Economic activities are always supposed to carry with them the risk of market. Our area of research is concerned with what is known as the model of risk decisions at the level of economic activity; a model that can be valuable at any point of economic development. In our research, we present important aspects of risk in taking decisions in the previous and current dynamics of the market. The conditions of taking decisions (...) with potential risks provide decision-makers with the possibility to analyze and calculate risk in order to know what can be gained and lost. In our paper, we present a short description of a different model of risk in economic activity and of decision-making risk, providing examples that have been offered by various authors. For example, Friedman and Savage present the utility function of an economic agent and its availability to accept the risk, while Markowitz defines utility in terms of winning or losing. Our paper starts with a presentation of the quantification of risk in economic activity. In the second part, we present a model of decision-making risk that is applied in economic activities and the difference between risk and uncertainty. (shrink)

Background Ethical decision making in intensive care is a demanding task. The need to proceed to ethical decision is considered to be a stress factor that may lead to burnout. The aim of this study is to explore the ethical problems that may increase burnout levels among physicians and nurses working in Portuguese intensive care units . A quantitative, multicentre, correlational study was conducted among 300 professionals.Results The most crucial ethical decisions made by professionals working in ICU were related (...) to communication, withholding or withdrawing treatments and terminal sedation. A positive relation was found between ethical decision making and burnout in nurses, namely, between burnout and the need to withdraw treatments , to withhold treatments and to proceed to terminal sedation . This did not apply to physicians. Emotional exhaustion was the burnout subdimension most affected by the ethical decision. The nurses' lack of involvement in ethical decision making was identified as a risk factor. Nevertheless, in comparison with nurses , it was the physicians who more keenly felt the need to proceed to ethical decisions in ICU.Conclusions Ethical problems were reported at different levels by physicians and nurses. The type of ethical decisions made by nurses working in Portuguese ICUs had an impact on burnout levels. This did not apply to physicians. This study highlights the need for education in the field of ethics in ICUs and the need to foster inter-disciplinary discussion so as to encourage ethical team deliberation in order to prevent burnout. (shrink)

In the 1940s and 1950s thousands of lobotomies were performed on people with mental disorders. These operations were known to be dangerous, but thought to offer great hope. Nowadays, the lobotomies of the 1940s and 1950s are widely condemned. The consensus is that the practitioners who employed them were, at best, misguided enthusiasts, or, at worst, evil. In this paper I employ standard decision theory to understand and assess shifts in the evaluation of lobotomy. Textbooks of medical decision making (...) generally recommend that decisions under risk are made so as to maximise expected utility (MEU) I show that using this procedure suggests that the 1940s and 1950s practice of psychosurgery was justifiable. In making sense of this finding we have a choice: Either we can accept that psychosurgery was justified, in which case condemnation of the lobotomists is misplaced. Or, we can conclude that the use of formal decision procedures, such as MEU, is problematic. (shrink)

We conduct experiments to analyze investment behavior in decisions under risk. Subjects can bet on the outcomes of a series of coin tosses themselves, rely on randomized ‘experts’, or choose a risk-free alternative. We observe that subjects who rely on the randomized experts pick those who were successful in the past, showing behavior consistent with the hot hand belief. Obviously the term ‘expert’ suffices to attract some subjects. For those who decide on their own, we find (...) behavior consistent with the gambler’s fallacy, as the frequency of betting on heads (tails) decreases after streaks of heads (tails). (shrink)

Decision-making competence reflects individual differences in the susceptibility to decision-making errors, measured using tasks common from behavioral decision research (e.g., framing effects, under/overconfidence, following decision rules). Prior research demonstrates that those with higher decision-making competence report lower incidence of health-risking and antisocial behaviors, but there has been less focus on intermediate mechanisms that may impact real-world decisions, and, in particular, those implicated by normative models. Here we test the associations between measures of youth decision-making competence (Y-DMC) and one (...) such mechanism, the degree to which individuals make choices consistent with maximizing expected value (EV). Using a task involving hypothetical gambles, we find that greater EV sensitivity is associated with greater Y-DMC. Higher Y-DMC scores are associated with (a) choosing risky options when expected value favors those options and (b) avoiding risky options when expected value favors a certain option. This relationship is stronger for gambles that involved potential losses. The results suggest that Y-DMC captures decision processes consistent with standard normative evaluations of risky decisions. (shrink)

This paper investigates the behavior of contestants in the game show “Quiz Taxi” when faced with the decision whether to bet the winnings they have acquired on a final “double or nothing” question. The decision in this natural experiment is made by groups of two or three persons. This setup enables the decision-making process to be studied with regard to group and communication characteristics. The contestants show fairly risk averse behavior. There is also a significant heterogeneity in (...) attitude to risk. In particular, all-female groups are much less likely to go for the risky option. Furthermore, decision-making behavior appears to vary across differently composed groups and prior performance. The study also documents the importance of discussions: The propensity to gamble increases with discussion length, and the correlation between communication content and the final choice is strong, indicating that time and subjective context are important features of decisions made under risk. (shrink)

In addition to probabilities of monetary gains and losses, personality traits, socio-economic factors, and specific contexts such as emotions and framing influence financial risk taking. Here, we investigated the effects of joyful, neutral, and sad mood states on participants’ risk-taking behaviour in a simple task with safe and risky options. We also analysed the effect of framing on risk taking. In different trials, a safe option was framed in terms of either financial gains or losses. Moreover, (...) we investigated the effects of emotional contagion and sensation-seeking personality traits on risk taking in this task. We did not observe a significant effect of induced moods on risk taking. Sad mood resulted in a slight non-significant trend of risk aversion compared to a neutral mood. Our results partially replicate previous findings regarding the presence of the framing effect. As a novel finding, we observed that participants with a low emotional contagion score demonstrated increased risk aversion during a sad mood and a similar trend at the edge of significance was present in high sensation seekers. Overall, our results highlight the importance of taking into account personality traits of experimental participants in financial risk-taking studies. (shrink)

