Cognitive components in risk perception: Natural versus manmade risks

In a questionnaire study 106 Norwegian students rated natural and manmade hazards according to risk magnitude and public versus private responsibility for risk management. Another group of 50 subjects judged 36 natural hazards on nine risk dimensions used in previous psychometric studies of ‘manmade risks’. When ratings on nine risk characteristics for natural hazards were factor analyzed a three-dimensional solution was found, with one active/passive dimension, one potency dimension, and one novelty dimension. This contrasts with the two-dimensional solution found for manmade hazards. Responsibility for risk management was found to be related to the type of risk in focus, and different risk characteristics seem to play different roles for manmade and natural hazards.     

In a no-win situation: The employment–health dilemma

Work and organizational psychology (WOP) research has to date mostly focused on people privileged to have the choice between several attractive job options and less on people who are restricted in their job choice (e.g., due to their qualification or personal contingencies) and have to choose from fewer and often less-than-optimal jobs. Often, the jobs available to the latter are characterized by precarious employment and hazardous working conditions which can put them in the difficult situation of having to choose between a health-threatening job and possible unemployment. Building on interdisciplinary literature, we propose the employment–health dilemma (E-H dilemma) as a framework for analyzing this intrapersonal conflict of having to choose between employment (incurring health threats) and health (incurring economic threats) and discuss potential antecedents and consequences of the E-H dilemma at the societal, organizational, and individual level. We outline the implications of the E-H dilemma and make a case for examining the full spectrum of job choice situations in WOP research. In doing so, we demonstrate what WOP can gain by embracing a more inclusive and multidisciplinary approach: uncovering processes in their entirety (e.g., job choice decisions of all people) and strengthening the role and legitimacy of WOP in society.     

Citizen participation and emprowerment: The case of local environmental hazards

Local environmental hazards place millions of citizens at risk of physical, emotional, and financial harm. While the discovery of such hazards can be fundamentally disempowering for individuals and communities, few scholars have examined the dynamics of empowerment in this context. We explore the relationships among forms of empowerment, citizen participation, and local environmental hazards, and offer a model of the processes of empowerment and disempowerment appropriate to a broad range of citizen issues. On the basis of this analysis we recommend a partnership approach to community decision making that is designed both to reduce the likelihood that local environmental hazards will develop and to minimize the disempowering impact of any threats that do occur.     

Possible psychosomatic hazards to the therapist: patients as self-objects

This speculative paper concerns certain fundamentals of healing and psychotherapy which we mistakenly tend to take for granted. I discuss our need for the feeling of harmony, wholeness, and oneness. I call this archetypal need our 'normal autistic expectation'. When met, we experience well-being and 'healing'. If not sufficiently and reliably met, this expectation becomes an omnipotent demand ('autistic demand'). Frustration then brings about angry destructiveness, either outwardly directed or inwardly directed, with bodily changes which must be processed if bodily damage is to be minimized. Bereavement, the loss of a person necessary for one's feeling of wholeness (a 'self-object'), is an extreme and well-researched example of such damage. Our selfobjects are 'healing' when they help us to complete our sense of self. Our patients-, our profession, our colleagues, our place of work and our financial security are normally all part of our self-object structure. I give examples where patients' own needs for survival or intactness mean that they have to externalize their own hurt and anger for long periods of their therapy. This often means that the therapist's own wholeness and health are under attack, and even damaged permanently, or at least until the damage can be processed. The nature of 'processing' in this sense is therefore in need of energetic research.     

Considerations in psychometric modeling of response time

Semiparametric models express a set of distributions of event times in terms of (a) a single parameter which varies across distributions and (b) a single function which does not vary across distributions and which has an unspecified form. These models appear to be attractive alternatives to parametric models of response times in psychometrics. However, our use of such models may require incorporating additional functions which do not vary across distributions and may require expressing the models in terms of the joint distribution of response class and response time.     

HOME SAFETY: DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF ONE COMPONENT OF AN ECOBEHAVIORAL TREATMENT PROGRAM FOR ABUSED AND NEGLECTED CHILDREN

Parents may be charged with child abuse or neglect or both on the basis of a variety of circumstances. Child neglect, for example, is often documented when caseworkers observe that the family's home itself is so poorly kept that it presents an environment in which young children have ready access to lethal hazards such as poisons, uncovered wall outlets, and firearms. In this study, we describe the development of a Home Accident Prevention Inventory (HAPI) which was validated and used to assess hazards in the homes of several families under state protective service for child abuse and neglect. The HAPI included five categories of hazards: fire and electrical, mechanical-suffocation, ingested object suffocation, firearms, and solid/liquid poisons. Following the collection of baseline data, parents were presented with a treatment package that included instructions and demonstrations on making hazards inaccessible to children, plus feedback regarding the number and location of hazards in the home. The multiple-baseline design across hazardous categories in each family's home showed that the package resulted in decreases in the number of these accessible hazards. These improvements were maintained over an extended period of unannounced follow-up checks. This research provides a model for the development and assessment of an area previously unexamined in the child abuse and neglect literature.     

