Do colored cells in risk matrices affect decision-making and risk perception? Insights from randomized controlled studies

Risk matrices communicate the likelihood and potential impact of risks and are often used to inform decision-making around risk mitigations. The merits and demerits of risk matrices in general have been discussed extensively, yet little attention has been paid to the potential influence of color in risk matrices on their users. We draw from fuzzy-trace theory and hypothesize that when color is present, individuals are likely to place greater value on reducing risks that cross color boundaries (i.e., the boundary-crossing effect), leading to sub-optimal decision making. In two randomized controlled studies, employing forced-choice and willingness-to-pay measures to investigate the boundary-crossing effect in two different color formats for risk matrices, we find preliminary evidence to support our hypotheses that color can influence decision making. The evidence also suggests that the boundary-crossing effect is only present in, or is stronger for, higher numeracy individuals. We therefore recommend that designers should consider avoiding color in risk matrices, particularly in situations where these are likely to be used by highly numerate individuals, if the communication goal is to inform in an unbiased way.     

The influence of the birthplace and models of care on midwifery practice for the management of women in labour

This paper will examine how the settings in which midwives practice (the birthplace) and models of care affect midwives’ decision making during the management of labour. One-hundred-and-four independent, team and hospital based midwives and 100 low obstetric risk nulliparous women to whom labour care was provided were surveyed. These midwives and women resided in the Auckland metropolitan area of New Zealand. The majority of midwives who participated worked in models of care which provided women with continuity of carer and care, however, this was not found to influence the way the midwives provided labour care. Instead, practice was found to be relatively homogenous regardless of whether the midwives worked in independent, team, or hospital-based practice. The birthplace setting in which the labour care took place did influence midwifery practice. The majority of midwives provided labour care in large obstetric hospitals and identified practices dominated by the medical model of care. Practice was described as being influenced by intervention and the need for technology, however, this did not prevent the majority of women from perceiving they were actively involved in the decision making process and that they worked in partnership with their midwives. Closer examination of the midwives’ decision making processes whilst providing the labour care revealed that the midwives’ individual decisions were influenced by the needs of the women rather than the hospital protocols. What became evident was that the midwives in this study had adopted a humanistic approach to care whereby technology was used alongside relationship-centred care.     

Parental Linguistic Input and Its Relation to Toddlers’ Visual Attention in Joint Object Play: A Comparison Between Children with Normal Hearing and Children With Hearing Loss

Parent–child interactions are multimodal, often involving coordinated exchanges of visual and auditory information between the two partners. The current work focuses on the effect of children's hearing loss on parent–child interactions when parents and their toddlers jointly played with a set of toy objects. We compared the linguistic input received by toddlers with hearing loss (HL) and their chronological age‐matched (CA) and hearing age‐matched (HA) normal‐hearing peers. Moreover, we used head‐mounted eye trackers to examine how different parental linguistic input affected children's visual attention on objects when parents either led or followed children's attention during joint object play. Overall, parents of children with HL provided comparable amount of linguistic input as parents of the two normal‐hearing groups. However, the types of linguistic input produced by parents of children with HL were similar to the CA group in some ways and similar to the HA group in other ways. Interestingly, the effects of different types of linguistic input on extending the attention of children with HL qualitatively resembled the patterns seen in the CA group, even though the effects were less pronounced in the HL group. We discuss the implications of these results for our understanding of the reciprocal, dynamic, and multi‐factored nature of parent–child interactions.     

Transgender experiences and transphobia in higher education

While categories like “campus climate” highlight variation across institutions, trans people's experiences also vary within an institutional context. By studying trans people's experiences in higher education, however, we can better understand and respond to the differentiated and changing needs of transgender people in other arenas. In this paper, I review key qualitative and quantitative findings along several themes: (a) disclosing trans identities, (b) trans communities, and (c) resources and career‐level support. Specifically, I use the concept of microclimates to explain how trans people encounter various forms of support and discrimination on campus. For example, someone might receive support from particular individuals, such as an advisor, or spaces, like a gender studies classroom, but not others. Researchers also report both similarities and differences between binary and nonbinary trans people, as well as between transgender men and transgender women, suggesting that there is no universal trans experience, nor a one‐size‐fits‐all approach to supporting trans students and faculty members. Challenging interpersonal and systemic transphobia requires context‐specific interventions.     

Immigrant Entrepreneurs: The Identification of Foreign Market Opportunities

Building on the very few studies that examine how immigrant entrepreneurs identify opportunities to conduct business in foreign markets, this article explores how Italian immigrant entrepreneurs in Australia identify such opportunities. Relying on social network theory (Patel and Conklin, 2009), international business research indicates that social ties, including kinship and ethnic ties, facilitate the flow of information that enables entrepreneurs to identify opportunities (Ellis, 2011; Hayton, Chandler and DeTienne, 2011). This study finds that the Italian immigrant entrepreneurs prefer to receive information about business opportunities from trusting, social ties, particularly country of origin (Italy) regional based ethnic ties, rather kinship ties for fear of damaging the relationship. However both first and second generation immigrants do use kinship ties to gain knowledge about Italian market conditions. Implications for policy and practice, limitations of the study and ideas for future research are also presented.     

“Where Have All the Good Men Gone?” Gendered Interactions in Online Dating

This article explores gendered patterns of online dating and their implications for heterosexual union formation. Using 6 months of online dating data from a midsized Southwestern city (N = 8,259 men, 6,274 women), the authors found that men and women tend to send messages to the most socially desirable alters in the dating market regardless of their own desirability levels. They also found that male initiators connect with more desirable partners than men who wait to be contacted, but female initiators connect with equally desirable partners as women who wait to be contacted. Female‐initiated contacts are also more than twice as likely as male‐initiated contacts to result in a connection, but women send 4 times fewer messages than men. Finally, the authors compared partner desirability levels over repeated exchanges and concluded that couple similarities are more likely to result from relationship termination (i.e., nonreciprocity) than initial homophilous preferences.     

Enhancing the midwife-woman relationship through shared decision making and clinical guidelines

The active and passive voice allocated to women within maternity service guidelines helps construct the nature of decision making. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that by allocating women an active voice within practice guidelines serves the interest of all parties within the health care relationship. Clinical guidelines were reviewed, and electronic databases and text were searched. The findings of this paper support that applying the principles of a shared decision making framework, within clinical practice guidelines, can assist the development of a partnership relationship between midwives and women.