Conventional economic theory assumes that agents should be consistent across decisions. However, it is often observed that experimental subjects fail to report consistent preferences. So far, these inconsistencies are almost always examined singly. We thus wonder whether the more inconsistent individuals in one task are also more inconsistent in other tasks. We propose an experiment in which subjects are asked to report their preferences over risky bets so as to obtain, for each subject, three measures of inconsistencies: classical preference (...) reversals, framing effects and preference instability. In line with previous experimental findings, subjects are largely inconsistent according to each of these three measures and there are considerable individual differences. The main result is that we find no correlation among these three measures of inconsistency. (shrink)

Should the assessment of decision‐making capacity (DMC) be risk sensitive, that is, should the threshold for DMC vary with risk? The debate over this question is now nearly five decades old. To many, the idea that DMC assessments should be risk sensitive is intuitive and commonsense. To others, the idea is paternalistic or incoherent, or both; they argue that the riskiness of a given decision should increase the epistemic scrutiny in the evaluation of DMC, not increase (...) the threshold for DMC. We respond to the critics’ main concerns by providing a comprehensive account of how risk‐sensitive DMC is coherent, avoids paternalism, and best fulfills the epistemic goal of DMC evaluations. (shrink)

We report in this paper the result of three experiments on risk, ambiguity and time attitude. The first two differed by the population considered (students vs. general population) while the third one used a different protocol and concerned students and portfolio managers. We find quite a lot of heterogeneity at the individual level. Of principal interest was the elicitation of risk, time and ambiguity attitudes and the relationship among these (model free) measures. We find that on the student (...) population, there is essentially no correlation. A non negligible fraction of the population behaves in an extremely cautious manner in the risk and ambiguity domain. When we drop this population from the sample, the correlation between our measures is also non significant. We also raise three questions linked to measurement of ambiguity attitudes that come out from our data sets. (shrink)

We evaluate the consistency of different constructs affecting risk attitude in individuals’ decisions across different levels of risk. Specifically, we contrast views suggesting that risk attitude is a single primitive construct with those suggesting it consists of multiple latent components. Additionally, we evaluate such constructs as sensitivity to losses, diminishing sensitivity to increases in payoff, sensitivity to variance, and risk acceptance (the willingness to accept probable outcomes over certainty). In search of trait-like constructs, the (...) paper reviews experimental results focusing on the consistency of these constructs in different tasks as well as their temporal consistency. Overall, the findings show that the most consistent factor is risk acceptance, and they also demonstrate its potential boundaries. These results are modeled with a simple quantitative index of subjective risk. A survey of decisions under risk further reveals that participants exhibit almost no consistency across different tasks in this setting, highlighting the advantage of experiential tasks for studying individual differences. (shrink)

The "two-envelopes" problem has stimulated much discussion on probabilistic reasoning, but relatively little experimentation. The problem specifies two identical envelopes, one of which contains twice as much money as the other. You are given one of the envelopes and the option of keeping it or trading for the other envelope. Variables of interest include the possible amounts of money involved, what is known about the process by which the amounts of money were assigned to the envelopes, and whether you are (...) allowed to know how much money is in the envelope in hand before deciding whether to keep or trade. In an earlier study, Butler and Nickerson found that when participants were allowed to know how much was in the envelope in hand, they generally elected to trade if that amount was small relative to the range of possibilities and to keep otherwise. The present experiments showed that this propensity was independent of the amount of money in the envelopes. Participants made decisions with a strong bias for avoiding the risk of losing by trading, particularly when the amount in hand was known and large relative to the range of possible amounts, regardless of the absolute value of the gamble. The results illustrate the dependence of thinking on the context in which it occurs, and demonstrate a tendency to treat quantities that are large or small relative to a particular context in which they are encountered as though they were large or small in a more general sense. (shrink)

Decision Making Competence (DMC) reflects individual differences in rational responding across several classic behavioral decision-making tasks. Although it has been associated with real-world risk behavior, less is known about the degree to which DMC contributes to specific components of risk attitudes. Utilizing a psychological risk-return framework, we examined the associations between risk attitudes and DMC. Italian community residents (n = 804) completed an online DMC measure, using a subset of the original Adult-DMC battery (A-DMC; Bruine (...) de Bruin, Parker, & Fischhoff, 2007). Participants also completed a self-reported risk attitude measure for three components of risk attitudes (risk-taking, risk perceptions, and expected benefits) across six risk domains. Overall, greater performance on the DMC component scales were inversely, albeit modestly, associated with risk-taking tendencies. Structural equation modeling results revealed that DMC was associated with lower perceived expected benefits for all domains. In contrast, its association with perceived risks was more domain-specific. These analyses also revealed stronger indirect effects for the DMC  expected benefits  risk-taking than the DMC  perceived risk  risk-taking path, especially for risk behaviors that may be considered more antisocial in nature. These results suggest that DMC performance differentially impacts specific components of risk attitudes, and may be more strongly related to the evaluation of expected value of the given behavior. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to propose a preferences representation model under risk where risk perception can be past experience dependent. A first step consists in considering a one period decision problem where individual preferences are no more defined only on decisions but on pairs (decision, past experience). The obtained criterion is used in the construction of a dynamic choice model under risk. The paper ends with an illustrative example concerning insurance demand. It appears (...) that our model allows to explain modifications in the insurance demand behavior over time observed on the insurance markets for catastrophic risk and difficult to justify with standard models. (shrink)

In this article, ambiguity attitude is measured through the maximum price a decision maker is willing to pay to know the probability of an event. Two problems are examined in which the decision maker faces an act: in one case, buying information implies playing a lottery, while, in the other case, buying information gives also the option to avoid playing the lottery. In both decision settings, relying on the Choquet expected utility model, we study how the decision maker’s risk (...) and ambiguity attitudes affect the reservation price for ambiguity resolution. These effects are analyzed for different levels of ambiguity of the act. Operating instructions for the elicitation of the reservation price for ambiguity resolution in an experimental setting are provided at the end of the article. (shrink)

The analysis of the nexus between the value of information and risk is examined for sequential decisions with different degrees of future commitment, as e.g. environmental decisions. We find that in the linear case a riskier environment in general will increase the value of information. This result will be extended in the separable case to decreasing and increasing stochastic returns to scale. An example shows the ambiguity in the general case.

