Bjørn Sætrevik’s research while affiliated with University of Bergen and other places

Scientific claims, and the way they are tested must be unambiguous and flexibility must be disclosed. Grounded in Popper’s principle of falsification, we suggest the Falsification Assessment Form. The form aims to identify ambiguity and undisclosed flexibility in the entire research process with 11 items covering hypothesis formulation, data processing, analysis, and alternative explanations. It also collects information on transparency measures, such as pre-registration. The form was developed through consensus among the authors and refined via a collaborative feedback assessment of 19 experts. It is intended for original, quantitative research, it highlights potential issues, requiring authors to provide detailed responses. The form can be used to identify concerns in published research, improve the quality of papers during peer review, or guide rigorous study planning from the outset.

Aims The COVID-19 pandemic provided a unique opportunity to assess how infected patients viewed risk. We investigated whether cases infected early in the pandemic had assessed the risk to be lower, been more exposed and took fewer precautions to prevent infection. Methods We asked first-wave Norwegian COVID-19 patients ( n = 88) to recall how they had thought about risk of infection, exposure in potential infectious situations and their compliance to infection control measures early in the pandemic. Answers from this group were compared WITH emergency room patients with non-pulmonary complaints ( n = 75) and with a nationally representative sample ( n = 4083). Results Both patient groups saw the risk as lower than did the representative sample. Contact with infected people was more frequent for the COVID-19 patients than for the other patients. More of the COVID-19 patients had travelled abroad immediately before the outbreak. COVID-19 patients complied less with the infection control measures than did the representative sample. The COVID-19 patients agreed less than the other patients with a statement that they had ‘complied in general’. Conclusions Risk-behaviour was overrepresented among the first COVID-19 patients. Potential memory artefacts should be considered when interpreting the results.

If cognitive biases are universal and consistent across domains, they should be considered when planning for real-life decision-making. Yet results are mixed when exploring biases applied to medical settings. Further, most studies have focused on the effect of a single bias on a decision choice, rather than on how various biases may interact in a complex decision-making process. We performed three preregistered experiments where trained medical students (∑N = 224) read hypothetical mental health patient descriptions. Participants made initial diagnoses, explored follow-up information and could adjust their diagnoses. We tested whether there was an anchoring bias of the first-presented symptoms having a larger impact on the decision, whether there was a confirmation bias in the selection of follow-up requests, and whether confidence increased during the decision process. We found that confidence increased for participants that did not change their decision or seek disconfirming information. Two of the experiments indicated a confirmation bias in the selection of follow-up requests. There was no indication that confirmation bias increased when confidence was high, and no support for the order of symptom presentation leading to an anchoring bias. We conclude that the biases may be difficult to demonstrate for complex decision-making processes in applied medical settings.

The decision to vaccinate may be motivated by self-protection or community protection, and people may perceive vaccination as mostly a personal responsibility or a collective obligation. We conducted two preregistered survey experiments using a 2-by-2 design with the factors benefit (personal vs. collective) and responsibility (personal vs. collective). The experiments were conducted on large, overlapping representative samples of Norwegian adults: one before (N = 5,474) and one after (N = 1,789) COVID-19 vaccine rollout in Norway. In both experiment the data showed that framing vaccination choice as a collective responsibility (vs. personal responsibility) increased vaccine intentions. Emphasizing personal benefit (vs. collective benefit) increased vaccine intentions in the second experiment, but this effect was not observed in the first experiment. There was no interaction between the factors in either experiment. These findings indicate that highlighting collective responsibility may boost vaccine uptake, but the influence of emphasizing personal versus collective benefits remains inconclusive.

The decision to vaccinate may be motivated by self-protection or community protection, and people may perceive vaccination as mostly a personal responsibility or a collective obligation. We conducted two preregistered survey experiments using a 2-by-2 design with the factors benefit (personal vs. collective) and responsibility (personal vs. collective). The experiments were conducted on large, overlapping representative samples of Norwegian adults: one before (N = 5,474) and one after (N = 1,789) COVID-19 vaccine rollout in Norway. In both experiment the data showed that framing vaccination choice as a collective responsibility (vs. personal responsibility) increased vaccine intentions. Emphasizing personal benefit (vs. collective benefit) increased vaccine intentions in the second experiment, but this effect was not observed in the first experiment. There was no interaction between the factors in either experiment. These findings indicate that highlighting collective responsibility may boost vaccine uptake, but the influence of emphasizing personal versus collective benefits remains inconclusive.

