Young pedestrians' behaviours and risk perception: a pilot study with Italian early adolescents

This study aimed to investigate early adolescents’ mobility, taking into consideration risky pedestrian behaviours around roads and their relationship with independent mobility and risk perception in different traffic situations. The participants were 922 students, males (48%) and females, aged 10–14 and who attended the seventh (51%) and ninth grades in a medium-sized city in southern Italy. They completed an anonymous self-report questionnaire at school, specifically designed for the research. Measures included mode of transport, level of independent mobility, frequency of risky behaviours as a pedestrian and risk perception of these behaviours. Moreover, students were asked to evaluate the risk, their likely behaviour, and likely motives for risky behaviour in a specific traffic scenario concerning a risky road crossing shown on a video. Gender and age differences were taken into consideration, and relationships between risky behaviour as a pedestrian, level of independent mobility and different measures of risk perception (concerning both risk behaviour as a pedestrian and in the video scenario) were investigated. Results showed that risky behaviours while travelling as a pedestrian were more widespread among ninth grade students and those who were more independent. Moreover, a strong relationship between a greater involvement in risky pedestrian behaviours and lower risk perception and a greater tendency to justify risky behaviours were found in the students. Results suggested the implementation of a prevention programme in early adolescence to improve both risk perception in specific traffic situations and the awareness of motives of risky road behaviours.     

算法拒绝的三维动机理论

算法拒绝意指尽管算法通常能比人类做出更准确的决策, 但人们依然更偏好人类决策的现象。算法拒绝的三维动机理论归纳了算法主体怀疑、道德地位缺失和人类特性湮没这三个主要原因, 分别对应信任、责任和掌控三种心理动机, 并对应改变算法拒绝的三种可行方案: 提高人类对算法的信任度, 强化算法的主体责任, 探索个性化算法设计以突显人对算法决策的控制力。未来研究可进一步以更社会性的视角探究算法拒绝的发生边界和其他可能动机。     

Parentification,Substance Use,and Sex among Adolescent Daughters from Ethnic Minority Families: The Moderating Role of Monitoring

Guided by structural family systems theory, this study explored the relationship between parentification and adolescent daughters' sexual risk engagement and substance use. We also explored how adolescent reports of parental monitoring moderated the relationship between parentification and adolescent risk. Data were from a cross‐sectional, cross‐generational study of 176 mother–daughter dyads from low‐income, inner‐city, ethnic minority families. In this sample, which included a subset of mothers with HIV, parental physical symptoms were associated with slightly higher levels of parentification. Parentification was associated with adolescent daughters' intention to have sex (but not substance use) in a direction opposite to prediction. Higher parentification was associated with lower intention to have sex. Parental monitoring did not moderate relationships between parentification and adolescent risk. These findings highlight that despite the negative influence hypothesized in structural family systems theory, parentification was not associated with risk engagement of high‐risk adolescent daughters in ethnic minority families with low income.     

The Partners for Life Program: A Couples Approach to Cardiac Risk Reduction

Morbidity and mortality are reliably lower for the married compared with the unmarried across a variety of illnesses. What is less well understood is how a couple uses their relationship for recommended lifestyle changes associated with decreased risk for illness. Partners for Life compared a patient and partner approach to behavior change with a patient only approach on such factors as exercise, nutrition, and medication adherence. Ninety‐three patients and their spouses/partners consented to participate (26% of those eligible) and were randomized into either the individual or couples condition. However, only 80 couples, distributed across conditions, contributed data to the analyses, due to missing data and missing data points. For exercise, there was a significant effect of couples treatment on the increase in activity and a significant effect of couples treatment on the acceleration of treatment over time. In addition, there was an interaction between marital satisfaction and treatment condition such that patients who reported higher levels of marital distress in the individuals condition did not maintain their physical activity gains by the end of treatment, while both distressed and nondistressed patients in the couples treatment exhibited accelerating gains throughout treatment. In terms of medication adherence, patients in the couples treatment exhibited virtually no change in medication adherence over time, while patients in the individuals treatment showed a 9% relative decrease across time. There were no condition or time effects for nutritional outcomes. Finally, there was an interaction between baseline marital satisfaction and treatment condition such that patients in the individuals condition who reported lower levels of initial marital satisfaction showed deterioration in marital satisfaction, while non satisfied patients in the couples treatment showed improvement over time.     

