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The Salience of Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Online Business
SSRN
The Role of Analogies in Crisis Decision Making
In: Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics
"The Role of Analogies in Crisis Decision Making" published on by Oxford University Press.
Risk Perception and Movies: A Study of Availability as a Factor in Risk Perception
In: Risk analysis: an international journal, Band 30, Heft 1, S. 95-106
ISSN: 1539-6924
Media effects on risk perception have often been explained by Tversky and Kahneman's availability principle, but research has not consistently supported it. What seem like media effects based on availability may be effects of new information. In an experimental study, entertainment movies depicting dramatic risk events were shown. They were found to produce no average effects on perceived risks in spite of large mood effects and being perceived as credible. We found, however, evidence of idiosyncratic effects of the movies, that is, people reacted immediately after the movies with enhanced or diminished risk beliefs. These reactions had faded after 10 days. Implications for the availability heuristic and risk perception are discussed.
Natural Transplants
In: New York University Law Review, Band 97, Heft 3, S. 2022
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Fear and Liberty
In: Social research: an international quarterly, Band 71, Heft 4, S. 967-996
ISSN: 0037-783X
Publicity, Pressure, and Environmental Legislation: The Untold Story of Availability Campaigns
The availability heuristic — a cognitive rule of thumb whereby events that are easily brought to mind are judged to be more likely — is employed by decision-makers on a daily basis. Availability campaigns occur when individuals and groups strategically exploit this cognitive tendency in order to generate publicity for a particular issue, creating pressure to effect legislative change. This paper is the first to argue that environmental availability campaigns are more beneficial than they are harmful. Because they result in pressure on Congress, these campaigns serve as a catalyst for the enactment of critical new legislative initiatives. Specifically, these campaigns streamline the legislative process by: (1) determining in a transparent and nonarbitrary manner which issues receive attention; (2) overcoming some of the undesirable barriers to the enactment of new initiatives; and (3) encouraging efficient, bipartisan cooperation to pass vital legislation and regulation. Availability campaigns have resulted in critically valuable directives such as the DDT ban, Superfund, and the Oil Pollution Act. Although the primary focus of this paper is environmental legislation, availability campaigns may have benefits in a wide variety of other areas of law and regulation.
BASE
Heuristics and Political Elites' Judgment and Decision Making
It is broadly assumed that political elites (e.g. party leaders) regularly rely on heuristics in their judgments or decision-making. In this article, I aim to bring together and discuss the scattered literature on this topic. To address the current conceptual unclarity, I discuss two traditions on heuristics: (1) the heuristics and biases (H&B) tradition pioneered by Kahneman and Tversky and (2) the fast and frugal heuristics (F&F) tradition pioneered by Gigerenzer et al. I propose to concentrate on two well-defined heuristics from the H&B tradition—availability and representativeness—to empirically assess when political elites rely on heuristics and thereby understand better their judgments and decisions. My review of existing studies supports the notion that political elites use the availability heuristic and possibly the representativeness one for making complex decisions under uncertainty. It also reveals that besides this, we still know relatively little about when political elites use which heuristic and with what effect(s). Therefore, I end by proposing an agenda for future research.
BASE
On the Limited Policy Relevance of Evolutionary Explanations
In: Forthcoming, Behavioral Public Policy
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Why Do Soldiers Give Up on the Battlefield? A Self-Preservation Theory of Surrender
In: APSA 2012 Annual Meeting Paper
SSRN
Working paper
Linking cognitive and affective heuristic cues to interpersonal risk perceptions and behavior
In: Risk analysis: an international journal, Band 43, Heft 12, S. 2610-2630
ISSN: 1539-6924
AbstractPeople often use cognitive and affective heuristics when judging the likelihood of a health outcome and making health decisions. However, little research has examined how heuristics shape risk perceptions and behavior among people who make decisions on behalf of another person. We examined associations between heuristic cues and caregivers' perceptions of their child's asthma risk, the frequency of caregivers' asthma management behaviors, and child health outcomes. We used Ipsos KnowledgePanel to recruit 814 U.S. adult caregivers of children with asthma of the age <18 years. Participants completed a survey at baseline (T1) and 3 months later (T2). Caregivers who, at T1, reported greater negative affect about their child's asthma (affect heuristic cue), greater ease of imagining their child experiencing asthma symptoms (availability heuristic cue), and greater perceived similarity between their child and a child who has ever experienced asthma symptoms (representativeness heuristic cue) reported statistically significantly (p < 0.05) higher interpersonal perceived risk of their child having an exacerbation or uncontrolled asthma at T1. They also indicated at T2 that their child had poorer asthma control and more frequent exacerbations. Greater T1 negative affect was associated with more frequent T2 actions to reduce inflammation, manage triggers, and manage symptoms, and with poorer T2 child health outcomes. Heuristic cues are likely important for interpersonal—not just personal—risk perceptions. However, the interrelationship between caregivers' ratings of heuristic cues (in particular, negative affect) and risk judgments may signify a struggle with managing their child's asthma and need for extra support from health care providers or systems.
After years of media coverage, can one more video report trigger heuristic judgments? A national study of American terrorism risk perceptions
In: Behavioral sciences of terrorism & political aggression, Band 2, Heft 3, S. 163-178
ISSN: 1943-4480
Heuristic Behaviour of Individual Investors on Investment Decision - A Study with Special Reference to Tirunelveli District
In: International Journal of Research and Analytical Reviews (IJRAR), Band Issue), S. 120-125
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The Role of the Affect and Availability Heuristics in Risk Communication
In: Risk analysis: an international journal, Band 26, Heft 3, S. 631-639
ISSN: 1539-6924
Results of past research suggest that affect plays an important role in risk perception. Because affect may also increase the availability of risks, affect and availability are closely related concepts. Three studies tested the hypothesis that evoking negative affect (fear), either through past experience or through experimental manipulation, results in greater perceived risk. The present research focused on perception of flooding risk. Study 1 and Study 2 showed that participants who received risk information concerning a longer time period (e.g., 30 years) perceived more danger compared with participants who received risk information for one year. Study 2 showed that the interpretation of risk information was influenced by participants' own experiences with flooding. In Study 3, affect was experimentally manipulated. After looking at photographs depicting houses in a flooded region, participants perceived greater risk compared with participants in a control group. Taken together, the results of these three studies suggest that affect is important for successful risk communication. Results of the present research are in line with the affect heuristic proposed by Slovic and colleagues.