An ecological stance on risk and safe behaviors in children: The role of affordances and emergent behaviors

Unintentional injuries are a major cause of disability and death among children. Initial strategies to address child safety issues have primarily either focused on the environment, trying to identify “risk environments”, or on the individual, trying to identify “at risk children”. More recently, the interaction between child and environment is starting to be addressed in order to enhance the understanding of childhood injuries. The present review suggests a framing of these studies in ecological theory, which implies that children with certain characteristics perceive certain affordances in the environment. In this context, risk may be considered a relational concept. The literature on risk prevention is reviewed and the role of caregivers in managing affordances is emphasized.     

The perception of bicycle crashes with and without motor vehicles: Which crash types do older and middle-aged cyclists fear most?

Several studies have focused on the perceived risk of bicycle crashes (irrespective of crash types) and concluded that cycling near high volumes of motor vehicles deters people from cycling. The perceived risk of bicycle crash types (with or without motor vehicles) has not yet been studied. Cyclists, both in countries with low and high levels of cycling participation, are substantially more likely to sustain severe injuries in single-bicycle crashes than in bicycle-motor vehicle crashes. This questionnaire study sets out to compare which bicycle crash types are perceived to cause most hospitalizations among cyclists. The study comprised cyclists over 55 years in the Netherlands, and over 40 years in the Belgian regions of Flanders (a region with high cycling participation), Brussels and Wallonia (regions with low cycling participation). The majority of cyclists (60%) perceive bicycle-motor vehicle crashes cause most hospitalizations among cyclists. This percentage is greatest in the areas of Brussels and Wallonia and lowest in the Netherlands. Cyclists who were involved in a bicycle-motor vehicle crash themselves are more likely to regard this crash type as the most common cause of hospitalizations among cyclists, while cyclists over 60 years who were involved in a crash without a motor vehicle are more likely to perceive that crash type as the most common cause. The smaller perception bias in the study areas with higher cycling participation – particularly the Netherlands and to a somewhat lesser degree Flanders – is probably due to bicycle infrastructure being more separated from high-speed motor traffic, leaving cyclists less exposed. The outcomes show that cyclists underestimate the likelihood of severe injuries due to single-bicycle crashes. New interventions should raise the awareness of the risk of single-bicycle crashes and provide solutions to avoid such crashes.     

Bidirectional Spillover in the Family across the Transition to Parenthood

Although family systems theory posits reciprocal causality between subsystems of the family, such as intimate partner violence exacerbating harsh parenting and vice versa, longitudinal studies with cross‐lagged models have been used infrequently to test these principles. As guided by the spillover model, this study examined bidirectional associations between couple dysfunction, parent–child aggression risk, and child functioning across the transition to parenthood to determine whether and how disruptions in one subsystem relate to problems in other family subsystems. Participants were 201 first‐time mothers and 151 fathers from a diverse community sample, evaluated during pregnancy, and reassessed two more times through their child's first 18 months of life. Individual and dyadic path model results indicate bidirectional spillover effects between parent–child aggression risk and child functioning for both mothers and fathers, and spillover from parent–child aggression risk to couple dysfunction for mothers but not fathers. However, limited spillover effects were identified between couple functioning and child adjustment, in contrast to previous work. Findings suggest that spillover can happen reciprocally and early in the family, supporting transactional models of behavior and highlighting the need for early family level intervention.     

Are mindful people more risk-averse? Effects of trait and state mindfulness on risk preference in decision-making

The current research investigated whether various aspects of mindfulness were differentially associated with risk preference in decision-making. In Studies 1 and 2, attention and present-focus aspects of trait mindfulness were associated with lower risk preference in making monetary gains. In Study 3, participants completed either a mindfulness training or listened to a comparable control recording. Compared to the control condition, subjects in the mindfulness condition were more risk-averse in making choices for monetary gains. The attention and present-focus aspects of state mindfulness mediated this connection. Study 4 introduced a loss framing, where attention and present-focus no longer associated with lower risk preference, but awareness and acceptance aspects of trait mindfulness associated with higher risk preference in avoiding monetary losses. The results suggest that different aspects of mindfulness have potential for mitigating risk preference, but such potential is limited depending on the framing of a decision context.     

Aggressive driving: Do driving overconfidence and aggressive thoughts behind the wheel,drive professionals off the road?

