During a global crisis, does the desire for good news also mean an endorsement of an optimistic bias? Five pre-registered studies, conducted at the start of the COVID pandemic, examined people’s lay prescriptions for thinking about uncertainty—specifically whether they thought forecasters should be optimistic, realistic, or pessimistic in how they estimated key likelihoods. Participants gave prescriptions for forecasters with different roles (e.g., self, family member, public official) and for several key outcomes (e.g., contracting COVID, vaccine development). Overall, prescribed optimism was not the norm. In fact, for negative outcomes that were of high concern, participants generally wanted others to have a pessimistic bias in how they estimated likelihoods. For positive outcomes, people favored more accurate estimation. These patterns held regardless of the assumed forecaster’s role. A common justification for advocating for a pessimistic bias in forecasts was to increase others' engagement in protective or preventative behaviors.

Background To assess the impact of risk perceptions on prevention efforts or behavior change, best practices involve conditional risk measures, which ask people to estimate their risk contingent on a course of action (e.g., “if not vaccinated”). Purpose To determine whether the use of conditional wording—and its drawing of attention to one specific contingency—has an important downside that could lead researchers to overestimate the true relationship between perceptions of risk and intended prevention behavior. Methods In an online experiment, US participants from Amazon’s MTurk ( N = 750) were presented with information about an unfamiliar fungal disease and then randomly assigned among 3 conditions. In all conditions, participants were asked to estimate their risk for the disease (i.e., subjective likelihood) and to decide whether they would get vaccinated. In 2 conditional-wording conditions (1 of which involved a delayed decision), participants were asked about their risk if they did not get vaccinated. For an unconditional/benchmark condition, this conditional was not explicitly stated but was still formally applicable because participants had not yet been informed that a vaccine was even available for this disease. Results When people gave risk estimates to a conditionally worded risk question after making a decision, the observed relationship between perceived risk and prevention decisions was inflated (relative to in the unconditional/benchmark condition). Conclusions The use of conditionals in risk questions can lead to overestimates of the impact of perceived risk on prevention decisions but not necessarily to a degree that should call for their omission. Highlights Conditional wording, which is commonly recommended for eliciting risk perceptions, has a potential downside. It can produce overestimates of the true relationship between perceived risk and prevention behavior, as established in the current work. Though concerning, the biasing effect of conditional wording was small—relative to the measurement benefits that conditioning usually provides—and should not deter researchers from conditioning risk perceptions. More research is needed to determine when the biasing impact of conditional wording is strongest.

The desirability bias refers to when people's expectations about an uncertain event are biased by outcome preferences. Prior work has provided limited evidence that the magnitude of this motivated bias depends on (is moderated by) how expectations are solicited-as discrete outcome predictions or as likelihood judgments expressed on more continuous scales. The present studies extended the generalizability and understanding of the moderating process. The authors proposed that solicitations of predictions and likelihood judgments have different connotations that ultimately affect how much bias is expressed; this varies from a prior account that attributed the moderation effect to response scale differences (dichotomous vs. continuous). Study 1 confirmed the connotation difference, with predictions being viewed as more affording of hunches. Studies 2-4 directly tested the moderation effect, and unlike prior work focusing on expectations for purely stochastic events, the present studies involved more naturalistic events for which likelihood information was not supplied or directly knowable. Before viewing scenes from a basketball game (Study 2) or an endurance race (Studies 3 and 4), participants were led to prefer one contestant over another. After viewing most of the closely fought contest, they made either a prediction or likelihood judgment about the outcome. Participants' tendency to forecast their preferred contestant to win was significantly stronger among those making predictions rather than likelihood judgments. In support of the proposed account, this effect persisted even when both types of solicitations offered only dichotomous response options. Broader implications for measuring and understanding people's expectations or forecasts are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

The phenomenon of ambiguity aversion suggests that people prefer options that offer precisely rather than imprecisely known chances of success. However, past work on people's responses to ambiguity in health treatment contexts found ambiguity seeking rather than aversion. The present work addressed whether such findings reflected a broad tendency for ambiguity seeking in health treatment contexts or whether specific attributions for ambiguity play a substantial role. In three studies, people choose between two treatment options that involved similar underlying probabilities, except that the probabilities for one option involved ambiguity. The attributions offered for the ambiguity played an important role in the results. For example, when the range of probabilities associated with an ambiguous treatment was attributed to the fact that different studies yield different results, participants tended to show ambiguity aversion or indifference. However, when the range was attributed to something that participants could control (e.g., regular application of a cream) or something about which they were overoptimistic (e.g., their immune system function), participants tended to show ambiguity seeking. Health professionals should be mindful of how people will interpret and use information about ambiguity when choosing among treatments.