Self‐regulation predicts risk‐taking through people's time horizon

In the context of decision‐making research, people's regulatory orientation mode (i.e., assessment and locomotion modes) has been included among the most prominent individual difference variables, which may potentially account for choice behaviour. Thus, the main objective of our experiment was to investigate the relations between habitual use of regulatory mode and risk‐taking through people's time horizon. Risk‐taking was appraised using a behavioural measure (i.e., BART) 1 month following evaluation of habitual use of regulatory mode. The findings revealed a significant negative association between the assessment mode and risk‐taking through individual differences in time horizon.     

Evidencia de validez factorial del Maslach Burnout Inventory y estudio de los niveles de burnout en profesionales sanitarios

In this research we studied the levels and the associated variables with the burnout syndrome in health professionals. This research aimed to obtain evidences of factorial validity of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), to estimate the prevalence of burnout, and to identify the risk factors for this syndrome among health professionals. A cross-sectional, quantitative, and exploratory study was conducted for this purpose. The sample consisted of 435 professionals including assistants, nurses and doctors. The results indicated proper adjustment in the tri-factorial structure of the MBI. It was also found that professional category, age and type of dedication, are risk factors for suffering from burnout. On the other hand, the results showed that nurses had higher burnout levels than the rest of the professional groups studied. The foregoing suggests that the above risk factors should be taken into account when implementing programs to prevent development of the syndrome.     

Compensation method affects risk-taking in the Balloon Analogue Risk Task

Different participant compensation methods may have discrepant effects on decision-making in behavioral measures of risk-taking. Participants in clinical samples tend to receive session-based payment (often in conjunction with decision-based payment), whereas participants in student samples generally receive decision-based payment or no payment at all. This study examined the effect of different methods of participant payment on a behavioral measure of individual differences in risk-taking. Participants completed the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) as well as questionnaire measures of sensation-seeking and impulsivity. Participants who received session-based payment engaged in significantly greater risk-taking in the BART compared to those who were paid based on their decisions and those who were not paid at all (i.e., those who were only compensated with course credit). These effects were not influenced by age, gender, sensation-seeking or impulsivity. These findings provide evidence that different compensation methods significantly influence participants’ risk-taking propensity as measured by the BART.     

Handedness differences in information framing

Previous research has shown that strength of handedness predicts differences in sensory illusions, Stroop interference, episodic memory, and beliefs about body image. Recent evidence also suggests handedness differences in the susceptibility to common decision biases such as anchoring and sunk cost. The present paper extends this line of work to attribute framing effects. Sixty-three undergraduates were asked to advise a friend concerning the use of a safe allergy medication during pregnancy. A third of the participants received negatively-framed information concerning the fetal risk of the drug (1–3% chance of having a malformed child); another third received positively-framed information (97–99% chance of having a normal child); and the final third received no counseling information and served as the control. Results indicated that, as predicted, inconsistent (mixed)-handers were more responsive than consistent (strong)-handers to information changes and readily update their beliefs. Although not significant, the data also suggested that only inconsistent handers were affected by information framing. Theoretical implications as well as ongoing work in holistic versus analytic processing, contextual sensitivity, and brain asymmetry will be discussed.     

Does driving experience in video games count? Hazard anticipation and visual exploration of male gamers as function of driving experience

Risk perception and distribution of visual attention while driving are crucial elements for accident prevention and new-driver improvement. This study investigates how racing videogames could shape the visual exploration of virtual and real road in male pre-drivers. The visual performance of players of racing video games with and without driver’s license was tested in virtual vs. real scenarios. Attention to specific elements of different types of road interactions was monitored using an eye-tracking system. Results showed that habitual use of racing video games was not found to foster a positive effect on users’ distribution of visual attention, supporting visual patterns typical of novice drivers. Gamers without driving experience replicated the same patterns in a real road scenario, ignoring road signs and potential areas of interactions with other drivers, while experienced drivers gamers explored video games roads like real roads. The fact that the gamers’ driving performance was not comparable to drivers in the virtual scenario suggests that there are other variables in the gameplay that create a less complex traffic scene, still the visual complexity of different real road interactions is kept in video game interactions, opening new perspectives towards gamers’ visual exploration of the road.