Test of a Trust and Confidence Model in the Applied Context of Electromagnetic Field (EMF) Risks

Trust is an important factor in risk management. There is little agreement among researchers, however, on how trust in risk management should be studied. Based on a comprehensive review of the trust literature a "dual-mode model of social trust and confidence" is proposed. Trust and confidence are separate but, under some circumstances, interacting sources of cooperation. Trust is based on value similarity, and confidence is based on performance. According to our model, judging similarity between an observer's currently active values and the values attributed to others determines social trust. Thus, the basis for trust is a judgment that the person to be trusted would act as the trusting person would. Interpretation of the other's performance influences confidence. Both social trust and confidence have an impact on people's willingness to cooperate (e.g., accept electromagnetic fields or EMF in the neighborhood). The postulated model was tested in the applied context of EMF risks. Structural equation modeling procedures and data from a random sample of 1,313 Swiss citizens between 18 and 74 years old were used. Results indicated that after minor modifications the model explained the data very well. In the applied context of EMF risks, both trust and confidence had an impact on cooperation. Results suggest that the dual-mode model of social trust and confidence could be used as a common framework in the field of trust and risk management. Practical implications of the results are discussed.     

A Mixed-Methods Approach to Refining and Measuring the Construct of Positive Risk-Taking in Adolescence

Adolescence is a peak period for risk-taking, but research has largely overlooked positive manifestations of adolescent risk-taking due to ambiguity regarding operationalization and measurement of positive risk-taking. We address this limitation using a mixed-methods approach. We elicited free responses from contemporary college students (N = 74, M_age = 20.1 years) describing a time they took a risk. Qualitative analysis informed the construction of a self-report positive risk-taking scale, which was administered to a population-based sample of adolescents (N = 1,249, M_age = 16 years) for quantitative validation and examination of associations with normative and impulsive personality. Sensation seeking predicted negative and positive risk-taking, whereas extraversion and openness were predominantly related to positive risk-taking. Results provide promising evidence for a valid measure of adolescents' engagement in positive risks.     

Continuing complexity: The university careers of a scientific elite in relation to their class origins and schooling

We report on continuing research on the UK scientific elite, intended to illustrate a proposed new approach to elite studies and based on a prosopography of Fellows of the Royal Society born from 1900. We extend analyses previously reported of Fellows' social origins and secondary schooling to take in their university careers as under- and postgraduates. The composite term ‘Oxbridge’, as often applied in elite studies, is called into question, as members of the scientific elite prove to have been recruited more from Cambridge than from Oxford. Particular interest then attaches to the relation between Fellows' social origins and schooling and their attendance at Cambridge. Among Fellows whose university careers were made at Cambridge, those of more advantaged class origins and those with private schooling are over-represented, although in this, as in various other respects, including Fellows' field of study, family influences persist independently of schooling. One suggestive interaction effect exists in that being privately educated increases the probability of having been at Cambridge more for Fellows from managerial than from professional families. Private schooling leading on to both undergraduate and postgraduate study at Cambridge can be identified as the educational ‘royal road’ into the scientific elite; and Fellows coming from higher professional and managerial families alike have the highest probability of having entered the elite in this way. But the most common route turns out in fact to be via state schooling and attendance at universities outside of ‘the golden triangle’ of Cambridge, Oxford and London; and this route is far more likely to have been followed by Fellows of all other class origins than higher professional. The relation between the degree of social skew in the recruitment of an elite and the degree of social homogeneity among its members can be more complex than has often been supposed.