42 research outputs found
Rethink Cancer: cancer education in schools
No full textThe #RETHINKCANCER approach is spreading across different schoolsand gaining support in parliament. Marsha Kirichek and Sinong Ma, bothDoctoral Researchers in Behavioural Science at Warwick Business School,here explain the need for this campaign and how the approach has beenpiloted to change behaviour and make a difference to cancersurvival rates
Adoption and Acceptability of Smart Devices for the Home
Full text linkThere are expectations that the market for smart home devices in Europe will triple by 2023. If this growth is to be realised, it is important for providers to understand the considerations and issues for adoption and acceptance of such technologies. In this paper, we address this by reporting results from a nationally representative survey of a sample of 2101 British consumers to measure adoption rates through experience of use and acceptability attitudes, through trust, risk awareness, satisfaction and intention to use smart home devices in the future. We interrogated the survey responses based on key influential demographics such as gender, age and education. Overall, we found that males have a slightly more favourable attitude towards smart home devices than females, that younger people are more likely to hold favourable attitudes towards smart home devices than older people, and that people with primary and secondary education levels are the least interested in smart home devices. It was also ascertained that trust was negatively correlated with being female, and positively correlated with age and education. For education, higher trust was linked to lower risk awareness. This research outlines social divides in smart home devices adoption and raises questions about what kind of business models or policy interventions may be required to level these adoption challenges
Trust in the smart home: Findings from a nationally representative survey in the UK
Full text linkBusinesses in the smart home sector are actively promoting the benefits of smart home technologies for consumers, such as convenience, economy and home security. To better understand meanings of and trust in the smart home, we carried out a nationally representative survey of UK consumers designed to measure adoption and acceptability, focusing on awareness, ownership, experience, trust, satisfaction and intention to use. We analysed the results using theories of meanings and acceptability of technologies including semiotics, social construction of technology (SCOT) and sociotechnical affordance. Our findings suggest that the meaning and value proposition of the smart home have not yet achieved closure for consumers, but is already foregrounding risks to privacy and security amongst the other meaning-making possibilities it could afford. Anxiety about the likelihood of a security incident emerges as a prominent factor influencing adoption of smart home technology. This factor negatively impacts adoption. These findings underline how businesses and policymakers will need to work together to act on the sociotechnical affordances of smart home technology in order to increase consumers’ trust. This intervention is necessary if barriers to adoption and acceptability of the smart home are to be addressed now and in the future
Fairness and utilitarianism without independence
Full text linkIn this work we reconsider Harsanyi’s celebrated (J Polit Econ 61:434–435, 1953; J Polit Econ 63:309–321, 1955; Rational Behavior and Bargaining Equilibrium in Games and Social Situations. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1977) utilitarian impartial observer theorem. Departing from Harsanyi’s individual-centered approach, we argue that when societal decisions are at stake, postulates must not be drawn from individualistic behavior. Rather, they should be based on societal norms. Continuing this line of thinking, we state and prove a utilitarian result that, rather than being based on the independence assumption, is based on the societal norm of procedural fairness
Fairness views in social and individual decisions
Full text linkFairness and efficiency are two classical and connected topics in economics. They have become well known, perhaps due to Adam Smith’s two influential works: The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), which highlights a concern for fairness concern as part of morality, and The Wealth of Nations (1776), which underlines a concern for efficiency. However, during the rapid development of economics, fairness has received disproportionately less attention than efficiency. As a result, many people, including some economists, have incorrectly understood that economics as a subject no longer cares about fairness.
The primary objective of this thesis is to dispel this misperception. We would argue here that, similar to efficiency, fairness is an important factor for both social and individual decisions, and sometimes its effect can be determined.
Written in a three-paper format, this thesis explores fairness from three different angles. These angles cover the broad areas of how theoretical economists model fairness in social choice theory, how the general public perceive distributive fairness, and how people implement their fairness norms in making real-life donations. This multidimensional exploration is believed to be crucial to a comprehensive understanding of fairness
Is allocation affected by the perception of others' irresponsible behavior and by ambiguity?
Full text linkThe article examines how the perception of others' irresponsible behavior and ambiguity regarding probabilities affect allocation among potential beneficiaries. To elicit these views, we conducted a survey where the participants were first asked to make an allocation of a fixed sum of money between a hereditary cancer, where chance plays a central role, and a lifestyle‐related cancer, where individual lifestyle decisions are more important. Our estimation results show that a substantial share of the respondents allocate significantly more to the hereditary cancer. This may indicate that these respondents care about others' irresponsible behavior. Then, we elicited perceptions of cancer hazards in the form of imprecise probabilities and examined the interplay between allocating behavior and risk perceptions. Finally, we investigated the effects of various socioeconomic characteristics, and of awareness of highly publicized cancer cases, on respondents' allocations
The value of personal data in IoT:industry perspectives on consumer conceptions of value
Full text linkPersonal data is an essential component of business models using the Internet of Things (IoT). Massive volumes of personal data are being recorded and analysed about consumers, despite them having limited understanding about how it affects them. Perceptions and preferences in this space influence how consumers choose to interact with the IoT, to a large extent. Yet little is understood about how industry perceives the views of consumers regarding the use of their personal data. To address this gap, we conducted three workshops with IoT industry stakeholders exploring their perspectives of consumer conceptions of the value of personal data in IoT. From the workshops, three overarching analytical themes emerged: (1) A perception of a significant gap between industry and consumers’ understanding of what personal data is, who owns it, how it is used in IoT products and how it drives value in IoT businesses; (2) Perceived imbalances of power between industry and consumers in the control of and value extracted from personal data, with implications for inequalities between different consumer groups; and (3) A need for greater education and transparency for consumers, and for industry, about how personal data can be used. We develop a tentative five-point manifesto for the use of personal data in IoT, and conclude that a deeper understanding of consumer perspectives by industry would be positive for the ethical development of the IoT
Justice in an uncertain world : evidence on donations to cancer research
Full text linkThe paper uses information on actual and hypothetical charitable contributions to cancer research in the United Kingdom to elicit information on justice principles endorsed by donors. They face a choice between fund-raising contributions for several hereditary and lifestyle-related cancers. Donors’ choices of how much to donate to different cancers reveal how they view luck vis-a-vis risky individual choices. The estimation results reveal that donations are smaller for cancers with higher prevention rates, which is the probability that the potential cancer victim can avoid the cancer in question by some choice. We also find that provision of information on lifestyle-related causes of cancer adversely affects contributions. In contrast, information on hereditary causes has a positive effect on donations. Furthermore, a large share of donors indicated in their feedback that they chose donations to a hereditary over a lifestyle-related cancer to “punish” poor individual choices. These findings suggest that many donors lean toward choice egalitarianism, which conditions donations on the potential beneficiaries’ choices
To Pretrain or Not to Pretrain: Examining the Benefits of Pretrainng on Resource Rich Tasks
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