The anticommons dilemma is not a well known dilemma, but wellworth studying as it has a practical impact on individuals and society when it occurs. It occurs when multiple people co-own a resource...Show moreThe anticommons dilemma is not a well known dilemma, but wellworth studying as it has a practical impact on individuals and society when it occurs. It occurs when multiple people co-own a resource or property who have to grant each other permission in order to use or sell the resource. This study explores whether in an anticommons dilemma a participant’s feeling of ownership over a resource increases when he or she has to put effort into obtaining it. Half of the participants (Ntotal = 208) had to exert effort by doing an effort task in order to influence their Willingness To Accept (WTA) value, i.e. the amount of points they are willing to accept as payment in order to let the other co-owner use the resource. The participants also filled in a Psychological Ownership scale. Effort did not significantly influence psychological ownership, but psychological ownership did significantly influence WTA. There was no significant WTA difference between the (un)equal effort treatment conditions. The effects of effort are further analysed and discussed.Show less
Empirical and theoretical work suggests that unpredictability during childhood shapes how decisions under uncertainty are made, as childhood unpredictability can make people more sensitive to...Show moreEmpirical and theoretical work suggests that unpredictability during childhood shapes how decisions under uncertainty are made, as childhood unpredictability can make people more sensitive to uncertainty about the future. Research on this subject so far has focused on decisions leading to reward gain, but no literature is available when such decisions concern avoiding harm or loss. This study looked into the relationship between perceived childhood unpredictability (PCU) and how people make decisions under uncertainty when the goal is to avoid loss. It was hypothesized that individuals who reported higher PCU would rely on more certain cues in the environment than uncertain cues that needed to be estimated based on experience. Secondly, it was hypothesized that individuals with higher PCU would feel more uncertain while making decisions during the task than people with lower PCU. These hypotheses were tested in a healthy sample (N = 214) consisting of 104 males and 110 females between the age of 18-35. All participants filled in several questionnaires, under which a questionnaire measuring PCU, and performed an online decision-making task. This task consisted of a social and a non-social (gambling) game. The results did not provide support for the hypotheses, but exploratory analyses found a relationship between PCU and the way that decisions were made in the social versus the non-social game. Specifically, those with higher PCU tend to rely more on learned contingencies than on the magnitude of the points at stake in the social game than in the non-social game. This relationship could be investigated more in future studies.Show less
In a ‘post-truth’ society, many journalists have become afraid to communicate uncertainty about their information as they believe it to decrease public trust. Earlier research showed this was not...Show moreIn a ‘post-truth’ society, many journalists have become afraid to communicate uncertainty about their information as they believe it to decrease public trust. Earlier research showed this was not the case, but not enough attention was paid to the linguistic stimuli with which the uncertainty was communicated. Through a survey with five texts covering two contested topics, climate change and rising prices due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the effect of expression length and frequency of verbal phrases of uncertainty were tested for their perceived uncertainty, reliability, trust in the information and trust in the authors. Results showed that the verbal expression of uncertainty, no matter the length or frequency, did not influence any of the four tested components. These results should reassure journalists that transparency does not negatively affect trust, and that they can safely communicate uncertainty about their information.Show less
Street-level bureaucrats are characterized with discretionary power as a result of which they develop coping mechanisms. Consequently, street-level bureaucrats are often led by stereotypes, which...Show moreStreet-level bureaucrats are characterized with discretionary power as a result of which they develop coping mechanisms. Consequently, street-level bureaucrats are often led by stereotypes, which serve in reducing the uncertainty of a situation. Besides, research indicates that street-level bureaucrats tend to use double standards when interpreting signals from citizens of different social classes. However, whether this is limited to uncertain situations remains unknown. This thesis investigates how double standards affect teachers’ interpretation of child abuse signals, and how information uncertainty plays a role. A qualitative vignette study is used to investigate how teachers interpret child abuse signals from a high social class family and from a low social class family. In addition, it is investigated how the degree of uncertainty of these signals influences the presumed use of double standards by teachers. The analysis shows that teachers indeed use double standards when interpreting signals of child abuse. When the family belongs to a low social class, the teachers are inclined to take more drastic measures than when the family belongs to a high social class. This difference gets smaller as the degree of uncertainty decreases. Moreover, teachers appear to reason differently about a family from a high social class than about a family from a low social class. Teachers also seem to use double standards for uncertainty, as one bruise is seen as an uncertain signal for a family from a high social class and as a more certain signal for a family from a low social class. In addition, the value teachers attach to a child's statement also seems to influence their interpretation of uncertainty. Finally, teachers experience various obstacles that complicate identifying and reporting child abuse, as a result of which they experience even more uncertainty. This thesis contributes to academic literature on street-level bureaucrats and the double standard theory.Show less
