Evaluating the effectiveness of explanations for recommender systems : Methodological issues and empirical studies on the impact of personalization

Peer reviewedPostprin

How Can Skin Check Reminders be Personalised to Patient Conscientiousness?

This paper explores the potential of personalising health reminders to melanoma patients based on their personality (high vs low conscientiousness). We describe a study where we presented participants with a scenario with a fictional patient who has not performed a skin check for recurrent melanoma. The patient was described as either very conscientious, or very unconscientious. We asked participants to rate reminders inspired by Cialdini’s 6 principles of persuasion for their suitability for the patient. Participants then chose their favourite reminder and an alternative reminder to send if that one failed. We found that conscientiousness had an effect on both the ratings of reminder types and the most preferred reminders selected by participants

Adapting Emotional Support to Personality for Carers Experiencing Stress.

Carers - people who provide regular support for a friend or relative who could not manage without them - frequently report high levels of stress. Good emotional support (e.g. provided by an Intelligent Virtual Agent) could help relieve this stress. This study investigates whether adaptation to personality affects the amount and type of emotional support a carer is given and possible interaction effects with the stress experienced. We investigated the personality trait of Emotional Stability (ES) as it is interlinked with low tolerance for stress. Participants were presented with stressful scenarios experienced by a fictitious carer and description of their personality and asked to rank 6 emotional support messages. We predicted that people with low ES would be given more emotional support messages overall and that ES would affect the type of emotional support messages given in each scenario. We found that participants gave more praise to the high ES carer with a trend towards other support types for the low ES carer

Cool and hot executive functions in relation to aggression and testosterone/cortisol ratios in male prisoners

‘Cool’ executive functions (EF) refer to logical and strategic cognitive processes such as planning and reasoning, whereas ‘hot’ EF include affect-driven cognitive processes, such as risk-taking in decision making. In the present crosssectional study was investigated whether prisoners perform worse than non-prisoners on measures of hot and cool EF. Subsequent objectives were to determine if performance on tasks of executive functioning was related to measures of (reactive and proactive) aggression within the offender group, and whether testosterone and cortisol influenced the latter relationship. Male prisoners (n = 125) and a non offender control group (n = 32) completed frequently applied measures of hot and cool EF (assessed with the Iowa Gambling task and Wisconsin Card Sorting Task respectively). Aggression characteristics in prisoners were assessed through self-report questionnaires, behavioural observations, and conviction histories. Endogenous testosterone and cortisol levels were obtained through saliva samples, while prenatal testosterone exposure was determined using the finger length of the index and ring fingers (the ‘2D:4D ratio’). The results indicated that prisoners performed significantly worse than non-prisoners on cool EF, and to a lesser extent on hot EF, but no meaningful relationship could be proven between measures of EF and aggression in the offender group. Weak to moderate significant correlations were found between testosterone/cortisol ratios (not prenatal testosterone exposure) and hot EF as well as self-reported aggression. These results lead to the conclusion that prisoners show significant problems in cool and hot EF compared to non-prisoners. These problems are not clearly associated with characteristics of aggression, but preliminary results indicate that these may be related to having high endogenous testosterone levels relative to cortisol levels

Radicalization processes and transitional phases in female and male detainees residing in Dutch terrorism wings.

Background: Radicalization, violent extremism, and terrorism are risks to societal security. Although research on terrorism-related behaviors is increasing, thorough empirical studies are rare. Methods: This study investigates radicalization processes and transitions in a matched sample of female and male terrorist suspects and convicts (N = 26) residing in Dutch penitentiary terrorism wings. Results:Results show that both men and women often experienced discrimination. A subgroup of women grew up in a stressful family environment and lacked emotional support from their family, whereas the other women did not experience such circumstances. The majority of the study sample was susceptible to connecting with radicalized friends or family members. Interestingly, factors that initially led to radicalization (e.g., a utopian image of the Islamic State) could later turn out to be factors associated with abandoning extremism. Conclusions: In this study, differences in radicalization processes and transitional phases between women and men emerged. Men more often had police contact prior to a terrorism-related offense. Making an effort to right old mistakes seemed important in the radicalization processes of men, whereas women had a stronger desire for emotional support and were more driven by experienced trauma and feelings of loneliness. This study provides input for gender-specific prevention and disengagement interventions