IS it me or was there no control in that experiment and all the study measured was a difference in risk taking between two populations. Surely one population would have to be more risk averse that the other unless a totally mad coincidence had occurred?

Shirley you’d monitor risk taking in the SAME people in the different headgear?

Bad science says I.

Without looking at the original paper to check the methodology, and then ascertain if the statistical calculations used are appropriate to that methodology, I can’t be sure. I presume you’ve done that though in order to be able to call it bad science. So I guess you’re right.

😉

Yeah I have.

Here, we demonstrated that risk taking increases in people who are not explicitly aware they are wearing protective equipment; furthermore, this happens for behaviors that could not be made safer by that equipment. In a controlled study in which a helmet, compared with a baseball cap, was used as the head mount for an eye tracker, participants scored significantly higher on laboratory measures of both risk taking and sensation seeking. This happened despite there being no risk for the helmet to ameliorate and despite it being introduced purely as an eye tracker.

Folk can’t tell whether they are wearing a baseball cap vs a helmet? They must have chosen a thick population.

Anyway looking at the pics with all that crap in front of them they won’t see WTF they are going.

They know whether its a helmet or baseball cap. It’s not pointed out to them (overtly), but they know as the technician makes a show of adjusting the fake eye movement gubbins.

It is not bad science as you know that they know what they are wearing. What you are looking at is risk perception. You could do the same experiment by telling them that they are wearing a hat or a helmet and I would doubt that the result would be different. What is being studied, in a lab, is whether you would take more risks if you think you are more or less safe, with particular reference to a helmet. You could argue whether this is actually relevant in the real world as it is not a real test. The research points to our innate decision making processes, especially as we are always looking to make things safer.

In the case of the car we have had designers make the car much safer for the objects inside it, but has this made the car safer? On the surface the horrific accidents that used to occur, prior to key safety measures such as compulsory seat belts and air bags, the survival rate for those inside are much better, but what has it done to the behavior of the driver? We all know that we see road rage/aggresive driving, driving whilst distracted (phones, etc) and the lack of consideration for other road users. What this means is that we are more likely to take more risks because we feel safer.

If you transfer that argument to a bike helmet the question posed is do you take more risks when wearing a helmet? For most of us this is not the key question as we know what the hazards and likelihood of an accident are and we are using the helmet as the control measure to, hopefully, make the result of the accident less severe. In a more general context this is not what is being looked at. Most bike users, and therefore it is assumed, are helmet wearers so does this mean we take more risks? I am not sure that this is necessarily the case, but this research does pose the question whether we would be safer not wearing helmets.

Sorry for the ramble, but the reason we put control measures on perceived risk rather than actual risks is something that interests me a bit more than it should……

I’d disagree with you there as the helmet is deliberately not introduced as a safety feature.

They’ve taken a small sample of people and attempted to correct for risk/anxiety propensity via a questionnaire and asking them whether they ride bikes. Then inferred that any change in risk MUST be the result of wearing the helmet but the mechanism for this is not explained and it is not determined whether the relationship between the helmet and the results is causal.

I’m also not arguing whether risk compensation is a thing, it is, just that this experiment is shite.

To be honest I think that a lot of psychology related “experiments” are flawed compared to something like a physical experiment where your parameters are very tightly controlled. If they we to do it properly, depending on the initial criteria, we could probably get more from the results. If they have succeeded in anything it is to have got the discussion going, but I fear that it is in the wrong direction. We are now damned if we don’t wear a helmet (you could have taken more precautions) and damned if you do (you were taking more risks).

Personally I would rather people took more risks and learnt about where they are really at risk that seeing all of these perceived risks. I posted a link on the story about growing up in a risk averse society which actually shows why we need kids to learn about risk rather than be shielded from everything. Otherwise we all end up in cotton wool suits scared of our own shadow.

TJ to the…. Oh… 😥

Helmet arguments debates just aren’t the same anymore…
Especially when the oppressive STW regime that banned our favourite helmet ranter start pushing one of his own arguments…

What has the world come to…

Quick someone tell me how some foam saved their life…

TBH is not self evidently obvious that people take more risks when wearing PPE as the point of the PPE is to reduce the risk

More folk climb with a rope and i assume take greater “risks” as the rope will catch the fall.
Very few folk jump out of planes without parachutes

The rea; issue with a helmet is it is nowhere near as certain to protect as a rope or parachute in those examples.

Goblegook

They have to know what they’re wearing, else there would be no logic as to why they’d take more risks (in theory) with one.

Not convinced a lab study like this is conclusive really.

Real world, send people out in a dangerous environment, same people wearing a helmet and then without. Study how they tackle the dangers, cautions they may take, etc.

