Researchers from the Department of Human Resource Management’s Psychology of Risk group made a big splash in Bath at the 25th Society for Risk Analysis - Europe conference.
Dr Calvin Burns led a symposium entitled 'Psychological topics in Risk Perception and Risk Decision-Making' in which his PhD students presented their research. Ken Munro spoke about how healthcare professionals develop expertise in risk assessment through clinical reasoning. Hao Cheng presented his work on how emotional state (fear and happiness) influences risk-taking behaviour in a cyber-security context. Paul Edgar spoke about differences in risk perception and safety behaviours in construction workers from different national cultures, and Tony McCarthy considered automatic activation of risk attitudes and how pre-conscious factors can influence spontaneous risk-taking behaviour. First-year PhD student, Jonathan Spry, presented a poster about his work on how emotional state affects accuracy in a drug selection task in a simulated hospital pharmacy.
Dr Burns also presented a paper with Professor Kevin Quigley (Dalhousie University, Canada) about their work on adaptive capacity to loss of critical infrastructure. Their presentation focused on a case study of the closures to the MacDonald Bridge in Halifax (Canada) during the current re-decking process. This research was funded by a grant from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) to the Dalhousie-Strathclyde Risk Research Network.
Dr Burns said, “The Risk Psychology group’s work was received tremendously well. We have forged new international collaborations, which will further contribute to the University’s research themes on Health and Future Cities.”