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Thinking About the World

Risk, judgement and decision making

A row of lit up gambling machines with seats in front of them.

We make choices every day

How do we come to those decisions? Does the way risk is presented to us change our choice? How do we judge what is right for us?

We study how people think, judge, take risks and make decisions in situations of uncertainty and risk.

Some examples of what we've studied include:

whether older drivers are taking appropriate risks when driving a car
whether people appropriately perceive health-related risks, climate-change-related risks, and risks of natural disasters and how should these be communicated to stakeholders to understand these risks better
what makes people choose to adopt environmentally friendly behaviours and ways of living
how should we design tube maps to facilitate quick and accurate decision-making of travellers
how family physicians make decisions about diagnosis and treatment options and how can we support them to do less cognitive errors in these decisions
how people judge whether something is fair or not
which factors influence people’s decisions to enact prosocial behaviours or to undertake happiness-enhancing interventions.

We are interested in understanding the socio-cognitive mechanisms of these high-level cognitive processes using experimental behavioural techniques and their biological underpinnings using neuromodulatory techniques such transcranial magnetic stimulation, as well as carrying out surveys, interviews and focus groups. We are also interested in the applied aspects of risk taking, risk communication and decision-making.

Many of us also research related areas of interest such as well-being, relationships, sex, and attraction, and justice, fairness and equality.

Recent publications

2023

Jolles, Daniel and Juanchich, Marie and Piccoli, Beatrice (2023) Too Old to Be a Diversity Hire. Choice Bundling Shown to Increase Gender-Diverse Hiring Decisions Fails to Increase Age Diversity. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
Jolles, Daniel and Lamarche, Veronica M and Rolison, Jonathan J and Juanchich, Marie (2023) Who will I be when I retire? The role of organizational commitment, group memberships and retirement transition framing on older worker’s anticipated identity change in retirement. Current Psychology, 42 (18). pp. 15727-15741.
Juanchich, Marie and Sirota, Miroslav and Halvor Teigen, Karl (2023) People prefer to predict middle, most likely quantitative outcomes (not extreme ones), but they still over-estimate their likelihood. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 76 (11). pp. 2629-2649.
Juanchich, Marie and Sirota, Miroslav and Holford, Dawn Liu (2023) How Should Doctors Frame the Risk of a Vaccine's Adverse Side Effects? It Depends on How Trustworthy They Are. Medical Decision Making, 43 (7-8). pp. 835-849.
Murray, Sandra L and Xia, Ji and Lamarche, Veronica M and Seery, Mark D and McNulty, James K and Ward, Deborah E and Griffin, Dale and Hicks, Lindsey L (2023) Sensitizing the behavioral-immune system: The power of social pain. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 14 (4). pp. 371-380.
Rolison, Jonathan (2023) The psychological drivers of self-reported risk preference. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 49 (10). pp. 1635-1661.
Sirota, Miroslav and Habersaat, Katrine Bach and Betsch, Cornelia and Bonga, Daniela Lejla and Borek, Aleksandra and Buckel, Anica and Butler, Robb and Byrne-Davis, Lucie and Caudell, Mark and Charani, Esmita and Geiger, Mattis and Gross, Marina and Hart, Jo and Kostopoulou, Olga and Krockow, Eva M and Likki, Tiina and Lo Fo Wong, Danilo and Santana, Ana P and Sievert, Elisabeth DC and Theodoropoulou, Andriana and Thorpe, Alistair and Wanat, Marta and Böhm, Robert (2023) We must harness the power of social and behavioural science against the growing pandemic of antimicrobial resistance. Nature Human Behaviour, 8 (1). pp. 11-13.
Sirota, Miroslav and Juanchich, Marie and Holford, Dawn L (2023) Rationally irrational: When people do not correct their reasoning errors even if they could. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 152 (7). pp. 2052-2073.
Wood, Reed M and Juanchich, Marie and Ramirez, Mark and Zhang, Shenghao (2023) Promoting COVID-19 vaccine confidence through public responses to misinformation: The joint influence of message source and message content. Social Science and Medicine, 324. p. 115863.

