In flood risk management, a shift can be observed toward more integrated approaches that increasingly address the role of private households in implementing flood damage mitigation measures. This has resulted in a growing number of studies into the supposed positive relationship between individual flood risk perceptions and mitigation behavior. Our literature review shows, however, that, actually, this relationship is hardly observed in empirical studies. Two arguments are provided as an explanation. First, on the basis of protection motivation theory, a theoretical framework is discussed suggesting that individuals’ high-risk perceptions need to be accompanied by coping appraisal to result in a protective response. Second, it is pointed out that possible feedback from already-adopted mitigation measures on risk perceptions has hardly been considered by current studies. In addition, we also provide a review of factors that drive precautionary behavior other than risk perceptions. It is found that factors such as coping appraisal are consistently related to mitigation behavior. We conclude, therefore, that the current focus on risk perceptions as a means to explain and promote private flood mitigation behavior is not supported on either theoretical or empirical grounds.

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A review of risk perceptions and other factors that influence flood mitigation behavior.

This study proposed and tested a multistage model of household response to three hazards-flood, hurricane, and toxic chemical release-in Harris County Texas The model, which extends Lindell and Perry's (1992, 2004) Protective Action Decision Model, proposed a basic causal chain from hazard proximity through hazard experience and perceived personal risk to expectations of continued residence in the home and adoption of household hazard adjustments Data from 321 households generally supported the model, but the mediating effects of hazard experience and perceived personal risk were partial rather than complete In addition, the data suggested that four demographic variables-gender, age, income, and ethnicity-affect the basic causal chain at different points

Households' perceived personal risk and responses in a multihazard environment.

The System Usability Scale (SUS) is the most widely used standardized questionnaire for the assessment of perceived usability. This review of the SUS covers its early history from inception in the ...

The System Usability Scale: Past, Present, and Future

Disaster preparedness and perception of flood risk : A study in an alpine valley in Italy

Results of past research suggest that affect plays an important role in risk perception. Because affect may also increase the availability of risks, affect and availability are closely related concepts. Three studies tested the hypothesis that evoking negative affect (fear), either through past experience or through experimental manipulation, results in greater perceived risk. The present research focused on perception of flooding risk. Study 1 and Study 2 showed that participants who received risk information concerning a longer time period (e.g., 30 years) perceived more danger compared with participants who received risk information for one year. Study 2 showed that the interpretation of risk information was influenced by participants' own experiences with flooding. In Study 3, affect was experimentally manipulated. After looking at photographs depicting houses in a flooded region, participants perceived greater risk compared with participants in a control group. Taken together, the results of these three studies suggest that affect is important for successful risk communication. Results of the present research are in line with the affect heuristic proposed by Slovic and colleagues.

The role of the affect and availability heuristics in risk communication.

In 1999 a research program was started with the goal of finding the main reasons that influence people's decisions to insure themselves against losses caused by flood. In a field study a questionnaire that measured perception of the flood risk and motives for insuring or not insuring against the consequences of this disaster was used. The data were collected on a group of 66 households that were hit by flood in 1997. As expected, the results showed that the insurance decisions were related to a few basic psychological factors of flood-risk perception. The most important finding was that people who reported greater fear while thinking about flood bought insurance more often after the flood had occurred than people who did not report fear. Another factor of flood-risk perception, knowledge about flood, was not related to any aspect of insurance decisions. The practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Fear or money? Decisions on insuring oneself against flood

The article focuses on the sense of social mission, considered a factor that inß uences choice of a profession and work performance. The concept of social mission as related to professional occupation has been deÞ ned and jobs with social mission were compared to another group of jobs, known in Poland as the “social proÞ t jobs”. The article presents a study of a group of individuals (N = 197) executing one of the social mission jobs (teachers, healthcare) and employees of other professions (N = 175). A specially designed method measuring the individual’s sense of a mission has been used.. The results show that employees in professions with social mission indeed displayed a higher sense of a mission than employees in other professions. Moreover, the sense of a mission showed positive relationship with work satisfaction.

Praca zawodowa jako obszar realizowania misji społecznej

This study demonstrates the Polish translation of System Usability Scale (SUS). The translation was made according to the procedure of psychologic test adaptation and was made in several steps: (1) forward-translation, (2) formulating the list of problems, (3) comparison of all translations versions and translations synthesis, (4) procedure of collating (5) results comparison of both Polish and English versions of SUS questionnaire, (6) checking the validity of result in comparison to other five usability metrics. It was validated that features with The reliability of Polish SUS version was confirmed by high Cronbach’s alpha value (0.805), high correlations between adequate items of Polish and English SUS version as well as between total Polish and English SUS score. The validity of Polish SUS version measured by correlations with other usability metrics, including Computer System Usability Questionnaire (CSUQ) and Net Promoter Score (NPS) is sufficient. The Polish version of System Usability Scale is a valuable tool for quick usability assessment.

Pre-testing of Polish Translation of System Usability Scale (SUS)

This study examined the effects of computer-assisted cognitive rehabilitation in a group of 16 brain-damaged patients. Therapeutic effectiveness was assessed by improvement on computer tasks, the results of neuropsychological tests and quality of life ratings. Participants suffered from mild to moderate attention and memory problems or aphasia. The procedure involved baseline assessment (pretest), a 15-week course of therapy conducted twice a week (30 hours in total) and posttest. Neuropsychological tests assessing attention, memory and language problems and quality of life ratings were administered twice: in preand posttests. Twelve healthy controls were also examined twice (with a 15-week interval) using the same battery of neuropsychological tests. The RehaCom program and the Polish computer therapy program for aphasics called Afa-System were used for rehabilitation. The computer-assisted rehabilitation tasks were selected individually for each patient. The results showed signifi cant improvement on computer-assisted tasks in all braindamaged subjects. However, none or very little improvement was observed on neuropsychological tests and quality of life ratings. The results of the study confi rm the importance of using different types of measures to estimate the effectiveness of computer-assisted neuropsychological rehabilitation as well as the necessity of applying various kinds of therapy to improve cognitive, emotional and social functioning in brain-damaged patients.

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Organizational roles and the work and organizational engagement

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Anna Borkowska

Papers

Fear or money? Decisions on insuring oneself against flood

Praca zawodowa jako obszar realizowania misji społecznej

Pre-testing of Polish Translation of System Usability Scale (SUS)

Organizational roles and the work and organizational engagement

Zróżnicowane systemy wartości pracowników w różnych typach zawodów