Aggressive driving has emerged as one of the most studied behaviors in the traffic psychology context due to its association with odds of motor vehicle crashes (MVCs) and especially fatal ones. Nevertheless, behavioral (aggression) and affective (anger) aspects of aggressive driving have been deeply studied; its cognitive part hasn’t gained much attention; However, its role in understanding the process of aggression and designing interventions couldn’t be neglected. This research investigated the contribution of overconfidence (as the driver’s cognitive bias), aggressive thoughts, driver’s aggression, and risk perception in driver’s performance and the number of self-reported active accidents. The unique contribution of this study is its sample of urban bus drivers that have less been studied to date. Structural equation modeling (SEM), and mediation analysis revealed that overconfidence contributes to aggressive driving through aggressive thoughts behind the wheel. Moreover, overconfidence decreased the risk perception and driving performance of individuals, which were associated with a higher number of driver’s accidents. Besides, aggressive thoughts behind the wheel predicted physically aggressive expression and using the vehicle to express anger, which were associated with a decreased level of driving performance and an increased number of accidents. This study brings further evidence, supporting the importance of cognition in understanding and preventing aggressive driving and its adverse outcomes.     

Driver speeding typologies by roadway behaviours and beliefs: A latent class analysis with a multistate sample of U.S. adults

Speeding has consistently contributed to a high number of motor vehicle crashes and subsequent injuries and deaths in the U.S. Identifying types of drivers related to speeding behaviour may help target interventions to reduce speeding. Typology of U.S. driver speeders have examined very specifically speeding behaviours and speeding-related attitudes. This exploratory work used latent class analysis (LCA) to examine how other driving behaviours and attitudes cluster around speeding behaviours to determine speeder typologies, which may lend a more holistic perspective to speeder types. Predicted class assignments were evaluated for associations with demographic and personality factors. The LCA resulted in four driver typologies, which we labelled: Externally Motivated (40.7%), Non-Reactors (26.2%), Perceived Invulnerable (24.3%), and Perceived Vulnerable (8.9%). The Externally Motivated and Non-Reactors typologies had the highest probability of reporting extreme speeding. The Externally Motivated may be intervened upon with messaging about reducing risks crashes and injuring passengers, while the Perceived Vulnerable class already exhibit several risk-averse behaviours that self-limits their speeding behaviour. Class placement was associated with age, self-reported speeding frequency, receipt of speeding violations. The resulting U.S. driver typologies advances the literature by demonstrating that non-speeding driver behaviours and attitudes cluster with speeding behaviours, which altogether can inform more nuanced and effective anti-speeding campaigns.     

Risk assessment of knowledge fusion in an innovation ecosystem based on a GA-BP neural network

The risk assessment of knowledge fusion in innovation ecosystems is directly related to these ecosystems’ success or failure. A back-propagation (BP) neural network optimized by a genetic algorithm (GA) is thus proposed to evaluate the risk of knowledge fusion in innovation ecosystems. First, an index system is constructed for evaluating the risk of knowledge fusion in innovation ecosystems, and data are collected by questionnaire for use as training data for the neural networks. To realize machine learning, 84 datasets were generated, of which 60 were used to train the network, and 24 were used to test the network in MATLAB (R2014b). Evaluation models were then constructed by the BP neural network and GA-BP neural network, and their accuracy was judged by comparing the evaluation value with the target value. The comparison shows that the GA-BP neural network has faster convergence speed and higher stability, can achieve the goal more often, and reduces the possibility of the BP neural network falling into a local optimum instead of reaching global optimization. The GA-BP neural network model for the knowledge fusion risk assessment of innovation ecosystems provides a new method for practice.     

Relations between risk perceptions and socio-political ideology are domain- and ideology- dependent

Public policy intended to address risks is largely determined by government officials who are typically elected by ‘the people’. Lay people presumably support political figures most likely to tackle the risks perceived as relevant. The present research investigated whether risk perceptions vary by risk domain and socio-political ideology. American community adults (N = 387) recruited using Amazon Mechanical Turk completed measures of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), social dominance orientation (SDO), political conservatism, and perceived domain risks. Risk perceptions of conservatives versus liberals systematically differed by domain: Increases in political conservatism (vs. liberalism) and RWA were associated with perceiving “personal danger” hazards as more risky, whereas increases in SDO were associated with perceiving “competitive” hazards as less risky. A liberal-orientation was associated with heightened risk concerning collective (shared) hazards.