Wändi e de Bruin

Public perceptions of energy consumption and savings

In a national online survey, 505 participants reported their perceptions of energy consumption and savings for a variety of household, transportation, and recycling activities. When asked for the most effective strategy they could implement to conserve energy, most participants mentioned curtailment (e.g., turning off lights, driving less) rather than efficiency improvements (e.g., installing more efficient light bulbs and appliances), in contrast to experts’ recommendations. For a sample of 15 activities, participants underestimated energy use and savings by a factor of 2.8 on average, with small overestimates for low-energy activities and large underestimates for high-energy activities. Additional estimation and ranking tasks also yielded relatively flat functions for perceived energy use and savings. Across several tasks, participants with higher numeracy scores and stronger proenvironmental attitudes had more accurate perceptions. The serious deficiencies highlighted by these results suggest that well-designed efforts to improve the publics understanding of energy use and savings could pay large dividends.

TEEN EXPECTATIONS FOR SIGNIFICANT LIFE EVENTS

Managing risks is an important part of growing up. Young people must decide whether to do things that they do not like (e.g., homework) in the hopes of getting things that they do (e.g., good jobs). They must also decide whether to avoid doing things that they do like (e.g., drinking heavily) in order to reduce the risk of outcomes that they do not (e.g., auto accidents). Making these decisions effectively requires accurate assessments of the probabilities of uncertain events occurring in their lives. As a result, risk perceptions play a central role in many psychological theories of adolescent development and health behavior (e.g., Beyth-Marom and Fischhoff 1997; Feldman and Elliott 1990; Fischhoff, Downs, and Bruine de Bruin 1998; Institute of Medicine 1999; Jacobs and Ganzel 1993) and in interventions designed to improve these perceptions (e.g., Baron and Brown 1991; Millstein, Petersen, and Nightingale 1993; Schulenberg, Maggs, and Hurnelmans 1997). Risk (and benefit) perceptions are also central to economic theories of human capital formation, which hold that teens’ willingness to invest in themselves should reflect the

Fifty–Fifty=50%?

Several recent surveys have asked respondents to estimate the probabilities of relatively unlikely events, such as dying from breast cancer and smoking. Examination of their response distributions reveals a seemingly inappropriate ‘blip’ at 50. The two studies reported here indicate that it reflects a response artifact associated with open-ended probability scales. The blip vanishes when a response scale with explicit response options is offered. Apparently, the open-ended format leads some people to use the 50% option as ‘fifty–fifty’, an expression of having no idea as to the answer. As a result, the accuracy of peoples reported beliefs depends on the response scale used, as well as on how it evokes and channels such feelings of epistemic uncertainty. Copyright

Assessing what to address in science communication

As members of a democratic society, individuals face complex decisions about whether to support climate change mitigation, vaccinations, genetically modified food, nanotechnology, geoengineering, and so on. To inform people’s decisions and public debate, scientific experts at government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and other organizations aim to provide understandable and scientifically accurate communication materials. Such communications aim to improve people’s understanding of the decision-relevant issues, and if needed, promote behavior change. Unfortunately, existing communications sometimes fail when scientific experts lack information about what people need to know to make more informed decisions or what wording people use to describe relevant concepts. We provide an introduction for scientific experts about how to use mental models research with intended audience members to inform their communication efforts. Specifically, we describe how to conduct interviews to characterize people’s decision-relevant beliefs or mental models of the topic under consideration, identify gaps and misconceptions in their knowledge, and reveal their preferred wording. We also describe methods for designing follow-up surveys with larger samples to examine the prevalence of beliefs as well as the relationships of beliefs with behaviors. Finally, we discuss how findings from these interviews and surveys can be used to design communications that effectively address gaps and misconceptions in people’s mental models in wording that they understand. We present applications to different scientific domains, showing that this approach leads to communications that improve recipients’ understanding and ability to make informed decisions.

Informed public preferences for electricity portfolios with CCS and other low-carbon technologies.

Public perceptions of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) and other low-carbon electricity-generating technologies may affect the feasibility of their widespread deployment. We asked a diverse sample of 60 participants recruited from community groups in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to rank 10 technologies (e.g., coal with CCS, natural gas, nuclear, various renewables, and energy efficiency), and seven realistic low-carbon portfolios composed of these technologies, after receiving comprehensive and carefully balanced materials that explained the costs and benefits of each technology. Rankings were obtained in small group settings as well as individually before and after the group discussions. The ranking exercise asked participants to assume that the U.S. Congress had mandated a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from power plants to be built in the future. Overall, rankings suggest that participants favored energy efficiency, followed by nuclear power, integrated gasification combined-cycle coal with CCS and wind. The most preferred portfolio also included these technologies. We find that these informed members of the general public preferred diverse portfolios that contained CCS and nuclear over alternatives once they fully understood the benefits, cost, and limitations of each. The materials and approach developed for this study may also have value in educating members of the general public about the challenges of achieving a low-carbon energy future.