2022

Chen, Jing and Šabić, Edin and Mishler, Scott and Parker, Cody and Yamaguchi, Motonori (2022) Effectiveness of Lateral Auditory Collision Warnings: Should Warnings Be Toward Danger or Toward Safety? Human Factors: the journal of the human factors and ergonomics society, 64 (2). pp. 418-435. (In Press)
Clarke, Alasdair and Hunt, Amelia and Hughes, Anna (2022) A Bayesian Statistical Model Is Able to Predict Target-by-Target Selection Behaviour in a Human Foraging Task. Vision, 6 (4). p. 66.
Clarke, Alasdair and Hunt, Amelia and Hughes, Anna (2022) Foraging as sampling without replacement: a Bayesian statistical model for estimating biases in target selection. PLoS Computational Biology, 18 (1). e1009813-e1009813.
Dorison, Charles and Lerner, Jennifer Susan and Heller, Blake H and Rothman, Alexander and Kawachi, Ichiro I and Wang, Ke and Rees, Vaughan W and Gill, Brian P and Gibbs, Nancy and Hanel, Paul HP and Sirota, Miroslav and Chiu, Faith and Holford, Dawn Liu and Theodoropoulou, Andriana and Coles, Nicholas Alvaro and et al (2022) In COVID-19 health messaging, loss framing increases anxiety with little-to-no concomitant benefits: Experimental evidence from 84 countries. Affective Science, 3 (3). pp. 577-602.
James, Warren and Hunt, Amelia R and Clarke, Alasdair DF (2022) Six of one, half dozen of the other: Suboptimal prioritizing for equal and unequal alternatives. Memory and Cognition, 51 (2). pp. 486-503.
Legate, Nicole and Nguyen, Thuy-vy Thi and Hanel, Paul HP and Holford, Dawn Liu and Sirota, Miroslav and Chiu, Faith and et al (2022) A global experiment on motivating social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119 (22). e2111091119-e2111091119.
Muis, Krista Renee and Sinatra,, Gale M and Pekrun, Reinhard and Kendeou, Panayiota and Mason, Lucia and Jacobs, Neil and Van Tilburg, Wijnand and Orcutt, Ellen and Zaccoletti, Sonia and Losenno, Kelsey M (2022) Flattening the COVID-19 curve: Emotions mediate the effects of a persuasive message on preventive action. Frontiers in Psychology, 13. 1047241-.
Rolison, Jonathan J and Pachur, Thorsten and McCormack, Teresa and Feeney, Aidan (2022) Developmental differences in description-based versus experience-based decision making under risk in children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 219. p. 105401. (In Press)
Teigen, Karl Halvor and Juanchich, Marie and Løhre, Erik (2022) What is a “likely” amount? Representative (modal) values are considered likely even when their probabilities are low. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 171. p. 104166.