The present study explores the effect of externalities awareness and Social Value Orientation (SVO) in anticommons dilemmas. Making participants of an anticommons game aware of externalities was...Show moreThe present study explores the effect of externalities awareness and Social Value Orientation (SVO) in anticommons dilemmas. Making participants of an anticommons game aware of externalities was expected to increase cooperation, by decreasing their willingnessto-accept (WTA) values, i.e. the amount they would be willing to accept in order to allow other individuals to make use of the resource. The results of the computer-based anticommons game (N = 167) did not support this hypothesis. However, the results did show, as predicted, that the more prosocial participants were, the more easily they allowed access to the resource by setting lower willingness-to-accept (WTA) values. Additionally, the hypothesized interaction effect between externalities awareness and Social Value Orientation (SVO) was not confirmed. Proselfs’ behavior did not change significantly more than prosocials’, after they got aware of the externalities. Finally, the negative effects of uncertainty in cooperation are discussed.Show less
Digitalization adds convenience to our lives in many ways. We communicate and do shopping online, turn the heating up at home while leaving the office, and connect the lights to remote control them...Show moreDigitalization adds convenience to our lives in many ways. We communicate and do shopping online, turn the heating up at home while leaving the office, and connect the lights to remote control them from the couch. The examples illustrate how technology has shaped our lives in the past decades. Our interaction with technology has changed dramatically. This development affects organizations as well. Organizations adopt new technologies to service their clients in order to gain competitive advantage. Processes and services are offered digital and in many cases, online. Independent of the processes and services offered, organizations require adequate security measures to protect their assets. As examples in the news illustrate, not doing so may result in serious business impact like loss of reputation, financial losses, operational or legal impact, or even worst case scenarios like bankruptcy. At the same time, there are numerous challenges that organizations face in securing their assets. These challenges include a rapid changing threat landscape, new technologies, vulnerabilities in software, and the strongly interconnected and inherent complex nature of the cyber domain. To what extent are organizations able to protect their assets against cybersecurity threats? How do organizations assess their cybersecurity risks? Do these approaches fit the current cybersecurity challenges? Identifying, analyzing and evaluating cybersecurity risks can become a daunting task. Fortunately, there are many risk frameworks, methods and techniques available that organizations can adopt. Maybe even that many that selecting a fit for purpose approach becomes daunting by itself. This qualitative research explores the current state of cybersecurity risk assessment practices in organizations by researching to what extent the available cybersecurity risk assessment methods and techniques actually have been adopted by organizations. Second, the research investigates whether the chosen approach caters for the challenges in the cyber domain, and what benefits and limitations are perceived.Show less
Discourse markers can provide various insights into the thought processes of the speaker producing them. For instance, previous research (see Maschler & Shapiro, 2016; Yeh & Huang, 2016;...Show moreDiscourse markers can provide various insights into the thought processes of the speaker producing them. For instance, previous research (see Maschler & Shapiro, 2016; Yeh & Huang, 2016; Othman, 2010 for markers of certainty; see Jucker, 1993; Urizar & Samuel, 2014 for markers of uncertainty) has demonstrated how specific discourse markers can reflect an epistemic stance of (un)certainty to the statement made. At the same time, certainty can be related to expertise, including the ability to provide more details in certain scenarios or, alternatively, provide only the most concise correct answer to a question (Tenbrink, 2020). We address the relation between the presence of markers of (un)certainty and the level of detail (granularity) in the linguistic data by qualitatively analysing eight think-aloud protocols collected while participants arranged place names from memory on a blank sheet functioning as a map. Because certain areas were more familiar to the participants than others, this scenario led to ample and varied use of discourse markers of (un)certainty. The transcripts were segmented and analysed based on CODA (Cognitive Discourse Analysis; Tenbrink, 2020) principles by means of systematic annotation, identifying qualitative patterns of linguistic features on the basis of relative frequencies and analysis of specific instances. Discourse markers were annotated based on previous literature, whilst keeping in mind that certain markers of certainty (e.g. ‘right’) can also fulfil a role as merely a ‘filler-word’. The level of detail (granularity) within utterances was measured by operationalising precision of placement descriptions in the think-aloud task, as well as taking into account relevant contextual data, which reflected, for instance, how well and/or why the participants knew a certain place. This linguistic data was consequently cross-referenced with an accuracy score calculated on the basis of a grid map of the area involved as compared to the spatial placements by the participants. Results indicate that discourse markers of uncertainty tend to be employed far more often, which corresponds to our expectations for a complex task with a potential for evaluation (face saving acts; Brown & Garland, 1971; Mirzaei Jegarlooei & Allami, 2018). However, despite the high number of instances where discourse markers were used, statistical analysis revealed no significant correlation between the use of discourse markers (neither of certainty nor of uncertainty) and the accuracy scores of the location placements. On the other hand, granularity level did have a significant negative correlation with accuracy scores in our data set (so; the higher the level of granularity, the lower the accuracy score would be). This would indicate that experts tend to provide concise but correct answers, opening up various pathways for further investigation. It must be noted that the corpus employed for this exploratory study was relatively small (N=8), so these results should only be taken as an indication for potential further research rather than conclusive evidence.Show less
