Improving Risk Communication

This paper explores reasons for difficulties in communicating risks among analysts, the laypublic, media, and regulators. Formulating risk communication problems as decisions involving objectives and alternatives helps to identify strategies for overcoming these difficulties. Several strategies are suggested to achieve risk communication objectives like improving public knowledge about risks and risk management, encouraging risk reduction behavior, understanding public values and concerns, and increasing trust and credibility.     

中文表达者的“沟通模式偏爱悖论”与“下情上达评价悖论”

文字概率表征是指用可能、也许、不一定等词汇或短语来表示事件发生的可能程度。研究者发现,英语表达者在接受信息时偏爱数字概率表征,在传递信息时反而偏爱文字概率表征,这种现象被称之为沟通模式偏爱悖论(Communication Mode Preference Paradox,CMPP)。本研究调查了说中文的大学生(N=356)和管理者(N=108)在一般情境和天气预报情境下的概率沟通偏好;并对下情上达情境下的四类管理者(两类传声筒型管理者:听取下级的文字概率信息并向上级汇报文字概率信息;听取下级的数字概率信息并向上级汇报数字概率信息。以及两类信息转化型管理者:听取下级的文字概率信息却向上级汇报数字概率信息;听取下级的数字概率信息却向上级汇报文字概率信息)作了评判。其结果发现:(1)在一般情境和天气预报情境下,说中文的被调查者不仅也普遍存在CMPP现象,而且发生该现象的比例显著地高于说英语的被调查者;(2)另一类沟通悖论:同样面对忠实的传声筒型管理者,被调查者认同数字概率传声筒、而不认同文字概率传声筒;同样面对权变的信息转化型管理者,被调查者认同将数字转化成文字概率的管理者、而不认同将文字转化成数字概率的管理者;(3...     

Communication With Unknown Perspectives

Consider a group of individuals with unobservable perspectives (subjective prior beliefs) about a sequence of states. In each period, each individual receives private information about the current state and forms an opinion (a posterior belief). She also chooses a target individual and observes the target's opinion. This choice involves a trade‐off between well‐informed targets, whose signals are precise, and well‐understood targets, whose perspectives are well known. Opinions are informative about the target's perspective, so observed individuals become better understood over time. We identify a simple condition under which long‐run behavior is history independent. When this fails, each individual restricts attention to a small set of experts and observes the most informed among these. A broad range of observational patterns can arise with positive probability, including opinion leadership and information segregation. In an application to areas of expertise, we show how these mechanisms generate own field bias and large field dominance.     

如何实现有效沟通

在领导活动过程中,冲突经常发生,其产生的必然性和普遍性影响和制约着组织及个体的行为倾向。冲突是矛盾的表象化,有其积极的一面,也有其消极的一面。能否充分发挥冲突在组织中的积极效应而抑制其消极的一面,关键在于能否进行有效沟通。沟通的过程是双方交换和传递信息的过程,是沟通双方对彼此的意见和看法进行再分     

Protection Motivation and Risk Communication

The purpose of this study was to explore the utility of protection motivation theory (PMT) in the context of mass media reports about a hazard. Content elements of a hazard's severity, likelihood of occurring, and the effectiveness of preventive actions were systematically varied in a news story about a fabricated risk: exposure to fluorescent lighting lowering academic performance. Results of this experiment ( N = 206) suggest that providing information about the severity of a hazard's consequences produces greater information seeking. In addition, information about levels of risk, severity, and efficacy combined jointly to produce greater rates of willingness to take actions designed to avoid the hazard. Results are seen as providing general support for PMT and are discussed within the broader framework of information seeking and heuristic and systematic information processing.     

Mixed Messages in Risk Communication

The exchange of risk information between risk managers and affected parties is frequently hampered by differences in the understanding or interpretation of many words and phrases. Much of the terminology used by risk practitioners may have different "technical" and "colloquial" meanings, resulting in "mixed messages" in risk communication. Several words and concepts commonly used in risk management that may be resulting in these "mixed messages" are discussed. These include primary underlying concepts, such as the various meanings of the word "risk" itself, as well as the perplexity of the notions of "safety vs. zero risk" and "probability". The potential "mixed messages" of the derived concepts of "significant vs. nonsignificant", "negative vs. positive results", "conservative assumptions", "population vs. individual risk", "relative vs. absolute risk", and "association vs. causation" are shown to range from mild confusion to the completely opposite interpretation of these words and expressions. Suggested strategies for recognizing and mitigating the use of words and phrases which may create unnecessary confusion are presented.     

Marketing Communication Intensity Across Industries

Marketing communication intensity (i.e., the ratio of advertising and promotional expenditures to sales) has been an important topic for both business managers and academics. Here, we investigate cross-sectional and time-series variation of communication intensity due to: type of offering (product versus service) and type of market (consumer versus industrial). Overall, we find that both of these factors affect variation of communication intensity across industries and over time. However, the effect of market type is much more dramatic than the effect of offering type. Such knowledge about patterns in communication intensity levels helps managers make decisions about how much to spend on advertising and promotion.     

Optimal Use of Communication Resources

We study a repeated game with asymmetric information about a dynamic state of nature. In the course of the game, the better‐informed player can communicate some or all of his information to the other. Our model covers costly and/or bounded communication. We characterize the set of equilibrium payoffs and contrast these with the communication equilibrium payoffs, which by definition entail no communication costs.     