For communication about risk and uncertainty, we need to know how verbal phrases about the probability of an event is interpreted. Phrases may refer to higher or lower probabilities, they may communicate a precise or a rough estimate, and there may be more or less agreement in the interpretation of the phrase. Previous research has provided taxonomies for how phrases refer to different ranges of quantified probabilities. Our online survey (N = 537) found that 22 Norwegian probability phrases were interpreted to refer to roughly the same quantification of probabilities as their English counterparts. In accordance with preregistered hypotheses, the phrases that were expected to express higher probabilities (H1) were assigned higher point-estimate of interpretation. The phrases that were expected to be less precise (H2) were assigned wider ranges of possible interpretation. In addition, our study also presented the phrases as part of positive or negative medical framing. This manipulation led to medium sized effects that phrases were assigned lower probabilities both when they were used in positive (H3a) and in negative frames (H3b). The current study suggests a taxonomy for how the probability of an event is expressed in Norwegian. The current study may have relevance for medical decision-making, clinician-patient interaction and public health communication.

Cognitive dissonance, a fundamental psychological process involving inconsistent cognitions causing discomfort, may vary across cultures. These variations could be attributed to differences in the way people define themselves, known as “self-construal”. Previous cross-cultural studies on the role of self-construal in cognitive dissonance have mainly employed the free-choice paradigm. However, many concerns have been raised about the validity of this procedure and these studies, more generally. To address this issue, we will conduct secondary analyses to explore unexamined associations in a large existing dataset (Vaidis et al., 2024). Specifically, the current study will investigate the moderating role of individual (self-construal) and cultural (individualism) variables on dissonance effects following an induced-compliance paradigm across 18 countries (N = 3822). Based on the literature, we hypothesised that induced-compliance effects (i.e., adjusting attitude to match behaviour, particularly when it has been adopted freely) will be stronger for participants with higher individual self-construal scores (H1), in more individualistic countries (H2), and in countries with higher aggregated levels of independent self-construal (H3). The analyses [supported / did not support] H1, [supported / did not support] H2 and [supported / did not support] H3.Keywords: Self-Construal, Culture, Cognitive Dissonance, Induced Compliance, Cross-cultural study

Collaboration among team members is crucial in safety-critical operations like ship navigation. Augmented Reality (AR) has the potential to facilitate collaboration. Three components of collaboration it may facilitate are communication, team situation awareness, and team decision-making. To bring research on AR for ship navigation to the next technology readiness level and higher ecological validity, the current study tested an AR prototype in the field, on two voyages. A prototype of AR for collaborative ship navigation was developed in a research through design process. The prototype operates on a pair of Microsoft HoloLens 2 head-mounted displays. It displays pins on other vessels and sea markers and allows opening these pins for more information. Collaborative features include pointing with crosshairs and highlighting pins. The prototype was evaluated in a field study on three multi-day coastal voyages on two vessels. The ship crews’ prototype testing was observed, and the crews were interviewed and asked to fill in questionnaires. Data was analyzed through thematic analysis. The prototype evaluation indicates that AR has the potential to facilitate collaboration through supporting communication, team situation awareness, and team decision-making. It can facilitate situation awareness by supporting information gathering, getting an overview of the surroundings, mental mapping between 2D charts and the outside world, and increasing head-up time. It can support team situation awareness by facilitating visual communication about situation awareness. Team decision-making depends on team situation awareness. Other advantages include operator mobility and simplicity. Disadvantages include overreliance, insufficient screen quality, cognitive overload, and mediocre usability and technology acceptance. AR may be especially useful in time-critical operations in medium-busy waterways. With further development of accuracy, usability, technology acceptance, and unobtrusiveness, AR can facilitate collaboration and thus increase safety and efficiency in safety-critical operations like ship navigation.

This study explores the psychological reactions to being placed in quarantine during the early stage (March and April 2020) of the COVID-19 lockdown in Norway. We interviewed a sample of nineteen Norwegian citizens aged 21–64 years who were quarantined for 14 days in the early period of the pandemic before testing and vaccination were available to the general population. A semi-structured interview guide was used to conduct in-depth interviews about stress, coping, and adaptation to quarantine. A thematic analysis approach was used. Four main themes emerged in the interviews: (a) Being responsible, in terms of addressing the fear of being infected and infecting others, (b) The stress of the situation, in terms of highlighting worries, loss and loneliness, (c) Ways of coping, in terms of elaborating on cognitive, behavioral, and affective strategies to adapt to the quarantine, and (d) Social support and gratitude, in terms of appreciating interpersonal relations and the social context of the quarantine situation. The study contributes to our understanding of how differences in stress, appraisal, and coping may influence adaptation to a radically changed living condition in the early stage of the pandemic. These findings may inform health service providers and promote public health advise to support coping and resilient response in future health crises.

Public health strategies to protect against pandemics rely on members of the public volunteering to be tested when they have legitimate concerns about being infected. People may be motivated to seek testing due to believing they have been more at risk for infection, they have been more exposed to infection, or they have not taken the same precautions as others. We asked people at a COVID-19 test station in October 2020 (T1, n = 179) and in January-February 2021 (T2, n = 184) about their recent perceived risk, their exposure to infection sources and their compliance with infection control measures. Their responses were compared to those from a representative sample (T1 n = 2.523 and T2 n = 2.194) taken at approximately the same time. We found that people at test stations had seen the risk as lower, that they had more frequently been in situations where they could have been exposed to infection, and they had complied less with infection control measures.