Understanding ‘Unlikely (20% Likelihood)’ or ‘20% Likelihood (Unlikely)’ Outcomes: The Robustness of the Extremity Effect

Calls to communicate uncertainty using mixed, verbal‐numerical formats (‘unlikely [0–33%]’) have stemmed from research comparing mixed with solely verbal communications. Research using the new ‘which outcome’ approach to investigate understanding of verbal probability expressions suggests, however, that mixed formats might convey disadvantages compared with purely numerical communications. When asked to indicate an outcome that is ‘unlikely’, participants have been shown to often indicate outcomes with a value exceeding the maximum value shown, equivalent to a 0% probability —an ‘extremity effect’. Recognising the potential consequences of communication recipients expecting an ‘unlikely’ event to never occur, we extend the ‘which outcome’ work across four experiments, using verbal, numerical, and verbal‐numerical communication formats, as well as a previously unconsidered numerical‐verbal format. We examine how robust the effect is in the context of consequential outcomes and over non‐normal distributions. We also investigate whether participants are aware of the inconsistency in their responses from a traditional ‘how likely’ and ‘which outcome’ task. We replicate and extend previous findings, with preference for extreme outcomes (including above maximum values) observed in both verbal and verbal‐numerical formats. Our results suggest caution in blanket usage of recently recommended verbal‐numerical formats for the communication of uncertainty. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Predictors of Length of Stay Among Youths Hospitalized in State Hospitals in Illinois

Using data from the Integrated Database on Children and Family Services in Illinois, we examined factors associated with the length of psychiatric hospitalization of youths in state hospitals between July 1, 1987 and June 30, 1992. Univariate analysis indicated that those diagnosed with attention deficit, psychotic, and conduct disorder experienced longer hospitalizations. In contrast, youths diagnosed with depressive disorders, drug and alcohol disorders, and adjustment disorders had shorter hospitalizations. Youths receiving services from multiple sectors of the human service delivery system experienced longer hospitalizations. Youths living in communities with state hospital linked community-based mental health services had shorter hospitalizations. Males experienced longer hospitalizations than females and African American youths experienced longer hospitalizations than White youths. Hispanic youths experienced shorter stays than either White or African American youths. The proportional hazards model indicated that being female, a history of previous admissions, multiservice use, and dangerousness were all associated with the decreased likelihood of discharge. Psychotic, attention deficit, and bipolar disorders were also associated with a decreased likelihood of hospital discharge. Youths with depressive disorders and African Americans with psychotic disorders had an increased likelihood of discharge. Increased age was also associated with the increased likelihood of discharge.     

Adverse Housing Conditions and Early‐Onset Delinquency

Housing constitutes an important health resource for children. Research has revealed that, when housing conditions are unfavorable, they can interfere with child health, academic performance, and cognition. Little to no research, however, has considered whether adverse housing conditions and early‐onset delinquency are significantly associated with one another. This study explores the associations between structural and non‐structural housing conditions and delinquent involvement during childhood. Data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) were employed in this study. Each adverse housing condition was significantly associated with early‐onset delinquency. Even so, disarray and deterioration were only significantly linked to early delinquent involvement in the presence of health/safety hazards. The predicted probability of early‐onset delinquency among children exposed to housing risks in the presence of health/safety hazards was nearly three times as large as the predicted probability of early‐onset delinquency among children exposed only to disarray and/or deterioration, and nearly four times as large as the predicted probability of early‐onset delinquency among children exposed to none of the adverse housing conditions. The findings suggest that minimizing housing‐related health/safety hazards among at‐risk subsets of the population may help to alleviate other important public health concerns—particularly early‐onset delinquency. Addressing household health/safety hazards may represent a fruitful avenue for public health programs aimed at the prevention of early‐onset delinquency.     

In the grip of the python: Conflicts at the university-industry interface

When the University of Toronto withdrew a contract it held with me in December 2000, it initiated a sequence of events that led to a public letter to the University from senior figures in the world psychopharmacology community protesting against the infringement of academic freedom involved and a first ever legal action, undertaked by this author, seeking redress for a violation of academic freedom. The issues of academic freedom surrounding this case have been intertwined with a debate about the possibility that the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) group of antidepressants have the potential to trigger suicidality in a subgroup of patients. Whether the SSRIs do trigger suicidality or not, exploration of this issue has given rise to a number of worrying sets of observations. First, in my view, there is evidence that pharmaceutical companies have miscoded raw data on suicidal acts and suicidal ideation. Second, this author also maintains that there is a growing body of examples of ghostwriting of articles in the therapeutics domain. Many of the tensions evident in this case, therefore, can be linked to company abilities to keep clinical trial data out of the public domain — this is the point at which the pharmaceutical python gets a grip on academia.