Underscoring the economic significance of the Knightian distinction between risk and uncertainty, Don Katzner forcefully challenges the continued dominance of the expected utility model based on subjective probability in macroeconomic analysis and offers in its place a simple yet elegant model of decision making inspired by the pioneering work of G.L.S. Shackle. In doing so, Katzner lends support to a research program to identify a more coherent and empirically grounded theory of decision making under uncertainty. Our paper makes three (...) contributions to this program. First, we argue that the appropriate choice of a model of individual behavior under uncertainty cannot be adjudicated merely on logical, a priori grounds, but must ultimately be based on consistency with observed behavior. There are many internally consistent models and their external conditions of validity hardly ever rely on inconceivable scenarios. Second, while Katzner’s model certainly provides a plausible foundation for understanding choice under uncertainty, we suggest that it is somewhat underdetermined. It requires further theoretical articulation to yield testable predictions which differentiate it from competing approaches. Third, we discuss recent experimental findings that may need to be addressed by any satisfactory theoretical account of decision making under uncertainty. (shrink)

This paper examines women’s experiences with decision-making about non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT). Such tests offer knowledge about chromosomal disorders early in pregnancy, without the risk of miscarriage associated with invasive procedures such as amniocentesis. Based on qualitative interviews with women in Germany who used, or declined, NIPT, we show how some women, who would not consider amniocentesis due to the risk of miscarriage, welcome the knowledge provided by, and the additional agency resulting from, NIPT. For (...) others, declining the offer to “know more” becomes increasingly difficult to articulate. The absence of risk strips women of a “good reason” to justify their decision not to test, thus implicitly challenging their “right not to know.” Moreover, NIPT heightens moral dilemmas within relationships with partners, existing children, and sometimes other close relatives. While clinically “non-invasive,” we argue that NIPT changes decision-making in an ethically and socially highly significant way. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to examine the factors influencing ethical business decision-making on environmental issues, among employees of SMEs. To do so, a survey study was performed with 394 top managers of SMEs in the UAE using a questionnaire, and the data was statistically evaluated using SmartPLS 3.0. The results suggest that prior technology use has significant positive relationships with ethical decision-making and the level of risk acceptance. Furthermore, perceived competitive pressure has significant positive relationships (...) with ethical decision-making and confidence level. In comparison, the level of risk acceptance and confidence level have significant positive relationships with ethical decision-making. Results also demonstrate that the level of risk acceptance mediates the relationship between prior technology use and ethical decision-making. There is also a significant and positive association between perceived competitive pressure and ethical decision-making with a mediating impact of the confidence level. (shrink)

The paper re-expresses arguments against the normative validity of expected utility theory in Robin Pope (1983, 1991a, 1991b, 1985, 1995, 2000, 2001, 2005, 2006, 2007). These concern the neglect of the evolving stages of knowledge ahead (stages of what the future will bring). Such evolution is fundamental to an experience of risk, yet not consistently incorporated even in axiomatised temporal versions of expected utility. Its neglect entails a disregard of emotional and financial effects on well-being before a particular (...) class='Hi'>risk is resolved. These arguments are complemented with an analysis of the essential uniqueness property in the context of temporal and atemporal expected utility theory and a proof of the absence of a limit property natural in an axiomatised approach to temporal expected utility theory. Problems of the time structure of risk are investigated in a simple temporal framework restricted to a subclass of temporal lotteries in the sense of David Kreps and Evan Porteus (1978). This subclass is narrow but wide enough to discuss basic issues. It will be shown that there are serious objections against the modification of expected utility theory axiomatised by Kreps and Porteus (1978, 1979). By contrast the umbrella theory proffered by Pope that she has now termed SKAT, the Stages of Knowledge Ahead Theory, offers an epistemically consistent framework within which to construct particular models to deal with particular decision situations. A model by Caplin and Leahy (2001) will also be discussed and contrasted with the modelling within SKAT (Pope, Leopold and Leitner 2007). (shrink)

In his paper, ‘Patients, doctors and risk attitudes’, Makins argues that doctors, when choosing a treatment for their patient, need to follow their risk profile.1 He presents a pair of fictitious diseases facing a patient who either has ‘exemplitis’, which requires no treatment or ‘caseopathy’, which is severe and disabling and for which there is a treatment with unpleasant side effects. The doctor needs to decide whether the patient should pursue the unpleasant treatment, just in case he (...) has caseopathy. Makins believes that rational-choice theory is a productive way to approach this problem. This theory frames all decisions as gambles. Each possible gamble (eg, not to pursue treatment) leads, probabilistically, to a set of outcomes (life with no disease and no side effects, but also, possibly, life with a disabling disease, since no treatment is taken). Utilities of these outcomes and probabilities that they will happen are combined to yield a number—expected utility. One is supposed to gamble—to make a choice—in a way that maximises this expected utility. Makins takes this framework for granted and is focused on an additional complication, the patient’s risk preference. He believes that, in his hypothetical example, even if expected utility were exactly the same, withholding treatment …. (shrink)

Voters satisfy maximin or maximax in their choices between sets of alternatives and secure a Pareto improvement by all voting strategically under simple majority voting for particular sincere preferences. Thus the assumption that strategic voting is a bad thing is challenged and the idea that we should reject voting because of the possibility of misrepresentation dismissed.

