Test-retest reliability of the Mirowsky-Ross 2 x 2 Index of the Sense of Control

This study investigated the short-term stability of the 1991 Mirowsky-Ross 2 x 2 Index of the Sense of Control. From an ongoing longitudinal study, 304 subjects were randomly selected for test-retest interviews occurring 1 to 4 days after their regularly scheduled first follow-up interview. Test-retest reliability was assessed at the item level using percent agreement and weighted kappa. At the scale score level, reliability was assessed with the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). ICCs were also calculated within categories of demographic, socioeconomic, psychosocial, and functional status characteristics. There was moderate to substantial item-level agreement (mean weighted kappa = 51; weighted kappa range = .38 to .66). At the scale score level there was substantial agreement (ICC = .71). No appreciable differences in ICC values were found in the demographic, socioeconomic, psychosocial, and functional comparisons of status characteristics. Thus, this sense of control measure has acceptable test-retest reliability and is appropriate for use in longitudinal research.     

Risk avoidance: Graphs versus numbers

There have long been speculations that graphical and numerical presentations of risk statistics differ in their impact on people’s willingness to pursue actions that could harm or even kill them. But research has been unclear about the processes whereby the pictorial character of graphical displays per se might affect those risky decisions or even whether such effects actually occur. In two studies, we demonstrate that the pictorial nature of a graphical risk display can, indeed, increase risk avoidance. This increase is associated with a heightened impression of the riskiness of less safe alternatives. The results suggest that this picture-driven, intensified sense of riskiness, in turn, rests on two kinds of mechanisms: one cognitive, the other affective. Cognitively, pictorial presentations impose weaker upper bounds on people’s internal representations of the chances that riskier alternatives will bring about actual harm. Affectively, pictures ignite stronger, more aversive negative associations with riskier options and their outcomes.