Friday 17 October 2014

Trial lecture on the psychology of risk

In the process of applying for a associate professor position in cognitive psychology, I was asked to deliver a lecture on my own research. Rather than talking about my previous research on the neurocognition of selective attention, I chose to focus the presentation around different research projects I've had on the topic of "risk".

I started out with an example I sometimes use in my lectures to demonstrate the various risks that are relevant to their age group in Norway. I then introduced some classic studies on risk, and some fundamental perspectives. I presented my recent series of Go/NoGo lab experiments intended to model risk perception. I then introduced "situation awareness" as an application of risk in real-word settings, and the related research projects I've run to attempt to approach it in surveys, lab and field experiments. Finally, I discussed some of the consequences of risk, showing how people's behaviour are sometimes changed after considering dangerous situations. Relevant to this, I presented three experiments done in collaboration with Hallgeir Sjåstad, where presenting a threat influenced how security policy was evaluated by a post-Utøya sample.

No comments: