Suchergebnisse

Extensive scientific investigations often fail to identify specific carcinogens that have caused geographic clusters of cancer cases. In many such examples, public health officials and other experts have concluded that the cluster is not the result of a particular local environmental condition. Despite this conclusion by experts, concerned members of local communities often persist in believing that the cancer cluster was not random. The present study accounts for the persistence of this belief on the basis of two factors: (a) the tendency of the human mind to identify patterns (and causes), rather than randomness; and (b) a lack of social trust in public health experts. It was expected that perceived shared values evoke social trust. Individuals who conclude that public health experts share their values should be more likely to accept the experts' conclusion that a cancer cluster reflects randomness, not a particular local cause. Individuals who trust authorities should be more inclined than individuals not having trust to accept that a geographic cluster of cancer cases is a coincidence. Data from Swiss students (N= 334) supported these expectations. Additionally, significant gender differences were observed. Females had less trust in authorities and perceived the cancer cluster as less likely to be a result of pure chance than did males. Practical implications of the results are discussed.

It has been argued that news about negative events has a much stronger effect on decreasing social trust than does news about positive events on increasing it. This asymmetry principle of trust was investigated in two surveys that also investigated the perseverance of trust. The possibility that established trust attributions persevere in the face of new information raises questions about the limits of trust asymmetry. The two studies yielded evidence that both type of news (good versus bad) and initial general trust in the nuclear power industry or the food supply industry affected level of trust. Compared to individuals trusting the industry, those distrusting the industry exhibited less trust following both bad and good news events. Study 1 also found that judged informativeness and judged positiveness of news events were affected by type of news and general trust of the industry. Individuals low in general trust of the nuclear power industry judged both bad news and good news as less positive than did those high in general trust. Those low in general trust judged bad news as more informative than good news and than did those high in general trust. An important implication of the perseverance of trust is to focus attention on including not only the effects of information about specific events and actions, but also on the judgment processes underlying social trust. The Salient Value Similarity model is suggested as one way of accounting for these psychological processes.

Substance abuse is one of the worst problems experienced by American Indian people. In this article, methods to prevent substance abuse among Indian young people are described and the future implications of drug and alcohol abuse prevention efforts with Indian youth are discussed.