Confirmation bias, as the term is typically used in the psychological literature, connotes the seeking or interpreting of evidence in ways that are partial to existing beliefs, expectations, or a h...

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Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises:

In 1974 an article appeared in Science magazine with the dry-sounding title “Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases” by a pair of psychologists who were not well known outside their discipline of decision theory. In it Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman introduced the world to Prospect Theory, which mapped out how humans actually behave when faced with decisions about gains and losses, in contrast to how economists assumed that people behave. Prospect Theory turned Economics on its head by demonstrating through a series of ingenious experiments that people are much more concerned with losses than they are with gains, and that framing a choice from one perspective or the other will result in decisions that are exactly the opposite of each other, even if the outcomes are monetarily the same. Prospect Theory led cognitive psychology in a new direction that began to uncover other human biases in thinking that are probably not learned but are part of our brain’s wiring.

Thinking fast and slow.

Theoretical models of financial markets built on the assumption that some investors are overconfident yield one central prediction: overconfident investors will trade too much. We test this prediction by partitioning investors on the basis of a variable that provides a natural proxy for overconfidence--gender. Psychological research has established that men are more prone to overconfidence than women. Thus, models of investor overconfidence predict that men will trade more and perform worse than women. Using account data for over 35,000 households from a large discount brokerage firm, we analyze the common stock investments of men and women from February 1991 through January 1997. Consistent with the predictions of the overconfidence models, we document that men trade 45 percent more than women and earn annual risk-adjusted net returns that are 1.4 percent less than those earned by women. These differences are more pronounced between single men and single women; single men trade 67 percent more than single women and earn annual risk-adjusted net returns that are 2.3 percent less than those earned by single women.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/98110615.pdf?abstractid=139415&rulid=175370&mirid=3

Boys Will Be Boys: Gender, Overconfidence, and Common Stock Investment

Theoretical models predict that overconedent investors trade excessively We test this prediction by partitioning investors on gender Psychological research demonstrates that, in areas such as enance, men are more overconedent than women Thus, theory predicts that men will trade more excessively than women Using account data for over 35,000 households from a large discount brokerage, we analyze the common stock investments of men and women from February 1991 through January 1997 We document that men trade 45 percent more than women Trading reduces men’s net returns by 265 percentage points a year as opposed to 172 percentage points for women It’s not what a man don’t know that makes him a fool, but what he does know that ain’t so Josh Billings, nineteenth century American humorist It is difecult to reconcile the volume of trading observed in equity markets with the trading needs of rational investors Rational investors make periodic contributions and withdrawals from their investment portfolios, rebalance their portfolios, and trade to minimize their taxes Those possessed of superior information may trade speculatively, although rational speculative traders will generally not choose to trade with each other It is unlikely that rational trading needs account for a turnover rate of

/pdf/boys-will-be-boys-gender-overconfidence-and-common-stock-2ctwfizezu.pdf

Boys will be Boys: Gender, Overconfidence, and Common Stock Investment

/pdf/research-design-qualitative-quantitative-and-mixed-methods-1m92m1x5gg.pdf

Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches

The essay discusses the scientific basis for the RIO project (Interdisciplinary Risk Assessment of Integrated Operations addressing Human and Organisational Factors – RIO) by looking at some of the presumptions and positions in the project description in terms of epistemological approaches to risk and the distinction between discipline-based academic risk research and applied, problem oriented risk research.. Arguments, reasons and elaborations for major hazard prevention in an IO context based on an interdisciplinary framework for risk governance is presented. Introduction and background1 Why asking this question in the title of the paper? Different perspectives and interdisciplinary approaches is a presumption for the RIO project (Interdisciplinary Risk Assessment of Integrated Operations addressing Human and Organisational Factors – RIO). The aims are therefore to give some arguments, reasons and elaborations for what is already decided. The scope given by the RIO project proposal is major hazard prevention in an IO context based on an interdisciplinary framework for risk governance (Renn, 2008). A core challenge for studying safety performance in a context of Integrated Operations is distributed, collaborative decision-making in control of hazardous processes and the adaptive response of decisionmakers to internal and external stressors and variability. Compared to the stable conditions of the past, the present dynamic oil and gas industry brings with it some dramatic changes of the conditions of industrial risk governance: The very fast pace of development of technology, especially information technology, leads to a high degree of integration and coupling of systems and effects of a single decision can have dramatic effects that propagate rapidly. It is thus becoming increasingly difficult to explain accident causation by analysing local factors within a work system. Safety and risk management increasingly become system problems. Furthermore, companies today live in a very aggressive and competitive environment. The German sociologist Ulrich Beck (1992) summarizes these challenges for risk management by the phrases: “produced uncertainties and organized irresponsibility” and “strategic uncertainty and structural vulnerability” as key words for risk research. The socio-technical system involved in risk management is normally de¬composed according to organizational levels and specific hazard phenomena, which are the subjects for studies within different disciplines, see the “vertical” risk management model of J. Rasmussen (1997). This raises the problem of the constraints of specialized academic risk research. 1 The paper is to a large extent based on a report for SRV (Hovden & Rasmussen, 1998) and a report for the Research Council of Norway (Hovden, 1999), and inspired by discussions and confrontations at meetings within the RIO group of researchers.

Essays on socio-technical vulnerabilities and strategies of control in Integrated Operations

When human factors engineering came into being around 1945, the reason was that technological developments had enabled the building of technological artefacts (i.e., machines) so fast and so complex that humans were unable effectively to control them. That necessitated a solution, not so much to improve the plight of the humans, but rather to ensure that the performance of the machines would not be encumbered by human shortcomings. There were in principle different solutions on offer. One could either try to adapt the human to the machine, or the machine to the human.

Coping with complexity: then and now

Principles of Performance Monitoring in Coupled Human-Machine Systems

The chapter describes the history of simulator studies in Human Factors research, and the roots in structural psychology and Scientific Management. Following that, the establishment and development of HAMMLAB is considered relative to the events and concerns of the early 1980s. After a short discussion of the use of simulated worlds, the changing conditions for human factors research are identified. These are the change from human–computer interaction to distributed cognition, the change from first to second generation HRA leading to the gradual irrelevance of HRA, the change human–machine systems to joint cognitive systems, the change from normal accidents to intractable systems, and the change from system safety to resilience engineering. The conclusion is that when the nature of work and the practical problems change, the methods and models should also change.

Simulator Studies: The Next Best Thing?

The study of Everyday Clinical Work (ECW) may seem puzzling 
for researchers and practitioners who are accustomed to the type of 
clinical research that dominates modern health care. The purpose 
of clinical research is to determine whether something – a new 
type of medication, a new device, a new diagnostic product or a 
new treatment regime intended for human use – is sufficiently safe 
and effective. Clinical research follows the tradition of empirical 
research and the scientific method honoured by Western science 
since Roger Bacon, where researchers propose hypotheses and 
design experimental studies to test the predictions derived from 
the hypotheses. Or they try at any rate to determine whether 
changes to one or more independent variables have predictable, 
or at least systematic, effects that can be measured by the 
dependent variables. The scientific method is intended to be as 
objective as possible in order to reduce subjective biases in either 
the collection of data or the interpretation of results.

Erik Hollnagel

Papers

Essays on socio-technical vulnerabilities and strategies of control in Integrated Operations

Coping with complexity: then and now

Principles of Performance Monitoring in Coupled Human-Machine Systems

Simulator Studies: The Next Best Thing?

Looking for patterns in everyday clinical work