More obvious would be downhill riding with and without.

Obviously the test itself would be too risky to allow people without helmets though 😉

Myself, I’ve found a definite difference in type of helmet. DH trails with a full face I feel way more confident and thus probably taking greater risks, whereas the same trails with a regular lid I’ve been a lot more cautious. That said, ride a lot of that stuff with a regular lid and the confidence builds.

I think the point they are trying to make is a little more subtle than that i.e. that risk taking is affected subconsciouly by the wearing of PPE EVEN IF THAT ppe IS entirely unrelated to the risk/task. (accidental caps, CBA deleting). Which the paper kind of does, but badly and not accounting for any of a unknown number of other factors.

It’s like the half sociology studies on R4’s thinking aloud/allowed, confirmation bias dressed up as experimental science.

the point of the PPE is to reduce the risk

Nope the point of PPE is to reduce the potential consequences of taking the risks, the risk is inherent, PPE addresses outcomes only not the liklihood of occurrence…

Either people conflate protection with reduced liklihood of an accident occurring in the first place, or they are basing their risk assessment on the assumption that PPE will always operate sufficiently to prevent injury… Both are flawed…

Anyone read the report and care to say if it makes any actual conclusions as to why people take greater risks?

Cos they think they are saferer.

A mechanism for this is not discussed beyond some mild speculation.

Our findings are plausibly related to social priming,
wherein social behaviors are cued by exposure to stereotypes
or concepts (Bargh, 2006). However, whereas social
priming is generally understood in terms of behavior
directed toward another person, the effects in this study
were individual, focused on the risk-taking propensity of
a person acting alone during exposure to a safety-related
prime. Schröder and Thagard (2013) produced computational
models of social priming in which primes activate
shared cultural concepts in people’s minds, which in turn
are associated with actions; through these links, the
actions become available to the behavioral selection process.
Speculatively, if what we saw in this study were to
be understood through such mechanisms, with the helmet
invoking concepts of protection from risk and thereby
subconsciously shaping behaviors, our findings might
suggest that Schröder and Thagard’s social-priming framework
operates even when its interaction target component
(another person with whom to interact) is absent.

Nope the point of PPE is to reduce the potential consequences of taking the risks, the risk is inherent, PPE addresses outcomes only not the liklihood of occurrence

Yes sorry that is correct and what I meant but it was clearly not what i said. Apologies.

The point remains once worn/used the consequences are seen as less hence they will do the activity with it and not without it.

Helmet or not it wont stop a Tranny rear ending you in the cycle lane 😯
Crap joke I know, just fulfilling STW quota 😛

As Cyclists on the road our biggest hazard is often motorised vehicles, I’d be more interested to see what changes you can make to the driver (in a similar psychological manner) to reduce the risk to us. Presuming you’re already riding sensibly.

Hmmm, a verbose shrug then…

Looking at what they are trying to measure, the tiny sample size and how they are measuring it – seems like a real reach to try to infer a real-world conclusion.

The main issue for me is the inference that wearing a cycle helmet “increases risk taking” behaviors. But you could just as easily surmise (from the same data) that NOT wearing a helmet makes you ride more cautiously. Anyone really surprised at that?

Also, there is a question about whether it actually matters in the real world….. ie: does the degree of change really make a demonstrable difference when cycling in traffic?

That’s why this sort of thing is referred to as “academic” research….

For those that are interested
http://pss.sagepub.com/content/27/2/289.full.pdf+html the Full Paper (it’s quite short)My conclusion is that it’s better to wear a baseball cap than a helmet in a casino

participants pressed a button to inflate an animated balloon
on a computer screen. Each button press inflated
the balloon more and increased the amount of fictional
currency earned. If the balloon burst (which it would at
a random point between 1 and 128 inflations), all
earnings for that trial were lost. At any point, participants
could choose to stop pumping and “bank” their accrued
money. After the balloon burst, or after a decision to
bank, the next trial began. Each participant completed 30
trials, and his or her risk-taking score was the mean number
of pumps made on trials on which the balloon did
not burst. This score would be higher when participants
risked losses by trying to maximize their score and lower
when participants avoided risk and played more
conservatively

Having read his previous studies I’m not that convinced of the overall significance of the data as the numbers measured were small factors. Some might say that you would have to question if he was looking to prove or discover – the 2 are very different.

Of course we take more risks when wearing a helmet. Picture how you’d ride your favourite steep rocky descent if you didn’t have one on… (I’d probably walk!). Sometimes we really don’t need science, or bored uni students.

it’s better to wear a baseball cap than a helmet in a casino

But probably more fun to wear a cycling helemet 😀