Perception of genetic risk among genetic counselors

A mailed survey of female prenatal genetic counselors, obstetric nurses, and high school biology teachers was conducted to determine if these groups hold different attitudes toward genetic risk and to investigate the extent to which any differences result from the effect of different professional experiences. In this study, the participants were 166 genetic counselors, 116 obstetric nurses, and 78 biology teachers (n = 360). Survey participants completed a written questionnaire designed to assess their numeric estimate of the empiric risk for birth defects/genetic problems, their subjective perception of this risk, and their personal use of prenatal diagnosis. Genetic counselors were found to be less likely than the other groups to consider the frequency of birth defects/genetic problems as rare and were 10 times more likely than nurses and 8 times more likely than teachers to have had prenatal diagnosis. Furthermore, more than half of the prenatal diagnosis procedures had by genetic counselors were not medically indicated. These results suggest that genetic counselors have an increased perception of genetic risks relative to nurses or teachers. Possible explanations for this finding are discussed, and the potential role of discordant risk perception in creating biases in the genetic counseling process is explored.     

Hyperactivity in Children: A Focus on Genetic Research and Psychological Theories

Hyperactivity has attracted a large amount of research interest in recent years. Here we review developments in genetic research and in research testing psychological theories of the condition. Family, adoptee and twin studies indicate a strong role for genetic factors in the etiology of hyperactivity. Evidence is emerging also from molecular genetic studies, implicating specific genes that may be involved. At the level of cognitive functioning, a divided, focused or sustained attention deficit does not seem to be a core deficit in hyperactivity. Although children with hyperactivity often perform poorly on certain executive function tasks, there is disagreement about the interpretation of these findings. The association reported in some studies between a slow inhibitory process and hyperactivity may reflect a generally slow, variable in speed and inaccurate pattern of responding. Hypotheses about psychological mechanisms such as state regulation or delay aversion provide alternative, and particularly encouraging, interpretations of the findings. We discuss the possible integration of the two lines of research—those of genetic research and research on psychological mechanisms.     

Representation of subjective preferences under ambiguity

The objective of this paper is to show how potentially incomplete preferences of a decision maker (DM) on acts can be modelled formally in a subjective ambiguity perspective. We identify acts as functions from a state space Ω to bounded support (finitely additive) probabilities over a set X of prizes. Then, we characterize preferences over equibounded acts a which have a numerical representation by the family of functionals , where u is a cardinal utility on X (representing the risk attitude of the DM) and Π is a unique pointwise closed convex set of probabilities on all events in Ω (representing the ambiguity perceived by the DM). To this end, in addition to the usual independence and continuity assumptions, we add completeness and dominance for preferences restricted to constant acts; moreover, we consider two other properties (subjective monotonicity and coherence) related with the preferences of a DM who is not able, owing to his partial knowledge, to evaluate any event in Ω.     

Societal Risk Perception Among Children, Adolescents, Adults, and Elderly People

This study reported on mean risk magnitude judgments expressed by French participants aged 8 to 75 years, on a set of 91 hazardous activities, substances, and technologies. It then systematically analyzed the effects of the age factor on the judgments. Between elderly people and young and mature adults, few notable differences were detected. The most important result was that a considerable proportion of the children were able to estimate the risk associated with most items of the present study, and that the linear association between children's ratings and adults' ratings was very high. This finding supports the view that the learning of the risk associated with various technologies, common in society, is a fast process, depending probably much more on exposure to media information and family discussions (socialization) than on exposure to everyday reality.     

Distractor effect on the latent inhibition of conditioned flavor aversion in rats

Using a conditioned flavor aversion procedure with rats as subjects, the effect of the addition of a distractor stimulus on the magnitude of the latent inhibition effect was examined. Experiment 1 showed that latent inhibition to vinegar was attenuated by the addition of sucrose during preexposure. On the other hand, sucrose added during conditioning to vinegar did not attenuate latent inhibition. It was also found that the degree of latent inhibition to the vinegar-sucrose compound solution was less when vinegar alone was preexposed (i.e., when sucrose was added only during conditioning) than when the compound solution was preexposed (i.e., when sucrose was added both during preexposure and during conditioning). Experiment 2 gave similar results but with sucrose assigned as the target flavor and vinegar as the distractor. These findings are in full agreement with the generalization decrement account of latent inhibition.     

Avoiding negative vs. achieving positive outcomes in hard and prosperous economic times

Three studies suggest that business cycle fluctuations trigger distinct motivational orientations that selectively affect economic judgment and decision making. Economic contractions induce avoidance motivation and affect negative economic sentiment, but leave approach motivation and positive economic sentiment unaffected. In contrast, economic expansions induce approach motivation and positive economic sentiment, but do not affect avoidance motivation or negative economic sentiment (study 1). Moreover, economic contractions induce risk aversion for negative outcomes, but not for positive outcomes, while economic expansions instigate risk seeking for positive outcomes, but not for negative outcomes (study 2). A time-series study based on consumer spending over eight decades mirrors the findings of the experimental studies: The consumption of products associated with avoiding negative outcomes increases during economic contractions, but not during expansions. In contrast, the consumption of products associated with achieving positive outcomes increases in expansions, but is unaffected by contractions (study 3).     

Stress Overload: A New Approach to the Assessment of Stress

The link between stress and health has not received strong empirical support, possibly due to problems in the stress measures used. Here, the first wholly empirical development of a new “Stress Overload Scale” is described. A pool of 150 items was formed to reflect “overload”, a common denominator in stress theories. Then, the results of five sequenced studies, conducted in heterogeneous community samples, were used to pare the item pool. Exploratory (n = 431) and confirmatory (n = 433) analyses revealed two factors (Event Load and Personal Vulnerability) corresponding to theoretical constructs; only the best factor markers were submitted to further construct validity (n = 310) and reliability tests (n = 342). The 24 strongest items were selected for the SOS, which demonstrated criterion validity in predicting who (n = 285) would become sick following a common stressor. The SOS is (1) psychometrically strong, especially in its validity relative to popular measures; (2) appropriate to community research, due to its brevity and fit to a broad demographic spectrum; (3) unique in its ability to cross‐section individuals into risk categories. It should prove useful to community psychologists in determining etiology, diagnosing risk for pathology, and evaluating the efficacy of interventions.     

Everyday risk taking as a function of regulatory focus

Uncertainty is an inherent aspect of everyday life. However, faced with uncertainty, some individuals take risks more eagerly than others. Regulatory focus theory may explain such differences because risky behavior may arise naturally from the eagerness of promotion focused individuals, while safe behavior may arise naturally from the vigilance of prevention focused individuals. A highly relevant real-life context for studying risk is mobility, as engaging in traffic inherently carries uncertainty about negative outcomes. We present two studies showing a direct link between regulatory focus and risky behavior going beyond traditional laboratory approaches. In both naturalistic speeding behavior (Study 1) and simulated risk taking (Study 2) promotion focus was positively, and prevention focus was negatively related to actual risky behavior.     

Cost-Benefit Analysis Mediation of the Relationship Between Sensation Seeking and Risk Behavior

Risk behavior during adolescence results in substantial morbidity and mortality. Sensation seeking consistently relates to engagement in risk behavior, but the psychological mediators of this relationship remain unclear. The current study demonstrates that adolescents’ judgments of the costs versus benefits of risk behavior were a significant mediator of this relationship. Participants were 406 racially and ethnically diverse adolescents ages 12-17 (M = 14.5, SD = 1.7; 48.3% female) who participated in a larger multi-site investigation of personality and neurocognitive predictors of risk behavior. Data were collected via self-report in a single laboratory session. Mediation of the relationship of sensation seeking to risk behavior was tested using structural equation modeling. Results indicated that higher levels of sensation seeking predicted weighing the benefits of risk behavior higher than its costs, which in turn predicted higher levels of risk behavior. Implications of these findings for understanding mechanisms underlying adolescents’ risk behavior and directions for future research are discussed.     

Introducing naturalistic cycling data: What factors influence bicyclists’ safety in the real world?

Presently, the collection and analysis of naturalistic data is the most credited method for understanding road user behavior and improving traffic safety. Such methodology was developed for motorized vehicles, such as cars and trucks, and is still largely applied to those vehicles. However, a reasonable question is whether bicycle safety can also benefit from the naturalistic methodology, once collection and analyses are properly ported from motorized vehicles to bicycles. This paper answers this question by showing that instrumented bicycles can also collect analogous naturalistic data. In addition, this paper shows how naturalistic cycling data from 16 bicyclists can be used to estimate risk while cycling. The results show that cycling near an intersection increased the risk of experiencing a critical event by four times, and by twelve times when the intersection presented some form of visual occlusion (e.g., buildings and hedges). Poor maintenance of the road increased the risk tenfold. Furthermore, the risk of experiencing a critical event was twice as large when at least one pedestrian or another bicyclist crossed the bicyclist’s trajectory. Finally, this study suggests the two most common scenarios for bicycle accidents, which result from different situations and thus require different countermeasures. The findings presented in this paper show that bicycle safety can benefit from the naturalistic methodology, which provides data able to guide development and evaluation of (intelligent) countermeasures to increase cycling safety.