How decision context changes the balance between cost and benefit increasing charitable donations

Recent research on charitable donations shows that donors evaluate both the impact of helping and its cost. We asked whether these evaluations were affected by the context of alternative charitable causes. We found that presenting two donation appeals in joint evaluation, as compared to separate evaluation, increased the perceived benefit of the cause ranked as more important (Study 1), and decreased its perceived cost, regardless of the relative actual costs (Study 2). Finally, we try to reconcile an explanation based on perceived cost and benefit with previous work on charitable donations

Do closed survey questions over-estimate public perceptions of food risks?

In this paper we show that the widely accepted methodology for the assessment of risk perception – Likert type survey questions featuring a set of risks with fixed response alternatives measuring the extent of worry or concern – may over-estimate food risk perception. Using a European representative sample survey (n=26,961) that included an open-ended question asking about problems and risks with food and eating, followed by a battery of closed questions assessing food risk perception we find a similar ranking of perceived food risks across the two methods. Across Europe the five priority concerns are chronic food related illness; food origins and quality; acute food related illness; chemical contamination, and adulteration of food. However, the discrepancies between mentioning a risk in the open ended question and the expression of worry about risks in the closed question are substantial. Of those who did not mention a specific risk category in the open question, between 60% and 83% (depending on risk category) expressed worry in the closed question. This parallels previous research on the fear of crime, showing that survey responses lead to greatly inflated estimates of the public’s fear of crime than is evidenced by qualitative questioning. It is also consistent with evidence from research on cognitive aspects of survey methodology suggesting that survey questions may frame the respondent’s thinking about an issue. We conclude with recommendations for the use of branched questions in the quantitative elicitation of public perceptions of risk

A Prediction Model for Consumer Behavior regarding Product Safety

The objective of this study was the development of a model to predict whether a consumer would use a product safely as a function of sixteen different individual variables. Subjects were presented with four consumer products to use in an experimental setting where the true purpose of the study was concealed. Discriminant analysis was used to develop a prediction model to classify subjects into categories of safe or unsafe behavior. Prediction accuracy ranged from 68–86 percent for different types of behavior. The research illustrated which variables are important in determining whether a product will be used safely and has implications for product design, warnings, instructions for use and training.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Utility, subjective probability, their interaction, and variance preferences

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66507/2/10.1177_002200276200600106.pd

On the Measurement of Perceived Consumer Risk

The role of perceived risk in consumer behavior has been studied extensively by academic researchers. This paper introduces a methodology for the measurement of the effects of product features, marketing mix components, and individual differences on perceived consumer risk based on theoretical foundations in the literature. A conjoint-type model based on paired comparison judgments is estimated to provide attribute weights. A modification of a stochastic multidimensional scaling-based vector model is then used to measure and summarize individual consumer differences with respect to the impact of brand attributes and marketing mix components on latent levels of perceived consumer risk. An illustration is provided using students’ risk perceptions of sports cars.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/75462/1/j.1540-5915.1991.tb00372.x.pd

Cooperative Decision Making : a methodology based on collective preferences aggregation

National audienceThe benefice of a collective decisions process mainly rests upon the possibility for the participants to confront their respective points of views. To this end, they must have cognitive and technical tools that ease the sharing of the reasons that motivate their own preferences, while accounting for information and feelings they should keep for their own. The paper presents the basis of such a cooperative decision making methodology that allows sharing information by accurately distinguishing the components of a decision and the steps of its elaboration

Reasons and Means to Model Preferences as Incomplete

Literature involving preferences of artificial agents or human beings often assume their preferences can be represented using a complete transitive binary relation. Much has been written however on different models of preferences. We review some of the reasons that have been put forward to justify more complex modeling, and review some of the techniques that have been proposed to obtain models of such preferences

Moral preferences in helping dilemmas expressed by matching and forced choice

This paper asks whether moral preferences in eight medical dilemmas change as a function of how preferences are expressed, and how people choose when they are faced with two equally attractive help projects. In two large-scale studies, participants first read dilemmas where they “matched” two suggested helping projects (which varied on a single attribute) so that they became equally attractive. They did this by filling in a missing number (e.g., how many male patients must Project M save in order to be equally attractive as Project F which can save 100 female patients). Later, the same participants were asked to choose between the two equally attractive projects. We found robust evidence that people do not choose randomly, but instead tend to choose projects that help female (vs. male), children (vs. adult), innocent (vs. non-innocent), ingroup (vs. outgroup) and existing (vs. future) patients, and imply no (vs. some) risk of a harmful side-effect, even when these projects have been matched as equally attractive as, and save fewer patients than the contrasting project. We also found that some moral preferences are hidden when expressed with matching but apparent when expressed with forced choice. For example, 88–95% of the participants expressed that female and male patients are equally valuable when doing the matching task, but over 80% of them helped female patients in the choice task

Perception of Nuclear Energy and Coal in France and the Netherlands

This study focuses on the perception of large scale application of nuclear energy and coal in the Netherlands and France. The application of these energy-sources and the risks and benefits are judged differently by various group in society. In Europe, France has the highest density of nuclear power plants and the Netherlands has one of the lowest. In both countries scientists and social scientists completed a questionnaire assessing the perception of the large scale application of both energy sources. Furthermore, a number of variables relating to the socio cultural and political circumstances were measured. The results indicate that the French had a higher risk perception and a more negative attitude toward nuclear power than the Dutch. But they also assess the benefits of the use of nuclear power to be higher. Explanations for these differences are discussed