New cybersecurity technologies, such as commercial antivirus software (AV), sometimes fail to deliver on their promised benefits. This article develops and tests a revised version of risk homeostasis ...theory, which suggests that new cybersecurity technologies can sometimes have ill effects on security outcomes in the short run and little‐to‐no effect over the long run. It tests the preliminary plausibility of four predictions from the revised risk homeostasis theory using new survey data from 1,072 respondents. The estimations suggest the plausible operation of a number of risk homeostasis dynamics: (1) commercial AV users are significantly more likely to self‐report a cybersecurity event in the past year than nonusers, even after correcting for potential reverse causality and informational mechanisms; (2) nonusers become somewhat less likely to self‐report a cybersecurity event as the perceived riskiness of various e‐mail‐based behaviors increases, while commercial AV users do not; (3) the negative short‐run effect of commercial AV use on cybersecurity outcomes fade over time at a predicted rate of about 7.03 percentage points per year of use; and (4) after five years of use, commercial AV users are statistically indistinguishable from nonusers in terms of their probability of self‐reporting a cybersecurity event as perceptions of risky e‐mail‐based behaviors increase.
Resilience to loss and potential trauma Bonanno, George A; Westphal, Maren; Mancini, Anthony D
Annual review of clinical psychology,
04/2011, Letnik:
7
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Initial research on loss and potentially traumatic events (PTEs) has been dominated by either a psychopathological approach emphasizing individual dysfunction or an event approach emphasizing average ...differences between exposed and nonexposed groups. We consider the limitations of these approaches and review more recent research that has focused on the heterogeneity of outcomes following aversive events. Using both traditional analytic tools and sophisticated latent trajectory modeling, this research has identified a set of prototypical outcome patterns. Typically, the most common outcome following PTEs is a stable trajectory of healthy functioning or resilience. We review research showing that resilience is not the result of a few dominant factors, but rather that there are multiple independent predictors of resilient outcomes. Finally, we critically evaluate the question of whether resilience-building interventions can actually make people more resilient, and we close with suggestions for future research on resilience.
•This paper examines the effect of road-surface condition on rural highway safety.•The presented multivariate models estimate crash severity levels simultaneously.•Five models are estimated for ...different levels of road-surface condition.•For pavements in poor condition, the road surface condition has a random parameter.•Risk compensation phenomenon regarding rural roads with poor pavement is confirmed.
Recent studies have begun to shed more light on the crashes experienced on rural roads by examining the influence of a road’s pavement surface condition. In a bid to contribute to this growing body of knowledge and to facilitate comprehensive evaluation of pavement maintenance projects, this paper explores the safety effects of the pavement condition of rural roads. The paper tests the hypotheses that pavement roughness generally has a non-trivial residual impact on safety outcomes and that the magnitude and direction of these impacts differ across road segments. To explore these hypotheses, the paper presents crash frequency models for three levels of crash severity and also across five levels of road surface condition. The developed models use the multivariate random parameters negative binomial specification to account for the unobserved heterogeneity and correlation among the different levels of crash severity. The model results suggest that for pavements in fair or good condition, the surface condition parameter has fixed effects on the crash frequency, irrespective of the crash severity level. However, for pavements in poor condition, the surface condition variable in the crash model has a significant random parameter that is normally distributed. The positive portions of the parameter density function suggest that higher roughness (poorer condition) generally increases the expected crash frequency, likely because drivers may lose control of their vehicles. The negative portions suggest that within that condition range, higher surface roughness is generally associated with a lower expected crash frequency, likely because drivers are generally likely to drive more carefully on pavements in very poor condition (a manifestation of risk-compensation behavior). The developed models can help highway engineers quantify not only the safety benefits of road resurfacing projects but also the safety consequences of worsening road surface conditions arising from delay of pavement maintenance.
Latent Effect of Safety Interventions Hasanzadeh, Sogand; de la Garza, Jesus M; Geller, E. Scott
Journal of construction engineering and management,
05/2020, Letnik:
146, Številka:
5
Journal Article
Recenzirano
AbstractWhile researchers have dispensed considerable effort in the past decades to reduce the risk of occupational injuries in the construction industry, the large amount of safety incidents ...occurring each year indicate that many of the safety interventions and technological advances have not fully achieved their safety goals. This fact suggests the possibility of a latent side effect of safety interventions, known as risk compensation. Since no study has empirically examined the risk-taking behaviors of workers as a function of the number and type of safety interventions in place for their protection, this research examined whether the concept of risk compensation could offset some safety benefits of protection equipment. An immersive mixed-reality environment (i.e., virtual reality and passive haptics) was developed to simulate a roofing activity. Then, combining real-time head- and ankle-tracking sensors with qualitative sources of data, the authors monitored the reactionary behavioral responses of participants while they completed roofing tasks under three, randomly ordered levels of safety protection in the mixed-reality roofing simulation. The results indicated that providing more safety interventions (i.e., higher levels of fall protection) produced a sense of invulnerability among participants. This false sense of security ultimately increased their risk-taking behavior by up to 55%: participants stepped closer to the roof edge, leaned over the edge, and spent more time exposing themselves to fall risk. Although this study used students as unskilled roofing workers, it provides an initial empirical understanding of how more safety protections might implicitly signal workers to take additional risks—an effect of risk compensation. These findings could significantly influence how the construction industry approaches the development and implementation of safety interventions to offset the influence of risk compensation.
Exploring the transfer of risks Nilson, Finn; de Goër de Herve, Mathilde
Safety science,
10/2023, Letnik:
166
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
•Societal risk management is often silo-like, where it is presumed that risks can be determined before-hand.•Societal risk management results in outcomes that differ in temporality and spatiality, ...with considerable uncertainty.•A conceptual model that encompasses these elements is introduced.