When developing computational models to analyze the tradeoffs between climate risk management strategies (i.e., mitigation, adaptation, or geoengineering), scientists make explicit and implicit decisions that are influenced by their beliefs, values and preferences. Model descriptions typically include only the explicit decisions and are silent on value judgments that may explain these decisions. Eliciting scientists’ mental models, a systematic approach to determining how they think about climate risk management, can help to gain a clearer understanding of (...) their modeling decisions. In order to identify and represent the role of values, beliefs and preferences on decisions, we used an augmented mental models research approach, namely values-informed mental models (ViMM). We conducted and qualitatively analyzed interviews with eleven climate risk management scientists. Our results suggest that these scientists use a similar decision framework to each other to think about modeling climate risk management tradeoffs, including eight specific decisions ranging from defining the model objectives to evaluating the model’s results. The influence of values on these decisions varied between our scientists and between the specific decisions. For instance, scientists invoked ethical values (e.g., concerns about human welfare) when defining objectives, but epistemic values (e.g., concerns about model consistency) were more influential when evaluating model results. ViMM can (i) enable insights that can inform the design of new computational models and (ii) make value judgments explicit and more inclusive of relevant values. This transparency can help model users to better discern the relevance of model results to their own decision framing and concerns. (shrink)

The medical decision-making process is currently in flux. Decisions are no longer made entirely at the physician's discretion: patients are becoming more and more involved in the process. There is a great deal of discussion about the ideal of ‘informed consent’, that is that diagnostic and therapeutic decisions should be made based on an interaction between physician and patient. This means that patients are informed about the advantages and disadvantages of a treatment as well as alternatives to the (...) treatment; then, based on this information they can decide whether or not they want to undergo the treatment. However, recent studies show that the realisation of the ideal of ‘shared decision-making’ faces a number of difficulties related to the fact that patients are not provided with complete and accurate information. Using the example of breast cancer screening, this article examines the question of whether, in light of these difficulties, the ideal of informed decision-making is only an illusion or whether concrete steps can be taken towards the realisation of this ideal. (shrink)

Andreas Christiansen,Bjørn Hallsson | : In many cases, the public want to restrict an activity or technology that they believe to be dangerous, but that scientific experts believe to be safe. There is thus a tension between respecting the preferences of the people and making policy based on our best scientific knowledge. Deciding how to make policy in the light of this tension requires an understanding of why citizens sometimes disagree with the experts on what is risky and what (...) is safe. In this paper, we examine two highly influential theories of how people form beliefs about risks: the theory that risk beliefs are errors caused by bounded rationality and the theory that such beliefs are part and parcel of people’s core value systems. We then discuss the implications of the psychological theories for questions regarding liberal-democratic decision making: Should policy be responsive to the preferences of citizens in the domain of risk regulation? What risk-regulation policies are legitimate? How should liberal-democratic deliberation be structured? | : Dans de nombreux cas, le public veut restreindre une activité ou une technologie qu’il croit être dangereuse, mais que les experts scientifiques considèrent être sécuritaire. Il y a alors une tension entre le respect des préférences des gens et des politiques fondées sur nos meilleures connaissances scientifiques. Décider comment élaborer une politique à la lumière de cette tension nécessite de comprendre pourquoi les citoyens sont parfois en désaccord avec les experts à propos de ce qui est risqué et ce qui est sûr. Dans cet article, nous examinons deux théories très influentes sur la façon dont les gens forment des croyances sur les risques : la théorie selon laquelle les croyances liées au risque sont des erreurs causées par la rationalité limitée et la théorie selon laquelle ces croyances font partie intégrante des systèmes de valeurs fonda-mentales des personnes. Nous discutons ensuite les implications des théories psychologiques pour les questions touchant la prise de décision libérale-démocratique : Les politiques devraient-elles être sensibles aux préférences des citoyens dans le domaine de la régulation des risques? Quelles politiques de régulation des risques sont légitimes? Comment la délibération libérale-démocratique devrait-elle être structurée? (shrink)

This paper discusses strategic decision making in firms pursuing biotechnology innovation and the influence of risk regulation on firm strategy. Data from three research projects, involving interviews with over 60 managers from agricultural and food related biotechnology companies and also over 60 key participants in the regulatory process in the UK and EC, shows a diversity of strategy and opinion. While some industry representatives identified new risk regulations governing the release of genetically manipulated organisms (GMOs) as the (...) primary constraint on biotechnology innovation, the findings of the study painted a more complex picture. The controversies surrounding the issue of risk regulation and its impact on innovation are best understood if viewed in the context of other political and economic factors. We conclude that the actual impact of risk regulation on industry strategies is probably less than the rhetoric of industry lobbyists would suggest. At the same time, the very act of lobbying so forcefully could lead to a public backlash against industry that would be much more damaging than the regulation itself. (shrink)

Motivated by the analysis of a general optimal portfolio selection problem, which encompasses as special cases an optimal consumption and an optimal debt-arrangement problem, we are concerned with the questions of how a personality trait like risk-perception can be formalized and whether the two objectives of utility-maximization and risk-minimization can be both achieved simultaneously. We address these questions by developing an axiomatic foundation of preferences for which utility-maximization is equivalent to minimizing a utility-based shortfall risk measure. (...) Our axiomatization hinges on a novel axiom in decision theory, namely the risk-perception axiom. (shrink)

With the growing focus on prevention in medicine, studies of how to describe risk have become increasing important. Recently, some researchers have argued against giving patients “comparative risk information,” such as data about whether their baseline risk of developing a particular disease is above or below average. The concern is that giving patients this information will interfere with their consideration of more relevant data, such as the specific chance of getting the disease (the “personal (...) class='Hi'>risk”), the risk reduction the treatment provides, and any possible side effects. I explore this view and the theories of rationality that ground it, and I argue instead that comparative risk information can play a positive role in decision-making. The criticism of disclosing this sort of information to patients, I conclude, rests on a mistakenly narrow account of the goals of prevention and the nature of rational choice in medicine. (shrink)

Objectives To evaluate whether the requirement of “minimal risk and burden” for paediatric research without direct benefit to the subjects compromises the ability to obtain data necessary for improving paediatric care. To provide evidence-based reflections on the EU recommendation that allows for a higher level of risk. Design and setting Systematic analysis of the approval/rejection decisions made by the Dutch Central Committee on Research involving Human Subjects (CCMO). Review methods The analysis included 165 proposals for paediatric research (...) without direct benefit that were reviewed by the CCMO between January, 2000, and July, 2007. A separate, in-depth analysis of all drug studies included 18 early phase drug studies and nine other drug studies without direct benefit. Results 11 out of 165 studies were definitively rejected because the CCMO did not regard the risk and/or burden to be minimal. In three of these 11 cases (including two early phase drug studies) the requirement of minimal risk and burden was cited as the only reason for rejection. Four other early phase drug studies also involved risks and/or burdens that were not regarded to be minimal but were nevertheless approved. Conclusions The requirement of minimal risk and burden, aiming to protect research subjects, occasionally leads to rejection of protocols. Early phase drug studies relatively often do not comply with the requirement. Committees may find ways to approve important studies that formally should be rejected, but that is not a desirable solution. The regulatory framework should be revised to make such occasional exceptions to the requirement legitimate and transparent. (shrink)

Research on the cognitive abilities involved in decision making has shown that, under objective risk conditions (i.e., when explicit information about possible outcomes and risks is available), superior decisions are especially predicted by executive functions and exact number processing skills, also referred to as objective numeracy. So far, decision-making research has mainly focused on exact number processing skills, such as performing calculations or transformations of symbolic numbers. There is evidence that such exact numeric skills are based on approximate (...) number processing (ANP) skills, which enable quick and accurate processing of non-symbolic numbers (e.g. Chen and Li, 2014). Very few studies, however, have investigated ANP skills in the context of risky decision making and have analyzed direct associations among the aforementioned sub functions. Possible interactions between the closely related skills have not been considered. The current study (N = 128) examines interactions of ANP skills with executive functions and objective numeracy, in predicting risky choice behavior. ANP skills are represented by the accuracy in a dot-comparison task. Decision making is measured by two versions of the Game of Dice Task (GDT), which place different emphases on the reflection of potential risks. The results show two-way as well as three-way interactions between the measures of ANP skills, executive functions, and objective numeracy in predicting risky decisions in both GDT versions. The riskiest decisions were most frequently made in case of low scores in all of the three competencies, while good performance in any one of them resulted in significant reductions of disadvantageous decisions. The findings indicate that high ANP skills can positively affect choice behavior in individuals who have weaknesses in reflectively attributed skills, namely executive functions and objective numeracy. Potential compensatory effects and mechanisms of ANP in decision making are discussed. (shrink)

Andreas Christiansen,Bjørn Hallsson | : In many cases, the public want to restrict an activity or technology that they believe to be dangerous, but that scientific experts believe to be safe. There is thus a tension between respecting the preferences of the people and making policy based on our best scientific knowledge. Deciding how to make policy in the light of this tension requires an understanding of why citizens sometimes disagree with the experts on what is risky and what (...) is safe. In this paper, we examine two highly influential theories of how people form beliefs about risks: the theory that risk beliefs are errors caused by bounded rationality and the theory that such beliefs are part and parcel of people’s core value systems. We then discuss the implications of the psychological theories for questions regarding liberal-democratic decision making: Should policy be responsive to the preferences of citizens in the domain of risk regulation? What risk-regulation policies are legitimate? How should liberal-democratic deliberation be structured? | : Dans de nombreux cas, le public veut restreindre une activité ou une technologie qu’il croit être dangereuse, mais que les experts scientifiques considèrent être sécuritaire. Il y a alors une tension entre le respect des préférences des gens et des politiques fondées sur nos meilleures connaissances scientifiques. Décider comment élaborer une politique à la lumière de cette tension nécessite de comprendre pourquoi les citoyens sont parfois en désaccord avec les experts à propos de ce qui est risqué et ce qui est sûr. Dans cet article, nous examinons deux théories très influentes sur la façon dont les gens forment des croyances sur les risques : la théorie selon laquelle les croyances liées au risque sont des erreurs causées par la rationalité limitée et la théorie selon laquelle ces croyances font partie intégrante des systèmes de valeurs fonda-mentales des personnes. Nous discutons ensuite les implications des théories psychologiques pour les questions touchant la prise de décision libérale-démocratique : Les politiques devraient-elles être sensibles aux préférences des citoyens dans le domaine de la régulation des risques? Quelles politiques de régulation des risques sont légitimes? Comment la délibération libérale-démocratique devrait-elle être structurée? (shrink)

