamper individual-level and collective responses to pressing large-scale crises. To date, research on compassion fade has focused on humanitarian challenges; thus, it remains unknown whether and to what extent compassion fade emerges when victims are non-human others. Here we show that compassion fade occurs in the environmental domain, but only among non-environmentalists. These findings suggest that compassion fade may challenge our collective ability and willingness to confront the major environmental problems we face, including climate change. The observed moderation effect of environmental identity further indicates that compassion fade may present a significant psychological barrier to building broad public support for addressing these problems. Our results highlight the importance of bringing findings from the field of judgment and decision making to bear on pressing societal issues.
Open Access
Compassion Fade: Affect and Charity Are Greatest for a Single Child in Need
(PLoS ONE, 2014) Vastfjall, Daniel; Slovic, Paul; Mayorga, Marcus; Peters, Ellen
Charitable giving in 2013 exceeded $300 billion, but why do we respond to some life-saving causes while ignoring others? In our first two studies, we demonstrated that valuation of lives is associated with affective feelings (self-reported and psychophysiological) and that a decline in compassion may begin with the second endangered life. In Study 3, this fading of compassion was reversed by describing multiple lives in a more unitary fashion. Study 4 extended our findings to loss-frame scenarios. Our capacity to feel sympathy for people in need appears limited, and this form of compassion fatigue can lead to apathy and inaction, consistent with what is seen repeatedly in response to many large-scale human and environmental catastrophes.

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