The desirability bias (or wishful thinking effect) refers to when a person's desire regarding an event's occurrence has an unwarranted, optimistic influence on expectations about that event. Past experimental tests of this effect have been dominated by paradigms in which uncertainty about the target event is purely stochastic-i.e., involving only aleatory uncertainty. In six studies, we detected desirability biases using two new paradigms in which people made predictions about events for which their uncertainty was both aleatory and epistemic. We tested and meta-analyzed the impact of two potential moderators: the strength of evidence and the level of stochasticity. In support of the first moderator hypothesis, desirability biases were larger when people were making predictions about events for which the evidence for the possible outcomes was of similar strength (vs. not of similar strength). Regarding the second moderator hypothesis, the overall results did not support the notion that the desirability bias would be larger when the target event was higher vs. lower in stochasticity, although there was some significant evidence for moderation in one of the two paradigms. The findings broaden the generalizability of the desirability bias in predictions, yet they also reveal boundaries to an account of how stochasticity might provide affordances for optimistically biased predictions.

Past work has suggested that people prescribe optimism—believing it is better to be optimistic, instead of accurate or pessimistic, about uncertain future events. Here, we identified and addressed an important ambiguity about whether those findings reflect an endorsement of biased beliefs—that is, whether people prescribe likelihood estimates that reflect overoptimism. In three studies, participants (N = 663 U.S. university students) read scenarios about protagonists facing uncertain events with a desired outcome. Results replicated prescriptions of optimism when we used the same solicitations as in past work. However, we found quite different prescriptions when using alternative solicitations that asked about potential bias in likelihood estimations and that did not involve vague terms such as “optimistic.” Participants generally prescribed being optimistic, feeling optimistic, and even thinking optimistically about the events, but they did not prescribe overestimating the likelihood of those events.

People often use tools for tasks, and sometimes there is uncertainty about whether a given task can be completed with a given tool. This project explored whether, when, and how people’s optimism about successfully completing a task with a given tool is affected by the contextual salience of a better or worse tool. In six studies, participants were faced with novel tasks. For each task, they were assigned a tool but also exposed to a comparison tool that was better or worse in utility (or sometimes similar in utility). In some studies, the tool comparisons were essentially social comparisons, because the tool was assigned to another person. In other studies, the tool comparisons were merely counterfactual rather than social. The studies revealed contrast effects on optimism, and the effect worked in both directions. That is, worse comparison tools boosted optimism and better tools depressed optimism. The contrast effects were observed regardless of the general type of comparison (e.g., social, counterfactual). The comparisons also influenced discrete decisions about which task to attempt (for a prize), which is an important finding for ruling out superficial scaling explanations for the contrast effects. It appears that people fail to exclude irrelevant tool-comparison information from consideration when assessing their likelihood of success on a task, resulting in biased optimism and decisions.

A pandemic has sent the world into chaos. It has not only upended our lives; hundreds of thousands of lives have already been tragically lost. The global crisis has been disruptive, even a threat, to healthcare simulation, affecting all aspects of operations from education to employment. While simulationists around the world have responded to this crisis, it has also provided a stimulus for the continued evolution of simulation. We have crafted a manifesto for action, incorporating a more comprehensive understanding of healthcare simulation, beyond tool, technique or experience, to understanding it now as a professional practice. Healthcare simulation as a practice forms the foundation for the three tenets comprising the manifesto: safety, advocacy and leadership. Using these three tenets, we can powerfully shape the resilience of healthcare simulation practice for now and for the future. Our call to action for all simulationists is to adopt a commitment to comprehensive safety, to advocate collaboratively and to lead ethically.

The current study tested relative strengths of different comparison beliefs for predicting people’s self-assessments of whether they should increase their health-relevant behaviors (exercise, sleep, and fruit and vegetable consumption). Comparison beliefs relevant to three standards (perceived global, local, expert standards) were evaluated. Data were combined from three similar studies (total N = 744) that had a cross-sectional, within-subject design. Participants completed importance-of-change scales regarding the three health behaviors and reported comparison beliefs and absolute behavior frequencies/amounts. Results were consistent across the three behaviors. Comparison beliefs predicted ratings of importance of changing one’s behavior, even beyond what is predicted by reports of absolute behavior frequency. Expert comparisons were consistently most predictive above and beyond the absolute estimates and the other comparison standards. There was no evidence of a local dominance effect when examining local versus global comparisons. Comparison beliefs have unique utility for predicting people’s perceived importance of changing their heath behavior. The fact that expert comparisons were consistently most predictive (and local comparisons the least) may have implications for interventions designed for encouraging behavior change.