In the debate about the legal value of naked statistical evidence, Di Bello argues that (1) the likelihood ratio of such evidence is unknown, (2) the decision-theoretic considerations indicate that a conviction based on such evidence is unacceptable when expected utility maximization is combined with fairness constraints, and (3) the risk of mistaken conviction based on such evidence cannot be evaluated and is potentially too high. We argue that Di Bello’s argument for (1) works in a rather narrow (...) context, and that (1) is not exactly in line with the way expert witnesses are required to formulate their opinions. Consequently, Di Bello’s argument for (2), which assumes (1), does not apply uniformly to all convictions based on naked evidence. Moreover, if Di Bello’s analysis is correct, it applies also to eyewitness testimony, given empirical results about its quality, and so the distinctions drawn by DiBello cut across the distinction between naked statistical evidence and other types of evidence. Finally, if we weaken the rather strong requirement of precise measurability of the risk of mistaken conviction, to the availability of reasonable but imprecise and fallible estimates, many field and empirical studies show that often the risk of mistaken conviction based on naked statistical evidence can be estimated to a similar extent as the risk of mistaken conviction based on any other sort of evidence. (shrink)

Virtual enterprise is a dynamic alliance of businesses, in which multiple members undertake joint research, development, manufacturing, operation, etc. The complexity of the relationship between business members, coupled with many new technologies or methods applied in the alliance operation, leads to more uncertain factors and difficulties in the operation and risk management of the virtual enterprise. The distributed decision-making model is a fast and effective decision-making model, in which dispersed intellectual resources and information resources are dynamically integrated through (...) virtual organization forms and operating mechanisms, and the dynamic reorganization, result evaluation, and synthesis of the decision-making system are realized by certain control rules. On the basis of summarizing and analyzing previous research works, this paper expounded the research status and significance of the risk control of virtual enterprise; elaborated the development background, current status, and future challenges of distributed decision-making model; introduced the related works of decision-making variable calculation and constraint determination; constructed a risk control model for virtual enterprise based on distributed decision-making model; analyzed the multiobjective model and interval programming model of risk control; established a risk control approach for virtual enterprise based on distributed decision-making model; performed the optimal allocation of risk control funds and the selective optimization of backup allies; and finally conducted a case analysis. The study results show that, in view of the diversity of relationships between alliance businesses and the complexity of the distribution of cooperative areas, the distributed decision-making model can more reasonably describe the relationship between alliance members and accurately control the risks of virtual enterprise from multiple angles, which can effectively manage the risks of virtual enterprise. The study results of this paper provide a reference for further research on the risk control of virtual enterprise based on distributed decision-making model. (shrink)

SummaryI contend on both theoretical and historical grounds that quantitative risk assessment is relevant for policy determination only as a cost estimate. In particular, it provides a method for estimating the costs of a hypothetical insurance policy against the potential liabilities associated with a given course of action. It is not relevant to the question of rational choice under risk.RésuméJe montre, en partant d'arguments aussi bien théoriques qu'historiques, que le calcul quanti‐tatif des risques n'aide à la détermination (...) d'une politique à suivre qu'en tant qu'estimation des coûts. En particulier, il fournit une méthode pour estimer les primes d'une police hypothétique d'assurance contre les responsabilites potentielles associées à une suite donnée d'actions. 11 ne permet pas un choix rationnel dans des situations comportant des risques.ZusammenfassungIch argumentiere, sowohl aus theoretischen als auch aus historischen Gründen, dass eine quantitative Risikoberechnung für die Wahl einer Handlungsweise nur als Kostenschätzung relevant ist. Namentlich bietet sie eine Methode, um die Prämie einer Versicherungspolice gegen pot‐entielle Haftbarkeit, welche mit den Vorgängen eines Aktionsverlaufs verbunden ist, zu bestim‐men. Bei der Frage einer rationalen Wahl in einer Risikosituation ist sie nicht relevant. (shrink)

In recent years leading figures in a variety of fields - political, financial, medical, and organizational - have become acutely aware of the need to effectively incorporate aspects of risk into their decision-making. This book addresses a wide range of contemporary issues in decision research, such as how individuals deal with uncertainty and complexity, gender-based differences in decision-making, what determines decision performance and why people choose risky activities. The book presents results from academic research carried out over the (...) last twenty years. A common theme is the study of decisions made in horserace betting markets, a research medium which offers a rich insight into decision-making in general and one which enjoys particular methodological advantages over laboratory-based simulations. This set of naturalistic studies explores the variety of individual motivations for betting, how people perceive and respond to the presence of uncertainty, the challenges of complex and turbulent information and the use of heuristics as a response, how decision-making performance is affected by structural or process-related features of the decision environment, and how men and women differ in their decision behaviour. The authors’ interesting and novel findings offer a richer understanding of the psychological and economic underpinnings of betting behaviour which should inform practitioners, policymakers and regulators in an industry which is undergoing unprecedented global growth. The book is also relevant to courses covering subject areas such as financial markets, decision-making and behavioural finance. (shrink)

Mrs. Smith's eyes filled with tears as she said, “I feel like I've done something wrong. Are they punishing me because I've been refusing therapy and won't go to a nursing home?” She acknowledged that she hadn't always listened to her doctors but said that she knew better now and wanted to go home and see if she could make it work. Many staff members at our rehabilitation hospital had explained their safety concerns to her, and some had enlisted (...) her adult daughter, with whom she lived, to convince her too. The rehabilitation team had called on the ethics consultation service, of which I am a part, to help figure out whether Mrs. Smith had the capacity to make an informed refusal of discharge recommendations. (shrink)

Apart from its foray into technical issues of risk assessment and management, this book has one principal aim. With situations of chancy outcomes certain key factors—including outcome possibilities, overall expectation, threat, and even luck—are measurable parameters. But risk is something different: it is not measurable a single parametric quantity, but a many-sided factor that has several different components, and constitutes a complex phenomenon that must be assessed judgmentally in a highly contextualized way. This book explains and analyzes (...) how this works out in practice. Topics in this work include choice and risk, chance and likelihood, as well as outcome-yield evaluation and risk. It takes into account abnormal situations and eccentric measurements, situational evaluation and expectation and scrutinizes the social aspect of risk. The book is of interest to logicians, philosophers of mathematics, and researchers of risk assessment. The project is a companion piece to the author's LUCK THEORY, also published by Springer. (shrink)