2021

Brosowsky, Nick and Van Tilburg, Wijnand and Scholer, Abigail and Boylan, James and Seli, Paul and Danckert, James (2021) 'Boredom proneness, political orientation and adherence to social- distancing in the pandemic.' Motivation and Emotion, 45 (5). pp. 631-640. ISSN 0146-7239
Buchanan, Kathryn Emma and Rolison, Jonathan James and Jinga, Isadora and Thompson, Jessica and Russo, Riccardo (2021) 'Who tugs at our heart strings? The effect of avatar images on player generosity in the dictator game.' Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. p. 174702182110503. ISSN 1747-0218
Byrka, Katarzyna and Cantarero, Katarzyna and Dolinski, Dariusz and Van Tilburg, Wijnand (2021) 'Consequences of Sisyphean Efforts: Meaningless Effort decreases motivation to engage in subsequent conservation behaviors through disappointment.' Sustainability, 13 (10). p. 5716. ISSN 2071-1050
Findor, Andrej and Hruška, Matej and Gould, John A and Hlatky, Roman and Tomková, Zuzana and Sirota, Miroslav (2021) 'Framing Effects, Social Norm Perception, and Tolerance of Lesbian and Gay Individuals: Experimental Evidence from Slovakia.' Journal of Homosexuality. pp. 1-25. ISSN 0091-8369
Holford, Dawn Liu and Juanchich, Marie and Foulsham, Tom and Sirota, Miroslav and Clarke, Alasdair DF (2021) 'Eye-tracking evidence for fixation asymmetries in verbal and numerical quantifier processing.' Judgment and Decision Making, 16 (4). pp. 969-1009. ISSN 1930-2975
Holford, Dawn Liu and Sirota, Miroslav and Juanchich, Marie (2021) 'Ambiguity and unintended inferences about risk messages for COVID-19.' Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. ISSN 1076-898X (In Press)
Liu, Dawn and Juanchich, Marie and Sirota, Miroslav and Orbell, Sheina (2021) 'Differences between decisions made using verbal or numerical quantifiers.' Thinking and Reasoning, 27 (1). pp. 69-96. ISSN 1354-6783
Medvedeva, Angela and Saw, Rebecca and Silvestri, Carla and Sirota, Miroslav and Fuggetta, Giorgio and Galli, Giulia (2021) 'Offset-related brain activity in the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex promotes long-term memory formation of verbal events.' Brain Stimulation, 14 (3). pp. 564-570. ISSN 1876-4754
Saltsman, Thomas L and Seery, Mark D and Ward, Deborah E and Lamarche, Veronica M and Kondrak, Cheryl L (2021) 'Is satisficing really satisfying? Satisficers exhibit greater threat than maximizers during choice overload.' Psychophysiology, 58 (1). e13705-. ISSN 0048-5772
Sirota, Miroslav and Dewberry, Chris and Juanchich, Marie and Valuš, Lenka and Marshall, Amanda (2021) 'Measuring Cognitive Reflection without Maths: Development and Validation fo the Verbal Cognitive Reflection Test.' Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 34 (3). pp. 322-343. ISSN 0894-3257
Sirota, Miroslav and Theodoropoulou, Andriana and Juanchich, Marie (2021) 'Disfluent fonts do not help people to solve math and non-math problems regardless of their numeracy.' Thinking and Reasoning, 27 (1). pp. 142-159. ISSN 1354-6783
Sirota, Miroslav and Thorpe, Alistair and Juanchich, Marie (2021) 'Explaining and reducing the public’s expectations of antibiotics: A utility-based signal detection theory approach.' Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition. ISSN 2211-3681 (In Press)
Thorpe, Alistair and Sirota, Miroslav and Orbell, Sheina and Juanchich, Marie (2021) 'Effect of information on reducing inappropriate expectations and requests for antibiotics.' British Journal of Psychology, 112 (3). pp. 804-827. ISSN 0007-1269
Wolfe, Kelly and Sirota, Miroslav and Clarke, Alasdair DF (2021) 'Age differences in COVID-19 risk-taking, and the relationship with risk attitude and numerical ability.' Royal Society Open Science, 8 (9). 201445-. ISSN 2054-5703

2020

Chen, Jing and Šabić, Edin and Mishler, Scott and Parker, Cody and Yamaguchi, Motonori (2020) 'Effectiveness of Lateral Auditory Collision Warnings: Should Warnings Be Toward Danger or Toward Safety?' Human Factors: the journal of the human factors and ergonomics society. ISSN 0018-7208 (In Press)
Dawtry, Rael and Callan, Mitch and Harvey, Annelie and Gheorghiu, Ana (2020) 'Victims, Vignettes, and Videos: Meta-Analytic and Experimental Evidence that Emotional Impact Enhances the Derogation of Innocent Victims.' Personality and Social Psychology Review. ISSN 1088-8683
Juanchich, Marie and Shepherd, Theodore G and Sirota, Miroslav (2020) 'Negations in uncertainty lexicon affect attention, decision-making and trust.' Climatic Change. ISSN 0165-0009
Juanchich, Marie and Sirota, Miroslav (2020) 'Most family physicians report communicating the risks of adverse drug reactions in words (vs. numbers).' Applied Cognitive Psychology, 34 (2). 526 - 534. ISSN 0888-4080
Liu, Dawn and Juanchich, Marie and Sirota, Miroslav and Orbell, Sheina (2020) 'The Intuitive Use of Contextual Information in Decisions made with Verbal and Numerical Quantifiers.' Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 73 (4). 481 - 494. ISSN 1747-0218
Sirota, Miroslav and Dewberry, Chris and Juanchich, Marie and Valuš, Lenka and Marshall, Amanda (2020) 'Measuring Cognitive Reflection without Maths: Development and Validation of the Verbal Cognitive Reflection Test.' Journal of Behavioral Decision Making. ISSN 0894-3257