People sometimes modify their behavior based on whether they believe they do more or less of that behavior than others. But are people’s perceptions of their social-comparative status for behaviors generally accurate? The current research assessed accuracy and bias in perceived social-comparative status for a number of health-related behaviors. In two studies, participants estimated their social-comparative percentile regarding behavior frequency for 20 behaviors—pre-classified according to a 2 (healthy or unhealthy) x 2 (generally common or uncommon) design. Participants also reported their absolute frequency of engagement for the behaviors, and these reports were used to approximate people’s actual percentiles. Subjective percentile estimates were overly favorable for both healthy and unhealthy behaviors and were biased by a behavior’s general commonness/rarity. People who were least healthy regarding a behavior tended to be the most miscalibrated in their percentile estimation for that behavior. There was also support for a noise-plus-bias model of people’s percentile estimates.

This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. Background:Chinese Americans are one of the fastest growing populations in the United States. However, 41% of Chinese Americans are not English proficient. Methods:In 2014, Medicine in Mandarin was established by the University of Michigan Medical School (UMMS) as a pre-clinical elective taught by a nationally certified healthcare Mandarin interpreter. A 32-hour curriculum was developed, including both didactics and interactive elements. Assessments included quizzes, standardized patient interviews, and a final exam. An evaluation was administered upon course completion, and a post-course survey was administered to graduates at least six months after course completion. Results:Between 2014 and 2017, the elective graduated 25 students, of whom 23 completed the course evaluation and 22 completed the post-course survey. Prior to the course, 9% of students felt comfortable practicing medicine in Mandarin. This increased to 78% of students post-course. When asked about subsequent clinical experiences, 82% of students reported having applied medical Mandarin skills. Overall, 96% rated the course as very good or excellent. Conclusion:A Medicine in Mandarin elective was well-received by students and improved their comfort in providing medical care in Mandarin. Additional study is warranted to examine the potential clinical impact of this course.

Rapidly growing research on parental mind-mindedness, a tendency to treat one's young child as a psychological agent and an individual with a mind, internal mental states, and emotions, has demonstrated significant links among parents' mind-mindedness, their parenting, and multiple aspects of children's development. This prospective longitudinal study of 102 community mothers, fathers, and infants, followed from 7 months to 10 years, contributes to research on mind-mindedness by addressing several existing gaps and limitations. We examine mechanisms that account for associations between parents' early mind-mindedness and children's future attachment security, using robust behavioral measures. Teams of trained observers coded parents' mind-minded comments to their infants at 7 months during naturalistic interactions, parents' responsiveness in naturalistic interactions and in elicited imitation tasks at 15 months, and children's security, using Attachment Q-Set at 2 years and Iowa Attachment Behavioral Coding at 10 years. Sequential mediation analyses supported a model of a developmental path from parents' appropriate mind-minded comments in infancy to children's security at age 10. For mothers and children, the path was mediated first through responsiveness at 15 months and then security at 2 years. For fathers and children, the path was mediated through attachment security at 2 years. Parents' nonattuned mind-minded comments had no effects on responsiveness or security. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Determining when advanced practice registered nurse students are safe and competent for beginning-level practice is challenging. This article describes the development and testing of a capstone objective structured clinical examination designed to evaluate the practice readiness of students enrolled in the family, adult-gerontology, women's health nurse practitioner, and nurse-midwifery tracks. Lessons learned from this process and how they were used to enhance the curricula are discussed.

BACKGROUND: Teaching residents to lead end of life (EOL) and error disclosure (ED) conferences is important.METHODS: We developed and tested an intervention using videotapes of EOL and error disclosure encounters from previous Objective Structured Clinical Exams. Residents (n = 72) from general and orthopedic surgery programs at 2 sites were enrolled. Using a prospective, pre-post, block group design with stratified randomization, we hypothesized the treatment group would outperform the control on EOL and ED cases. We also hypothesized that online course usage would correlate positively with post-test scores.RESULTS: All residents improved (pre-post). At the group level, treatment effects were insignificant, and post-test performance was unrelated to course usage. At the subgroup level for EOL, low performers assigned to treatment scored higher than controls at post-test; and within the treatment group, post graduate year 3 residents outperformed post graduate year 1 residents.CONCLUSIONS: To be effective, online curricula illustrating communication behaviors need face-to-face interaction, individual role play with feedback and discussion. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

This study tries to find out the effects of university nonverbal immediacy skills on the perception of cognitive learning by using the Nonverbal Immediacy Scale for Observers (NIS-O) developed by Richmond, McCroskey and Johnson in 2003. The present study is the first use of 26-item NIS-O instrument in cross-cultural literature examining the relationship of instructors' nonverbal immediacy and student perception of cognitive learning, which makes its findings rather important for the cross-cultural nonverbal immediacy literature. The survey was conducted with the participation of fourth year undergraduate business administration students from Turkey, USA, and China. Findings of the study showed that outstanding instructors in classroom teaching are rather competent in nonverbal immediacy skills. While American and Turkish instructors appeared to be immediate at the same level, Chinese instructors exhibited relatively low scores on immediacy scale. Findings also showed a statistically significant and positive correlation between nonverbal immediacy behaviors and perceived cognitive learning level of students in Turkey and USA.