Incommensurability is the impossibility to determine how two options relate to each other in terms of conventional comparative relations. This book features new research on incommensurability from philosophers who have shaped the field into what it is today, including John Broome, Ruth Chang and Wlodek Rabinowicz. The book covers four aspects relating to incommensurability. In the first part, the contributors synthesize research on the competing views of how to best explain incommensurability. Part II illustrates how incommensurability can help us deal (...) with seemingly insurmountable problems in ethical theory and population ethics. The contributors address the Repugnant Conclusion, the Mere Addition Paradox and so-called Spectrum Arguments. The chapters in Part III outline and summarize problems caused by incommensurability for decision theory. Finally, Part IV tackles topics related to risk, uncertainty and incommensurability. Value Incommensurability: Ethics, Risk, and Decision-Making will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working in ethical theory, decision theory, action theory, and philosophy of economics. (shrink)

AbstractDuring the Covid-19 pandemic, ethicists and researchers proposed human challenge studies as a way to speed development of a vaccine that could prevent disease and end the global public health crisis. The risks to healthy volunteers of being deliberately infected with a deadly and novel pathogen were not low, but the benefits could have been immense. This essay is a history of the three major efforts to set up a challenge model and run challenge studies in 2020 and 2021. (...) The pharmaceutical company Johnson and Johnson, the National Institutes of Health in the United States, and a private-public partnership of industry, university, and government partners in Britain all undertook preparations. The United Kingdom’s consortium began their Human Challenge Programme in March of 2021.Beyond documenting each effort, the essay puts these scientific and ethical debates in dialogue with the social, epidemiological, and institutional conditions of the pandemic as well as the commercial, intellectual, and political systems in which medical research and Covid-19 challenge studies operated. It shows how different institutions understood risk, benefit, and social value depending on their specific contexts. Ultimately the example of Covid-19 challenge studies highlights the constructedness of such assessments and reveals the utility of deconstructing them retrospectively so as to better understand the interplay of medical research and research ethics with larger social systems and historical contexts. (shrink)

Previous studies have examined the outcome evaluation related to the self and other, and recent research has explored the outcome evaluation of the self and other with pro-social implications. However, the evaluation processing of outcomes in the group in need remains unclear. This study has examined the neural mechanisms of evaluative processing by gambling for the self and charity, respectively. At the behavioral level, when participants make decisions for themselves, they made riskier decisions following the gain than (...) loss in small outcomes and engage in more risky behaviors following the loss than gain in large outcomes. However, magnitude and valence did not affect the next risky behavior when participants made decisions for the charity. At the neurophysiological level, the results found that the FRN was larger for the charity outcome than for the self-outcome. For FRN, the valence difference of small outcomes was smaller than that of large outcomes. The P3 response was larger for the self-outcome than for the charity outcome. Meanwhile, compared with the small outcome, the self-charity discrepancies have a significant difference in large outcomes. In addition, the FRN amplitude for self in large outcomes was negatively correlated with the upcoming risky choices, regardless of outcome valence. The behavioral results suggest that people are more likely to optimize strategies for themselves than for the charity. The ERP findings indicated that people focus more on charity outcome than self-outcome in the early stage. In the middle and late stages, people turn attention to their outcomes, and the difference between self’s and charity’s outcome varies with the magnitude. Specifically, it is only in large outcomes that people engage more emotional attention or motivation in their outcomes, but self and charity outcomes had a similar emotional engagement in small outcomes. (shrink)

Objectives: To determine the effects of risk and payment on subjects’ willingness to participate, and to examine how payment influences subjects’ potential behaviours and risk evaluations.Methods: A 3 × 3 , between subjects, completely randomised factorial design was used. Students enrolled at one of five US pharmacy schools read a recruitment notice and informed consent form for a hypothetical study, and completed a questionnaire. Risk level was manipulated using recruitment notices and informed consent documents from hypothetical biomedical (...) research projects. Payment levels were determined using the payment models evaluated by Dickert and Grady as a guide. Five dependent variables were assessed in the questionnaire: willingness to participate, willingness to participate with no payment, propensity to neglect to tell about restricted activities, propensity to neglect to tell about negative effects, and risk rating.Results: Monetary payment had positive effects on respondents’ willingness to participate in research, regardless of the level of risk. However, higher monetary payments did not appear to blind respondents to the risks of a study. Payment had some influence on respondents’ potential behaviours regarding concealing information about restricted activities. However, payment did not appear to have a significant effect on respondents’ propensity to neglect to tell researchers about negative effects.Conclusions: Monetary payments appear to do what they are intended to do: make subjects more willing to participate in research. Concerns about payments blinding subjects to risks could not be substantiated in the present study. However, the findings do raise other concerns—notably the potential for payments to diminish the integrity of a study’s findings. Future research is critical to make sound decisions about the payment of research subjects. (shrink)