Societal safety is often centred on handling or managing a single risk from the perspective of a particular at-risk group or individual, in a specific time and place. However, such linear and single-facetted processes are rare and the current approaches in societal risk management fail to comprehensively include and discuss the full range of outcomes and its inherent uncertainty and complexity. By combining different examples of known and unknown outcomes of societal risk management in the scientific literature, this paper aim to contribute to the risk and safety research field by presenting a conceptual model of risk transfer. The conceptual model shows how traditional societal risk management strategies often aim at reducing a targeted risk, considering the original actors affected by this risk, in a defined geographical area and for a decided time frame despite risk management also altering the landscape of risks for other actors, in other places, and at other times, as well as for the original actors, in the original place, and during the original time. Combining these aspects in a conceptual model that accepts and incorporates complexity, the underlying intention is to initiate a discussion regarding the current approaches and understandings of societal risk management and societal safety.
•Smartphone application measured the use of smartphone while driving.•Drivers in the research group (intervention) decreased their smartphone usage while driving.•Young drivers use their smartphone ...while driving at low driving speeds more than at high speeds.•Risk homeostasis-based intervention can decrease unsafe driving behavior.
Driving while distracted by smartphones is an unsafe behavior and constitutes a serious worldwide road safety issue. In line with the risk homeostasis theory, during high-speed driving, drivers perceive smartphone usage as an unwarranted risk and in most cases refrain from doing so. During low-speed driving, however, drivers often use their smartphones, as they do not perceive this as inherently unsafe, even though it is. The goal of this study was to examine an intervention, based on the risk homeostasis theory, aimed at decreasing the use of smartphones while driving at low speeds. Thirty-seven young drivers participated in the research group that aimed to alter drivers’ risk perceptions, decision making, and behavior. The study also included a control group of 33 young drivers. All of the participants’ smartphone usage was monitored using a dedicated application that measured both the number of times drivers touched their smartphone screens while driving and the driving speed each time the screen was touched. The results indicate that drivers in the research group decreased their smartphone usage while driving, unlike the control group drivers who did not alter their behavior. In conclusion, a risk homeostasis-based intervention can decrease dangerous and unsafe driving behavior, even when such behavior is not perceived as significantly dangerous. Furthermore, additional types of risky and unsafe driving behaviors may be decreased using this type of intervention.
Purpose
Organisations use a variety of technical, formal and informal security controls but also rely on employees to safeguard information assets. This relies heavily on compliance and constantly ...challenges employees to manage security-related risks. The purpose of this research is to explore the homeostatic mechanism proposed by risk homeostasis theory (RHT), as well as security fatigue, in an organisational context.
Design/methodology/approach
A case study approach was used to investigate the topic, focusing on data specialists who regularly work with sensitive information assets. Primary data was collected through semi-structured interviews with 12 data specialists in a large financial services company.
Findings
A thematic analysis of the data revealed risk perceptions, behavioural adjustments and indicators of security fatigue. The findings provide examples of how these concepts manifest in practice and confirm the relevance of RHT in the security domain.
Originality/value
This research illuminates homeostatic mechanisms in an organisational security context. It also illustrates links with security fatigue and how this could further impact risk. Examples and indicators of security fatigue can assist organisations with risk management, creating “employee-friendly” policies and procedures, choosing appropriate technical security solutions and tailoring security education, training and awareness activities.
This Commentary addresses the ongoing disagreements between many safety advocates who endorse traditional models of prevention and those who oppose them, arguing that safety measures are offset by ...risk compensation (RCT). The debate is especially heated with respect to regulatory or legislative prevention measures. After explaining the rationale behind risk compensation (aka risk homeostasis theory) (RHT), I provide examples of RCT studies to explain why I believe they should be rejected. The main basis for my rebuttal, however, rests on data that show steady declines in unintentional injury mortality, which, according to RCT, should not have occurred. There are many other reasons for rejecting this theory, and it seems that the time has come for the debate to finally be concluded.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences between immigrants and the native‐born population concerning estimations of the feasibility of becoming an entrepreneur, and to examine ...the relationship between the propensity for risk‐taking and the perceived feasibility of becoming an entrepreneur. The paper developed the renewed application of the entrepreneurial intentions model, with perceived feasibility to be an entrepreneur expressed as an assessment of opportunity to act, and risk‐taking propensity derived from an assessment of opportunity to succeed. This renewed approach enabled us to explain the paradox between immigrants' high entrepreneurial motivation and low perceived feasibility of becoming an entrepreneur based on the risk homeostasis theory. The high level of apparent immigration‐related risks experienced by immigrants in the past affects their risk‐taking propensity, thus decreasing their perceived feasibility of establishing businesses.
•Few empirical studies exist on the topic of risk compensation and bicycle helmets.•Such a lack of studies means that the impact of a single study can be significant.•We show how one of the rare ...experimental studies arrives at a false conclusion.•And is cited as evidence that helmeted (male) cyclists take more risks.•We discuss potential consequences of false conclusions and uncritical citations.
Some researchers and many anti-helmet advocates often state that when cyclists wear a helmet they feel safer and take more risks. This hypothesis – risk compensation – if true, would reduce, annul or even reverse the assumed benefits of helmets in reducing head injuries. Consequently, this hypothesis is often used to oppose mandatory helmet laws. In this article, we illustrate how one of the few studies that attempted to experimentally test the hypothesis in relation to bicycle helmets arrives at a false conclusion. As a result it is often cited as evidence of risk compensation. Given the lack of experimental studies in this research area, the impact of a single study in shaping the opinions of the general public and of policy makers can be significant.
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