Comparing What to What,on What Scale? The Impact of Item Comparisons and Reference Points in Communicating Risk and Uncertainty

The mandated public availability of individual hospital's audit data for children's heart surgery in the UK creates a challenging scenario for communicating these complex and sensitive data to diverse audiences. On the basis of this scenario, we conducted three experiments with the aim of understanding how best to help lay people understand these data and the practical goal of improving the public presentation of these data. The experiments compared different outcome measures for displaying the survival rate (percentage scale versus the ratio of the predicted/observed rates) and presentation formats (individual hospital versus all hospitals shown) for outcomes data presented relative to prediction intervals generated by a risk model that adjusts for case mix. Our data highlight how easily inappropriate comparisons can influence evaluations of complex data: for instance, both a survival ratio of 1 and the presence of other hospitals seemingly provided reference points that resulted in inappropriately harsh evaluations of some hospitals. By drawing on evaluability theory, we demonstrate how to enhance people's understanding of these complex data while also discouraging inappropriate comparisons, which has implications for communicating risk and uncertainty and for choice architecture design in a range of contexts. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Porn,Peers, and Performing Oral Sex: The Mediating Role of Peer Norms on Pornography’s Influence Regarding Oral Sex

ABSTRACT

The goal of this study was to offer insights into how pornography use might be linked to young adults’ sexual experiences via the mediating role of peer norms (i.e., their perceptions of what same-sex peers do sexually). We focused on oral sex behavior, as it is common in pornography and among young people. Young adults (N = 349; ages 19–30; 54% female) were recruited through a crowdsourcing website. Participants completed an anonymous online survey about the frequency that they observed various sexual behaviors in online pornography, the frequency that they engaged in these behaviors, and their perceptions of the frequency that their peers engaged in these behaviors. Frequency of viewing cunnilingus (men) or fellatio (women) in pornography predicted how often they engaged in oral sex, and this association was mediated by their perceptions of how frequently their peers engaged in oral sex. Peer norms did not mediate how frequently they received oral sex. Findings are discussed in terms of implications for understanding how pornography may relate to young people’s social norms surrounding oral sex and their performance of sexual behaviors, as well as for understanding generally how media consumption relates to adoption of media behaviors through suggesting a social norm.