Personal narratives build trust across ideological divides.

Lack of trust is a key barrier to collaboration in organizations and is exacerbated in contexts when employees subscribe to different ideological beliefs. Across five preregistered experiments, we find that people judge ideological opponents as more trustworthy when opposing opinions are expressed through a self-revealing personal narrative than through either data or stories about third parties-even when the content of the messages is carefully controlled to be consistent. Trust does not suffer when explanations grounded in self-revealing personal narratives are augmented with data, suggesting that our results are not driven by quantitative aversion. Perceptions of trustworthiness are mediated by the speaker's apparent vulnerability and are greater when the self-revelation is of a more sensitive nature. Consequently, people are more willing to collaborate with ideological opponents who support their views by embedding data in a self-revealing personal narrative, rather than relying on data-only explanations. We discuss the implications of these results for future research on trust as well as for organizational practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Airline Safety Improvement Through Experience with Near-Misses: A Cautionary Tale.

In recent years, the U.S. commercial airline industry has achieved unprecedented levels of safety, with the statistical risk associated with U.S. commercial aviation falling to 0.003 fatalities per 100 million passengers. But decades of research on organizational learning show that success often breeds complacency and failure inspires improvement. With accidents as rare events, can the airline industry continue safety advancements? This question is complicated by the complex system in which the industry operates where chance combinations of multiple factors contribute to what are largely probabilistic (rather than deterministic) outcomes. Thus, some apparent successes are realized because of good fortune rather than good processes, and this research intends to bring attention to these events, the near-misses. The processes that create these near-misses could pose a threat if multiple contributing factors combine in adverse ways without the intervention of good fortune. Yet, near-misses (if recognized as such) can, theoretically, offer a mechanism for continuing safety improvements, above and beyond learning gleaned from observable failure. We test whether or not this learning is apparent in the airline industry. Using data from 1990 to 2007, fixed effects Poisson regressions show that airlines learn from accidents (their own and others), and from one category of near-misses-those where the possible dangers are salient. Unfortunately, airlines do not improve following near-miss incidents when the focal event has no clear warnings of significant danger. Therefore, while airlines need to and can learn from certain near-misses, we conclude with recommendations for improving airline learning from all near-misses.

Near-misses and future disaster preparedness.

Disasters garner attention when they occur, and organizations commonly extract valuable lessons from visible failures, adopting new behaviors in response. For example, the United States saw numerous security policy changes following the September 11 terrorist attacks and emergency management and shelter policy changes following Hurricane Katrina. But what about those events that occur that fall short of disaster? Research that examines prior hazard experience shows that this experience can be a mixed blessing. Prior experience can stimulate protective measures, but sometimes prior experience can deceive people into feeling an unwarranted sense of safety. This research focuses on how people interpret near-miss experiences. We demonstrate that when near-misses are interpreted as disasters that did not occur and thus provide the perception that the system is resilient to the hazard, people illegitimately underestimate the danger of subsequent hazardous situations and make riskier decisions. On the other hand, if near-misses can be recognized and interpreted as disasters that almost happened and thus provide the perception that the system is vulnerable to the hazard, this will counter the basic "near-miss" effect and encourage mitigation. In this article, we use these distinctions between resilient and vulnerable near-misses to examine how people come to define an event as either a resilient or vulnerable near-miss, as well as how this interpretation influences their perceptions of risk and their future preparedness behavior. Our contribution is in highlighting the critical role that people's interpretation of the prior experience has on their subsequent behavior and in measuring what shapes this interpretation.

Differentiating conflicts in beliefs versus value tradeoffs in the domestic intelligence policy debate.

Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, there has been an increase in public discussion regarding U.S. domestic intelligence activities. Domestic intelligence activities focus on gathering information about potential threats from individuals within the United States, and completely rational members of the public can have different opinions about the acceptability of various alternatives depending on one's values toward privacy, civil liberty, and security. Past studies have demonstrated that construction of a multiobjective value model can help clarify public values in controversial risk debates. This research explores a range of domestic intelligence alternatives that vary on multiple objectives, and applies value-focused thinking to develop a multiattribute utility model to evaluate and compare the alternatives. The process demonstrates the feasibility of eliciting model parameters from individuals and provides a method for identifying the locus of possible disagreements among individuals. The development of the model is described first, followed by insights found from participants who provided both value tradeoffs and performance scores for six different domestic intelligence alternatives. The participants were two student groups and a group of police officers. The analysis showed differences among weights for an additive model for different stakeholder groups and differences among the performance scores. In particular, there is a "halo" effect for alternatives, such that its supporters ranked the alternative higher on all attributes compared to respondents who find the alternative unacceptable. This modeling approach and results offer organizations such as the Department of Homeland Security insights into the debate surrounding new policy initiatives, particularly those requiring sensitive value tradeoffs.

Why near-miss events can decrease an individual's protective response to hurricanes.

Prior research shows that when people perceive the risk of some hazardous event to be low, they are unlikely to engage in mitigation activities for the potential hazard. We believe one factor that can lower inappropriately (from a normative perspective) people's perception of the risk of a hazard is information about prior near-miss events. A near-miss occurs when an event (such as a hurricane), which had some nontrivial probability of ending in disaster (loss of life, property damage), does not because good fortune intervenes. People appear to mistake such good fortune as an indicator of resiliency. In our first study, people with near-miss information were less likely to purchase flood insurance, and this was shown for both participants from the general population and individuals with specific interests in risk and natural disasters. In our second study, we consider a different mitigation decision, that is, to evacuate from a hurricane, and vary the level of statistical probability of hurricane damage. We still found a strong effect for near-miss information. Our research thus shows how people who have experienced a similar situation but escape damage because of chance will make decisions consistent with a perception that the situation is less risky than those without the past experience. We end by discussing the implications for risk communication.

Understanding customer reactions to brokered ultimatums: applying negotiation and justice theory.

There has been little research examining customer reactions to brokered ultimatum game (BUG) contexts (i.e. exchanges in which 1 party offers an ultimatum price for a resource through an intermediary, and the ultimatum offer is accepted or rejected by the other party). In this study, the authors incorporated rational decision-making theory and justice theory to examine how customers' bids, recommendations, and repatronage behavior are affected by characteristics of BUG contexts (changing from an ultimatum to negotiation transaction, response timeliness, and offer acceptance or rejection). Results indicated that customers attempt to be economically efficient with their bidding behavior. However, negotiation structures, long waits for a response, and rejected bids create injustice perceptions (particularly informational and distributive injustice), negatively influencing customers' recommendations to others and their repatronage. The authors then discuss the practical and theoretical implications of their results.

Managing Workplace Conflict in the United States and Hong Kong.

We propose that managers have norms (standards of appropriate behavior) for resolving conflict, that these norms are culturally based, and that they explain cultural differences in conflict management outcomes. We confirm that the traditionally American norms of discussing parties' interests and synthesizing multiple issues were exhibited more strongly by American managers than by their Hong Kong Chinese counterparts. In addition, we confirm that the traditionally Chinese norms of concern for collective interests and concern for authority appeared more strongly among Hong Kong Chinese managers than among their American counterparts. American managers were more likely than Hong Kong Chinese managers, to resolve a greater number of issues and reach more integrative outcomes, while Hong Kong Chinese managers were more likely to involve higher management in conflict resolution. Culture had a significant effect on whether parties selected an integrative outcome rather than an outcome that involved distribution, compromise, higher management, or no resolution at all. Conflict norms explained the cultural differences that existed between reaching an integrative outcome and reaching an outcome involving distribution, compromise, or higher management; however, conflict norms did not fully explain the cultural differences that existed between reaching an integrative outcome and reaching no resolution. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.