When the only way is up: the pitfalls of upward mobility

For over two years, I have been working as an assistant professor at Delft University of Technology, making my way up the hierarchical, academic career ladder

PR gone wrong: the backlash effect of window dressing

When firms overstate their qualities or obscure their not-so-good side, clients may turn their backs on them, writes Gerdien de Vrie

If you have no intention of considering employee suggestions, then don’t ask

Pseudo opportunities for feedback lead teams to stop talking and start fighting, writes Gerdien de Vries

How the bystander effect can explain inaction towards global warming

Not too long ago, I was preparing a lecture about group dynamics for my students at Delft University of Technology. One of the dynamics I wanted to introduce was the bystander effect. The bystander effect refers to the phenomenon that an individual’s likelihood of offering help in a critical situation decreases when passive bystanders are present (e.g., Darley & Latané, 1968)

Some tech devices try but fail to make us minimize our carbon footprint

One idea to improve their success rate is to focus more on community-building and peer comparison, writes Gerdien de Vrie

Public perception of terrorism attacks:A conjoint experiment

In democratic societies, governments cannot act in isolation from public opinion. This is especially true regarding terrorism, where public perception is the instrument targeted by terrorists to achieve their political goals. Nevertheless, governments must also be able to resist public pressure and preserve individual rights. All this suggests that researching public perception of terrorist attacks is crucial. We make an important contribution in this direction by measuring the importance the public assigns to various attributes of terrorist attacks. Using novel methodology (conjoint experiment) and survey data from the UK and The Netherlands (N = 6,315), we find that people are concerned with attacks by immigrants (in the Netherlands), and by individuals acting as part of a terror cell, and with jihadist motivation. Furthermore, past experience with specific terrorist tactics drive preference to address such attacks more than others. In both countries people strongly focus on the severity of attacks, and under-weigh probabilities. The terror attack in the Netherlands in 2019 provided an opportunity to examine perception right after an actual attack. Also there we have found that people’s concerns are driven by experience with specific attacks. A better understanding of terrorism perception can inform policymakers about the gap between optimal strategies to combat terrorism and the expectations of the public.</p

The reciprocity of data integration in disaster risk analysis

Humanitarian organizations are increasingly challenged by the amount of data available to drive their decisions. Useful data can come from many sources, exists in different formats, and merging it into a basis for analysis and planning often exceeds organizations’ capacities and resources. At the same time, affected communities’ participation in decision making processes is often hindered by a lack of information and data literacy capacities within the communities. We describe a participatory disaster risk analysis project in the central Philippines where the community and a humanitarian NGO worked towards a joint understanding of disaster risks and coping capacities through data integration and IT-supported analysis. We present findings from workshops, focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews, showing the reciprocal effects of the collaborative work. While the community valued the systematically gathered and structured evidence that supported their own risk perceptions and advocacy efforts, the humanitarian NGO revisited established work practices for data collection for analysis and planning

Plasma lipid profiles discriminate bacterial from viral infection in febrile children

Fever is the most common reason that children present to Emergency Departments. Clinical signs and symptoms suggestive of bacterial infection ar