College students and risk-taking behaviour on Twitter versus Facebook

The propensity of college students to post content that they know may be unacceptable to future employers or other authority figures has been well established. Yet research on this topic has tended to focus exclusively on Facebook, which is problematic for two reasons. First, many young social media users are shifting away from Facebook and towards Twitter and other services. Second, college students have changed their use of social media over time and may now be more cautious about what they post on Facebook. To address this issue, a survey-based field study was conducted to compare student comfort levels with authority figures viewing their Facebook and Twitter accounts. Specifically, undergraduate business students attending a large university in the midwest of the USA were surveyed about their Facebook and Twitter accounts. Findings indicate that college students are markedly less comfortable with authority figures viewing their Twitter accounts. Paradoxically, a great majority of the study respondents were found to have public Twitter accounts, while only a very small minority have public Facebook accounts. This finding suggests that students perceive less risk on Twitter versus Facebook or that they are writing to different imagined audiences on the two platforms. Implications include the need for further inquiry and an awareness of educators and human resources professionals about students’ current social media practices.     

Understanding risk-taking behavior of groups: A “decision analysis” perspective

Past research has extensively investigated the effect of media, especially focusing on how anonymity increases risk-related behaviors of groups when using computer-mediated communication (CMC). This study extends prior research by examining the differences in group risk-taking behaviors between face-to-face groups and completely non-anonymous CMC groups (i.e., groups working in a fully identified, synchronous CMC environment similar to popular instant messaging systems utilized widely within organizations). Drawing on the “decision analysis” perspective, a key framework for understanding organizational decision-making, the study also examines the effects of the firm's risk preferences as well as the type of information distribution among group members (i.e., full information known to all group members versus partial information know by only some of the members) on the groups' risk-taking behaviors. Results from a laboratory experiment using student subjects found no differences in risk-taking behaviors between CMC and face-to-face groups; additionally, no differences were found related to how information was distributed among group members. A significant effect was found, however, for the risk preference of the firm, showing that risk-neutral firms influenced groups to make riskier decisions than groups from risk-averse firms. Finally, groups within risk-neutral firms receiving partial information made riskier decisions than groups receiving full information. The implications of these results for future research and practice are examined.     

Data Quality Affects Meta-Analytic Conclusions: A Response to Miner and Raju (2004) Concerning Entrepreneurial Risk Propensity.

J. B. Miner and N. S. Raju (2004) contended that there are additional studies that compare the risk propensity of entrepreneurs and managers, which, when added to the data from W. H. Stewart and P. L. Roth (2001) and meta-analyzed, produce relationships between risk propensity and entrepreneurial status that are substantially weaker than previously believed. This conclusion was evaluated by identifying and examining methodological problems associated with their inclusion of effect sizes (i.e., ds) from studies with variables not relevant to research questions, dependent samples, extraneous variance in outcome variables, and confusion of constructs. When these methodological issues were addressed, a new meta-analysis indicated an overall conclusion consistent with that of Stewart and Roth, but the results varied according to instrumentation, particularly objective instrumentation (observed d = 0.31) versus the Miner Sentence Completion Scale-Form T (observed d = -0.35). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Risk Propensity Differences Between Managers and Entrepreneurs and Between Low- and High-Growth Entrepreneurs: A Reply in a More Conservative Vein.

A recent article (W. H. Stewart & P. L. Roth, 2001) in the Journal of Applied Psychology presented the conclusion from meta-analysis that entrepreneurs have a higher risk propensity than managers and that this propensity is particularly pronounced among the growth-oriented. A previously unresolved question was said to be laid to rest and a "vital component" of a theory of entrepreneurship established. The present article disagrees and cites data from 14 studies not included in the Stewart and Roth (2001) analysis, adding up to a conclusion (supported by new meta-analyses) that entrepreneurs (and those with a growth orientation) are more risk avoidant. Thus, a conservative view, retaining the position that the role of risk propensity in entrepreneurship remains unresolved, is upheld. Potential explanations for the conflicting results are explored. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Health and development: Section introduction.

The articles in this section point to directions for action regarding children's health and their emotional and developmental well-being. More than this, the authors describe the kinds of problems children face and why they arise. Equally important, all acknowledge the progress already made. The 11 articles in this section are grouped into two major categories: the first pertains to risks to children's mental health and behavior, and the second deals with risk factors and risk-taking behaviors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

“报童问题”中风险偏好下的条件风险值及其优化

建立了报童随机利润的分布函数,得到任意风险水平下的VaR解析表达式或应满足的条件。考虑缺货成本,针对风险规避和风险偏爱两种情况,分别建立不同订购量和风险水平下的条件风险值模型,并将模型中对利润变量的积分转换为对随机需求变量的积分,解决了模型中因包含VaR变量而求解困难的问题。分析了给定风险水平下的最优决策,讨论了缺货成本为0的特殊情形。风险中性报童的期望利润与最优决策可由风险规避或风险偏爱的相应公式推导。最后对下一步的研究方向进行了展望。     

The risk-taking and self-harm inventory for adolescents: Development and psychometric evaluation.

