1,721,057 research outputs found
Nudging freelance professionals to increase their retirement pension fund contributions
Full text linkPeople do not save enough for retirement and this can have serious repercussions on their well-being. We tested an intervention in a large field study (N = 20,507) with the goal of nudging a population of freelance workers to save more for the future. First, we changed the default from the earlier contribution rate of 10% to a contribution rate of 20%, but left people free to choose how much they wanted to contribute. Second, those who reduced their contribution were reminded that they would receive a lower pension as a result. Third, we informed people about how much tax they would save as a result of their contribution. This nudging intervention proved to be a cost-effective, yet powerful way to remind people about the long-term implications of their savings decisions. It was also successful at counteracting the temptation to keep as much money as possible for present consumption while losing out on the long run. Overall, we were able to increase cash flow to the fund by more than eight million Euros (in addition to the roughly 50 million collected in the previous year), with an almost seven-fold increase in the number of people who chose to contribute more than the minimum
Numbers in Medicine: Ingredients for an effective and transparent risk communication
No full textNowadays, we have much more information about our health than we had in the past, and numerical information is, or should be, commonplace in the communication between doctors and patients. Indeed, evidence-based medicine is the gold standard for public health decisions, for the development of national and international guidelines, as well as for clinical practice on individual patients. In this perspective, risk communication, conveyed mainly through numerical information, need to take into account how people perceive and understand this information. Psychological research on this issue has shown that people are affected by the way information is presented when making judgments and decisions. This paper aims to illustrate some of the main issues to be considered when designing risk communication in the medical domain. By examining some examples of non-transparent risk communication, we will illustrate the effectiveness of different types of numerical information (natural frequencies, 1 in n. percentages) and discuss the concepts of absolute and relative risk, highlighting the importance of making explicit the reference class. Additionally, considering that the same treatment can be described in terms of likelihood of survival or death, and that, although the two information are complementary, people seem to be affected by the communicator's choice, we will examine the various types of frames used in the medical domain and discuss the more recent research findings. Making explicit the reference class to which probabilities refer can also help to understand the results of a clinical test. In a simplistic way, people often think that a positive test result means that a disease is present and that a negative test result means that it is not. Even when it is acknowledged that no test is 100% certain, the margin of error and the extent to which it is affected by the frequency of the disease in the population are difficult to grasp, even by experts. For instance, even with a very precise test, a positive test result is associated with a very low likelihood of having the disease (positive predictive value) when the disease is rare. Research has also shown that people with low numeracy (the ability to reason and to apply simple numerical concepts) are especially susceptible to misunderstanding of numerical information when it is referred to groups of people and that are likely to be affected by stories about single cases (see, for instance, the current debate about childhood vaccinations). Finally, we will discuss about the new frontiers of medical research, resulting in a continuous increase in the complexity of risk communication. For example, with the progress of medical genetics and the possibility to determine the presence of genetic mutations that can be linked to the risk of developing diseases, the complexity of the information to be communicated is clearly increasing. Even if people are driven by the desire to know, we need to remember that it is not always possible to act upon the information obtained (e.g., would you want to know whether you have a genetic predisposition for Alzheimer, considering that at present there is no effective treatment?) and that the decisions made by our «present Self» might not be the same of those that our «future Self» would made for its health
Processi mentali e forme di rappresentazione nei processi di categorizzazione
No full textLa categorizzazione è un processo cognitivo fondamentale della mente umana, e le sue caratteristiche rimandano ad una questione importante cui prima la filosofia e poi la psicologia hanno cercato di rispondere: che cos'è e come è rappresentata la conoscenza? Gli psicologi hanno articolato la risposta in due programmi di ricerca: il primo riguarda le modalità di organizzazione della conoscenza; il secondo verte sulla forma delle rappresentazioni mentali. In questo lavoro cercheremo di illustrare alcuni aspetti di entrambi i programmi di ricerca
What’s in a name: Drug names convey implicit information about their riskiness and efficacy
No full textThe present research provides empirical evidence that drug names may entail implicit promises about their therapeutic power. We asked people to evaluate the perceived efficacy and risk associated with hypothetical drug names and other secondary related measures. We compared opaque (without meaning), functional (targeting the health issue that the drug is meant to solve) and persuasive (targeting the expected outcome of the treatment) names. Persuasive names were perceived as more efficacious and less risky than both opaque and functional names, suggesting that names that target the expected outcome of the drug may bias the perception of risk and efficacy. Implications for health-related communication are discussed in light of both the increasing use of over-the-counter drugs and the concern about people's low health literac
“Patient dies due to hernia: Doctors in trouble” A study on the effect of framing and numerical information format on liability judgments.
No full textI comportamenti di promozione alla salute: Effetto framing e percezione del rischio
No full textLa presente ricerca si inserisce nel panorama di studi che si occupa di comunicazione e di educazione alla salute. Negli ultimi anni si è assistito ad un notevole incremento delle campagne di informazione e di prevenzione nei confronti della salute personale, ed un interesse particolare ha rivestito la formulazione linguistica dei messaggi utilizzati. In sintesi, la domanda cui si cerca di dare una risposta è la seguente: quali sono le informazioni che risultano davvero efficaci, cioè che si traducono efffettivamente in comportamenti desiderabili dal punto di vista della salute
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
L'arte e la scienza della strutturazione della decisione
No full textIl capitolo presenta una rassegna ragionata e aggiornata degli studi sulla generazione delle opzioni, all'interno del contesto dei processi di strutturazione della decisione, affrontando gli aspetti cognitivi e le basi neurali dei processi di generazione
Comparing young and older Italian women on preferences for BRCA testing and risk reduction and management strategies
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