In 2004, prenatal risk assessment (PRA) was implemented as a routine offer in Denmark, in order to give all pregnant women an informed choice about whether to undergo prenatal testing. PRA is a non-invasive intervention performed in the first trimester of pregnancy and measures the risk of a fetus having Down's syndrome or other chromosomal disorders. The risk figure provides the basis for action, i.e. the decision about whether or not to undergo invasive fetal testing via the (...) maternal route (amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling), which, however, involves the risk of inducing a miscarriage. On the basis of ethnographic fieldwork in an ultrasound clinic in Denmark and interviews with pregnant women and their partners, this paper investigates how ideals such as autonomy and non-directiveness are practised in processes of decision-making. We view such ideals as forming social practice rather than neutral instruments to reach a certain goal. Focusing on one couple's trajectory through the clinical practices of PRA and the process through which a decision is reached, we call into question the assumption that more choice and more objective information is a source of empowerment and control. We make evident how decisions are made through a complicated process of meaning-making, which emerges through the relationship between professionals, the clinical setting and the social life of the couples. In the face of complex risk knowledge, PRA users are reluctant to make choices and seek to re-install authority in the health professionals. However, when assumptions about autonomy and self-determination are inscribed into the social practice of PRA, authority is transferred to the couple undergoing PRA and a new configuration of responsibility evolves between the couple and their relationship to the fetus. It is argued that PRA performs a form of government that works not through compulsion or persuasion but through choice. An ethic of a shared responsibility for PRA and its outcome between pregnant women and health professionals would be more in agreement with how decisions are actually made. (shrink)

With the rapid development of urbanization, the urban expansion morphology has been changing with complex driving mechanisms behind the urban evolution process. This article simulates the results of urban land development contingent upon decision-makers’ risk preferences and reveals the inherent law of the effect of risk preferences on urban expansion morphology. Results show that cautious decision-makers lead to the urban expansion morphology being relatively compact, and the reckless decision-makers lead the urban expansion to sprawl. Moreover, there (...) are obvious differences in strengths of planning constraints on the decision-makers with different risk preferences. The reckless decision-makers, driven by the economic interests, are more likely to break through the planning, especially when the planning is not reasonable. It is also found that enhancing executive ability of planning for the reckless decision-makers can promote compactness of the urban expansion morphology. However, the effect of enhancing executive ability of planning on the cautious decision-makers is limited. Thus, in the case of unreasonable planning, the executive ability of planning to the reckless decision-makers should be enhanced so as to avoid urban sprawl. (shrink)

Institutional Review Board decisions hinge on the availability and interpretation of information. This is demonstrated by the following well-known historical example. In 2001, 24-year-old Ellen Roche died from respiratory distress and organ failure as a result of her participation in a study at Johns Hopkins Asthma and Allergy Center. The non-therapeutic physiological study, “Mechanisms of Deep Inspiration-Induced Airway Relaxation,” was designed to examine airway hyperresponsiveness in healthy individuals in order to better understand the pathophysiology of asthma. Participants inhaled hexamethonium, (...) a chemical ganglionic blocker that was not FDA-approved for use as specified in the experimental protocol. Risks of inhaling hexamethonium, including lung damage, had been reported in the 1950s and ‘60s. An investigation conducted after Roche's death determined that the study's principal investigator had failed to adequately search the medical literature; the protocol submitted for IRB review cited articles indexed in online literature databases that went back only as far as the 1970s. (shrink)

Aim: To evaluate health-related quality of life of chronic hepatitis B and hepatitis B virus related cirrhosis patients and analyzed specific differences in all dimensions of HRQoL.Methods: A total of 349 patients met selection criteria were enrolled. The 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey was adopted.Results: Results showed that the physiological HRQoL of the cirrhotic group was significantly lower than that of the non-cirrhotic group, the psychological HRQoL was also lower. HRQoL was significantly negatively correlated with liver stiffness. We further evaluated (...) the risk factors associated with poor HRQoL in HBV-related cirrhosis patients. Results showed that positive HBV DNA viral load and HCC family history were independent factors associated with HRQoL in HBV-related cirrhosis. For better risk stratification of patients, multivariable analyses were conducted to explore the independent factors that affected specific physiological and psychological HRQoL. In specific physiological HRQoL, results show that marital status, positive HBV DNA viral load and antiviral drugs were independent factors associated with physiological HRQoL in cirrhosis patients. In psychological HRQoL, only HCC family history was independent risk factors associated with psychological HRQoL.Conclusion: We found that the impaired HRQoL dimensions of HBV related cirrhosis patients differ between the various subpopulations. According to our results, risk stratification, medical decision making and personalizing interventions could be made. (shrink)

To address the burden of maternal morbidity and mortality in low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs), research with pregnant women in these settings is increasingly common. Pregnant women in LMIC‐context may experience vulnerability related to giving consent to participate in a clinical trial. To recognize possible layers of vulnerability this study aims to identify factors that influence the decision process towards clinical trial participation of pregnant women in an urban middle‐income setting. This qualitative research used participant observation, in‐depth interviews, and (...) focus group discussion with medical staff and pregnant women eligible for trial participation, at a regional hospital in Accra, Ghana. Besides lack of familiarity with modern scientific concepts, specific factors influencing the decision‐making process were identified. These include a wide power difference between health provider and patient, and a different perception of risk through externalization of responsibility of risk management within a religious context as well as a context shaped by authority. Also, therapeutic misconception was observed. The combination of these factors ensued women to rely on the opinion of the medical professional, rather than being guided by their own motivation to participation. Although being a (pregnant) woman per se should not render the label of being vulnerable, this study shows there are factors that influence the decision process of pregnant woman towards trial participation in a LMIC context that can result in vulnerability. The identification of context‐specific factors that can create vulnerability facilitates adaptation of the design and conduct of research in a culturally competent manner. (shrink)

In this study, we assessed the influence of trait anger on decisions in risky situations evaluating how it might interact with some contextual factors. One hundred and fifty-eight participants completed the Trait Anger scale of STAXI-2 and an inventory consisting of a battery of hypothetical everyday decision-making scenarios, representative of three specific domains: financial, social and health. Participants were also asked to evaluate familiarity and salience for each scenario. This study provides evidence for a relationship between individual differences (...) in the tendency to feel anger and risky decisions in different domains and for mediation effects of familiarity and salience perception. The evaluation of the mechanisms with which dispositional anger is linked to risky decision-making could further contribute to an understanding of the role of personality traits in decision-making processes. (shrink)