2019

Juanchich, Marie and Sirota, Miroslav (2019) 'Do people really prefer verbal probabilities?' Psychological Research. ISSN 0340-0727
Juanchich, Marie and Sirota, Miroslav and Bonnefon, Jean-François (2019) 'The polite wiggle-room effect in charity donation decisions.' Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 32 (2). 179 - 193. ISSN 0894-3257
Kılıç, Ayşenur and Van Tilburg, Wijnand AP and Igou, Eric R (2019) 'Risk‐taking increases under boredom.' Journal of Behavioral Decision Making. ISSN 0894-3257
Løhre, Erik and Juanchich, Marie and Sirota, Miroslav and Teigen, Karl Halvor and Shepherd, Theodore G (2019) 'Climate scientists’ wide prediction intervals are more likely but perceived to be less certain.' Weather, Climate and Society, 11 (3). 565 - 575. ISSN 1948-8335
Rolison, Jonathan (2019) 'What could go wrong? No evidence of an age-related positivity effect when evaluating outcomes of risky activities.' Developmental Psychology, 55 (8). 1788 - 1799. ISSN 0012-1649
Van Tilburg, Wijnand Adriaan Pieter and Mahadevan, Nikhila (2019) 'When Imitating Successful Others Fails: Accidentally Successful Exemplars Inspire Risky Decisions and can Hamper Performance.' Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. ISSN 1747-0218

Academics

Dr Alasdair Clarke

Lecturer

Department of Psychology, University of Essex

Also interested in: Vision.

Dr Nicholas Cooper

Senior Lecturer

Department of Psychology, University of Essex

Also interested in: Health behaviour; wellbeing.

Lecturer

Department of Psychology, University of Essex

Also interested in: Political psychology; justice, fairness and equality.

Lecturer

Department of Psychology, University of Essex

Also interested in: Vision.

Professor Marie Juanchich

Professor

Department of Psychology, University of Essex

Also interested in: Communication and language.

Dr Veronica Lamarche

Lecturer

Department of Psychology, University of Essex

Also interested in: Relationships, sex and attraction; meaning in life, trust, and interdependence.

Lecturer

Department of Psychology, University of Essex

Also interested in: Vision; memory.

Dr Maxwell Roberts

Lecturer

Department of Psychology, University of Essex

Dr Jonathan Rolison

Senior Lecturer

Department of Psychology, University of Essex

Also interested in: Health behaviour.

Dr Dale Shaffer-Morrison

Lecturer

Department of Psychology, University of Essex

Also interested in: Political Psychology; Meaning in Life, Trust and Interdependence; Wellbeing.

Professor Miroslav Sirota

Professor

Department of Psychology, University of Essex

Also interested in: Communication and language.

Dr Wijnand Van Tilburg

Lecturer

Department of Psychology, University of Essex

Also interested in: Emotion; meaning in life, trust, and interdependence; relationships, sex and attraction.

Dr Motonori Yamaguchi

Senior Lecturer

Department of Psychology, University of Essex

Also interested in: Memory; motivation; emotion; relationships, sex and attraction; justice, fairness and equality; vision.

Dr Natalia Zarzeczna

Lecturer

Department of Psychology, University of Essex

Also interested in: Meaning in life, trust and interdepence; Political psychology; Wellbeing; Communication and language; Cross-cultural studies.

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