Why Rules for Risk Communication Are Not Enough: A Problem-Solving Approach to Risk Communication

Current work on risk communication offers practitioners helpful guidelines and rules such as "speak clearly" and "speak with compassion." While important, these guidelines have limitations. They offer practitioners and scholars little aid in determining why a communication encounter failed. Also, they do not help practitioners anticipate and overcome likely difficulties in future risk situations, nor can they help locate information about how to reduce these difficulties. To overcome the limitations of rule-based approaches to risk communication, this paper describes a diagnostic or problem-solving approach. This approach maintains that instead of rules, people need bases for anticipating likely obstacles to effective communication and selecting approaches that reduce these difficulties. Research on building trust, increasing awareness, deepening comprehension, gaining agreement, and motivating action is available in fields such as communication, educational psychology, science education, marketing, counseling, negotiation, and disaster response. This paper describes a framework that assists scholars and practitioners in: (a) identifying communication goals; (b) determining principal obstacles to those goals; and (c) selecting research-based methods for overcoming or minimizing these difficulties and achieving communication objectives.     

怎样使沟通更有效

善于沟通是领导者所要具备的基本功。沟通能使人换位思考、相互体谅、融洽感情、加深理解、增进共识，从而建立良好的人际关系，开辟工作的新天地。那么，在日常工作中都有哪些问题需要沟通呢？对于领导者来说，遇到下面的情况时切切不可忘记了运用沟通这个手段。一是对准备干的事情和对方不知道的事情，要先吹吹风。因为人们对问题的认识、消化是有一个过程的，事先下“毛毛雨”，符合人的认识规律，搞突然袭击只会事与愿违，甚至还会遭到失败。已经决定了的问题和需要告诉对方的事情，应该抢在前面去说明情况，不要等到当事人都知道了，才…     

Risk Communication in the Real World

Rigorous health risk assessments of site-specific projects are generally little understood by nontechnical decision makers and the public and often appear to them to obfuscate a straightforward answer to their fundamental question: “Is the project safe?” The focus on risk, usually out of context of benefits, deprives the reader of the opportunity to make a fully informed decision on the proposal. While the risk assessment tools may need to be refashioned, confidence in the analytical process can be improved, partly through more citizen involvement, as well as through more effective communication of the conservatism of the assumptions, the thoroughness of the process, and the significance of the results in comparison to other commonly accepted involuntary exposures and risks.     

Risk Communication in Environmental Restoration Programs

The author advocates adoption of a convergence model in place of the traditional source-receiver model of communication for communicating with members of the public who have a stake in remediation of a nearby site. The source-receiver model conceives of communication as the transmission of a message from a risk management agency (sender) to a target audience of the public (receivers). The underlying theme is that the sender intends to change the perception of the receiver of either the issue or the sender of information. The author draws on her experience at a Department of Energy (DoE) site undergoing remediation to illustrate why the convergence model is more appropriate in the context of cleanup. This alternative model focuses on the Latin derivation of communication as sharing or making common to many (i.e., as involving a relationship between participants who engage in a process of communication). The focus appears to be consistent with recently issued DoE policy that calls for involving the public in identifying issues and problems and in formulating and evaluating decision alternatives in cleanup. By emphasizing context, process, and participants, as opposed to senders and receivers, the model identifies key issues to address in facilitating consensus concerning the risks of cleanup. Similarities between the institutional context of DoE and Department of Defense (DoD) suggest that a convergence model may also prove to be an appropriate conceptual foundation for risk communication at contaminated DoD sites.     

Graph Algorithms with Small Communication Costs

We study minimizing communication cost in parallel algorithm design, by minimizing the number of communication phases in coarse-grained parallel computers. There have been several recent papers dealing with parallel algorithms of small communication cost under different models. Most of these results are for computational geometry problems. For these problems it has been possible to decompose tasks into appropriate subproblems in a communication-efficient way. It appears to be somewhat more difficult to design parallel algorithms with small communication phases for graph theory problems. In this paper we focus on the design of deterministic algorithms with a small number of communication phases for the list ranking problem and the shortest path problem.     

Studying Heuristic-Systematic Processing of Risk Communication

Using a model of risk information seeking and processing developed by Griffin, Dunwoody, and Neuwirth (1999), this study looks at predictors of the processing strategies that people apply to health risk information. Specifically, this article focuses on one relationship within the model--the relationship between perceived amount of information needed to deal with a risk and heuristic-systematic processing. Perceived amount of information needed refers to the gap between one's understanding of a risk and the level of understanding that one needs in order to make a decision about that risk. Building on the work of Chaiken (cf. 1980), the Griffin et al. model predicts--and finds--that the larger the gap, the more likely one will process information systematically. The study employs a novel measure of information processing in a survey setting by sending actual information to participants and then asking them how they attended to it; the researchers evaluate this strategy. Finally, the researchers discuss how these findings might help agencies and practitioners create more effective risk messages.     

Nanotechnology Risk Communication Past and Prologue

Nanotechnologies operate at atomic, molecular, and macromolecular scales, at scales where matter behaves differently than at larger scales and quantum effects can dominate. Nanotechnologies have captured the imagination of science fiction writers as science, engineering, and industry have leapt to the challenge of harnessing them. Applications are proliferating. In contrast, despite recent progress the regulatory landscape is not yet coherent, and public awareness of nanotechnology remains low. This has led risk researchers and critics of current nanotechnology risk communication efforts to call for proactive strategies that do more than address facts, that include and go beyond the public participation stipulated by some government acts. A redoubling of nanotechnology risk communication efforts could enable consumer choice and informed public discourse about regulation and public investments in science and safety.