Executive functions in decision making: An individual differences approach

This individual differences study examined the relationships between three executive functions (updating, shifting, and inhibition), measured as latent variables, and performance on two cognitively demanding subtests of the Adult Decision Making Competence battery: Applying Decision Rules and Consistency in Risk Perception. Structural equation modelling showed that executive functions contribute differentially to performance in these two tasks, with Applying Decision Rules being mainly related to inhibition and Consistency in Risk Perception mainly associated to shifting. The results suggest that the successful application of decision rules requires the capacity to selectively focus attention and inhibit irrelevant (or no more relevant) stimuli. They also suggest that consistency in risk perception depends on the ability to shift between judgement contexts.

The multifold relationship between memory and decision making: an individual-differences study.

Several judgment and decision-making tasks are assumed to involve memory functions, but significant knowledge gaps on the memory processes underlying these tasks remain. In a study on 568 adults between 25 and 80 years of age, hypotheses were tested on the specific relationships between individual differences in working memory, episodic memory, and semantic memory, respectively, and 6 main components of decision-making competence. In line with the hypotheses, working memory was positively related with the more cognitively demanding tasks (Resistance to Framing, Applying Decision Rules, and Under/Overconfidence), whereas episodic memory was positively associated with a more experience-based judgment task (Recognizing Social Norms). Furthermore, semantic memory was positively related with 2 more knowledge-based decision-making tasks (Consistency in Risk Perception and Resistance to Sunk Costs). Finally, the age-related decline observed in some of the decision-making tasks was (partially or totally) mediated by the age-related decline in working memory or episodic memory. These findings are discussed in relation to the functional roles fulfilled by different memory processes in judgment and decision-making tasks.

INFLATION EXPECTATIONS AND BEHAVIOR: DO SURVEY RESPONDENTS ACT ON THEIR BELIEFS?

We compare the inflation expectations reported by consumers in a survey with their behavior in a financially incentivized investment experiment. The survey is found to be informative in the sense that the beliefs reported by the respondents are correlated with their choices in the experiment. More importantly, we find evidence that most respondents act on their inflation expectations showing patterns consistent with economic theory. Respondents whose behavior cannot be rationalized tend to have lower education and lower numeracy and financial literacy. These findings help confirm the relevance of inflation expectations surveys and provide support to the microfoundations of modern macroeconomic models.

Measuring Risk Perceptions : What Does the Excessive Use of 50% Mean?

Objectives. Risk perceptions are central to good health decisions. People can judge valid probabilities but use 50% disproportionately. The authors hypothesized that 50% is more likely than other responses to reflect not knowing the probability, especially among individuals with low education and numeracy, and evaluated the usefulness of eliciting “don’t know” explanations. Methods. Respondents (n = 1020) judged probabilities for living or dying in the next 10 years, indicating whether they gave a good estimate or did not know the chances. They completed demographics, medical history, and numeracy questions. Results. Overall, 50% was more likely than other probabilities to be explained as “don’t know” (v. “a good estimate”). Correlations of using 50% with low education and numeracy were mediated by expressing “don’t know.” Judged probabilities for survival and mortality explained as “don’t know” had lower correlations with age, diseases, and specialist visits. Conclusions. When judging risks, 50% may reflect not knowing the probability, especially among individuals with low numeracy and education. Probabilities expressed as “don’t know” are less valid. Eliciting uncertainty could benefit theoretical models and educational efforts.

Communicating uncertainty in seasonal and interannual climate forecasts in Europe.

Across Europe, organizations in different sectors are sensitive to climate variability and change, at a range of temporal scales from the seasonal to the interannual to the multi-decadal. Climate forecast providers face the challenge of communicating the uncertainty inherent in these forecasts to these decision-makers in a way that is transparent, understandable and does not lead to a false sense of certainty. This article reports the findings of a user-needs survey, conducted with 50 representatives of organizations in Europe from a variety of sectors (e.g. water management, forestry, energy, tourism, health) interested in seasonal and interannual climate forecasts. We find that while many participating organizations perform their own ‘in house’ risk analysis most require some form of processing and interpretation by forecast providers. However, we also find that while users tend to perceive seasonal and interannual forecasts to be useful, they often find them difficult to understand, highlighting the need for communication formats suitable for both expert and non-expert users. In addition, our results show that people tend to prefer familiar formats for receiving information about uncertainty. The implications of these findings for both the providers and users of climate information are discussed.