In this study, we report on the development and psychometric evaluation of the Risk-Taking (RT) and Self-Harm (SH) Inventory for Adolescents (RTSHIA), a self-report measure designed to assess adolescent RT and SH in community and clinical settings. 651 young people from secondary schools in England ranging in age from 11.6 years to 18.7 years and 71 young people referred to mental health services for SH behavior in London between the ages of 11.9 years and 17.5 years completed the RTSHIA along with standardized measures of adolescent psychopathology. Two factors emerged from the principal axis factoring, and RT and SH were further validated by a confirmatory factor analysis as related, but different, constructs, rather than elements of a single continuum. Inter-item and test–retest reliabilities were high for both components (Cronbach's α = .85, ru = .90; Cronbach's α .93, ru = .87), and considerable evidence emerged in support of the measure's convergent, concurrent, and divergent validity. The findings are discussed with regard to potential usefulness of the RTSHIA for research and clinical purposes with adolescents. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

从全球风险投资的趋势看我国风险投资业的发展

当今世界,发展风险投资事业,推进高新技术产业化已成为世界各国取得竞争优势和提升综合国力的必由之路.就中国而言,风险投资还处于起步阶段,投资体系的不完善仍是制约中国高新技术产业化发展及民族经济创新能力的主要因素之一.通过对当今世界风险投资未来发展趋势和特点的分析,结合中国实际情况,作者认为,完善中国风险投资体系,促进风险投资事业发展,应本着立足国情、借鉴提高的方针,有针对性地建立和完善发展风险投资的软硬环境,从宏观和微观两个层面分步骤对阻碍风险投资发展的几大类问题加以规避和解决.     

Impairment in risk-sensitive decision-making in older suicide attempters with depression.

Suicidal behavior is a potentially lethal complication of late-life depression. In younger adults, suicide has been linked to abnormal decision-making ability. Given that there are substantial age-related decreases in decision-making ability, and that older adults experience environmental stressors that require effective decision-making, we reasoned that impaired decision-making may be particularly relevant to suicidal behavior in the elderly. We thus compared performance on a probabilistic decision-making task that does not involve working memory (“Cambridge Gamble Task”) in four groups of older adults: (1) individuals with major depression and a history of suicide attempt (n = 25), (2) individuals with major depression with active suicidal ideation but no suicide attempt (n = 13), (3) individuals with major depression without suicidality (n = 35), and (4) nondepressed control subjects (n = 22). There was a significant effect of group on quality of decision-making, whereby the suicide attempters exhibited poorer ability to choose the likely outcome, compared with the nonsuicidal depressed and nondepressed comparison subjects. There were no group differences in betting behavior. The suicide attempters differed in several aspects of social problem-solving on a self-report scale. Quality of decision-making was negatively correlated with the score on the impulsive/careless problem-solving subscale. These data suggest that older suicide attempters have a deficit in risk-sensitive decision-making, extending observations in younger adults. More specifically, older suicide attempters seem to neglect outcome probability and make poor choices. These impairments may precipitate and perpetuate suicidal crisis in depressed elders. Identification of decision-making impairment in suicidal elders may help with designing effective interventions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Impulsivity and risk-taking in borderline personality disorder with and without substance use disorders.

Impulsivity and risk taking propensity were assessed in participants with borderline personality disorder (BPD-only; n = 19), BPD and a current or past substance use disorder (BPD-SUD; n = 32), and a matched comparison group (MC; n = 28). Participants were administered behavioral measures of two facets of the multidimensional construct of impulsivity [GoStop, delay discounting task (DDT)], one measure of risk-taking propensity [Balloon Analog Risk Task (BART)], and two self-report measures of impulsivity (i.e., Barrett Impulsiveness Scale, Eysenck Impulsiveness Scale). The BPD-SUD group, but not the BPD-only group, discounted delayed rewards faster than the MC group on the DDT, suggesting that the BPD-SUD/MC group difference may be because of the SUD rather than BPD. In contrast, both the BPD-SUD and BPD-only groups exhibited poorer behavioral response inhibition compared with the MC group, but the two BPD groups did not differ from one another. This finding suggests that the differences in behavioral response inhibition may be because of BPD rather than SUD and that behavioral response disinhibition may be a core feature of BPD. None of the groups differed on the measure of risk-taking propensity (i.e., BART). On self-report questionnaires, the BPD-SUD group reported more impulsivity than the BPD-only group and both BPD groups reported more impulsivity than the MC group. Data from the DDT and self-report measures provide partial support for the hypothesis that BPD individuals with a SUD are more impulsive than BPD individuals without a SUD on some facets of impulsivity (e.g., desire to obtain a smaller immediate reward rather than wait to obtain a larger reward in the future). Results suggest that behavioral response inhibition may be a novel treatment outcome variable for BPD treatment studies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)