Carmen Tanner, Klaus Jonas, Mechanismen des psychologischen Kaufzwangs, In: Konsumentenverhalten, Stämpfli, Bern, p. 105 - 128, 2009. (Book Chapter)
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Carmen Tanner, Daniel Hausmann-Thürig, Protected values, In: Encyclopedia of Medical Decision Making, SAGE Publications, Inc, Thousand Oaks, CA, p. 74 - 77, 2009. (Book Chapter)
Decision making is a critical element in the field of medicine that can lead to life-or-death outcomes, yet it is an element fraught with complex and conflicting variables, diagnostic and therapeutic uncertainties, patient preferences and values, and costs. Together, decisions made by physicians, patients, insurers, and policymakers determine the quality of health care, quality that depends inherently on counterbalancing risks and benefits and competing objectives such as maximizing life expectancy versus optimizing quality of life or quality of care versus economic realities.
Broadly speaking, concepts in medical decision making (MDM) may be divided into two major categories: prescriptive and descriptive. Work in the area of prescriptive MDM investigates how medical decisions should be done using complicated analyses and algorithms to determine cost-effectiveness measures, prediction methods, and so on. In contrast, descriptive MDM studies how decisions actually are made involving human judgment, biases, social influences, patient factors, and so on. The Encyclopedia of Medical Decision Making gives a gentle introduction to both categories, revealing how medical and healthcare decisions are actually made—and constrained—and how physician, healthcare management, and patient decision making can be improved to optimize health outcomes. |
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Carmen Tanner, Geschützte Werte - Fluch oder Segen?, Wissenswert (3), 2009. (Journal Article)
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Carmen Tanner, Douglas L. Medin, Rumen Iliev, Influence of deontological versus consequentialist orientations on act choices and framing effects: when principles are more important than consequences, European Journal of Social Psychology, Vol. 38 (5), 2008. (Journal Article)
A long tradition in decision making assumes that people usually take a consequentialist perspective, which implies a focus on the outcomes only when making decisions. Such a view largely neglects the existence of a deontological perspective, which implies that people are sensitive to moral duties that require or prohibit certain behaviors, irrespective of the consequences. Similarly, recent research has also suggested that people holding “protected values” (PVs) show increased attention to acts versus omissions and less attention to outcomes. The present research investigates the role of deontological versus consequentialist modes of thought and of PVs on framing effects and act versus omission choices. In a modification of Tversky and Kahneman's (1981) risky choice framing paradigm, we manipulated the framing of the outcomes (positive, negative), as well as whether the certain outcome was associated with an act or inaction. The main results suggest that act versus omission tendencies are linked to deontological focus and PVs. Framing effects, on the other hand, are driven by a consequentialist focus. |
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Klaus Jonas, Carmen Tanner, Effekte sozialer Förderung und Hemmung, In: Leistung und Leistungsdiagnostik, Springer-Verlag, Berlin/Heidelberg, p. 167 - 186, 2006. (Book Chapter)
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Carmen Tanner, Douglas L Medin, Protected values: No omission bias and no framing effects, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, Vol. 11, 2004. (Journal Article)
Previous studies have suggested that people holding protected values (PVs) show a bias against harmful acts, as opposed to harmful omissions (omission bias). In the present study, we (1) investigated the relationship between PVs and acts versus omissions in risky choices, using a paradigm in which act and omission biases were presented in a symmetrical manner, and (2) examined whether people holding PVs respond differently to framing manipulations. Participants were given environmental scenarios and were asked to make choices between actions and omissions. Both the framing of the outcomes (positive vs. negative) and the outcome certainty (risky vs. certain) were manipulated. In contrast to previous studies, PVs were linked to preferences for acts, rather than for omissions. PVs were more likely to be associated with moral obligations to act than with moral prohibitions against action. Strikingly, people with strong PVs were immune to framing; participants with few PVs showed robust framing effects. |
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Carmen Tanner, Florian G Kaiser, Sybille Wölfing Kast, Contextual Conditions of Ecological Consumerism: A Food-Purchasing Survey, Environment & Behavior, Vol. 36 (1), 2004. (Journal Article)
This study seeks to develop an ecological consumption measure based on the Rasch model. At the same time, it also intends to detect contextual conditions that constrain specific food purchases recognized as environmentally significant behaviors. Moreover, it provides information about the environmental impact and consequences of the behaviors that constitute the proposed measure. Questionnaire data from 547 Swiss residents are used to test three classes of contextual conditions: consumer’s socioeconomic characteristics, consumer’s living circumstances, and store characteristics. With differential performance probabilities as the source of information to detect effective contextual influences on ecological behavior, the findings suggest that ecological consumption is rather susceptible to store and household characteristics but not to socioeconomic features. Furthermore, the conditions under consideration are not uniformly supporting or inhibiting. Instead, they appear to inhibit some behaviors while facilitating others. |
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Carmen Tanner, Sybille Wölfing Kast, Promoting sustainable consumption: Determinants of green purchases by Swiss consumers Promoting Sustainable Consumption, Psychology & Marketing, Vol. 20 (10), 2003. (Journal Article)
Given that overconsumption in industrial countries is a main cause of environmental degradation, a shift toward more sustainable consumption patterns is required. This study attempts to uncover personal and contextual barriers to consumers' purchases of green food and to strengthen knowledge about fostering green purchases. Survey data are used to examine the influence of distinct categories of personal factors (such as attitudes, personal norms, perceived behavior barriers, knowledge) and contextual factors (such as socioeconomic characteristics, living conditions, and store characteristics) on green purchases of Swiss consumers. Results from regression analysis suggest that green food purchases are facilitated by positive attitudes of consumers toward (a) environmental protection, (b) fair trade, (c) local products, and (d) availability of action-related knowledge. In turn, green behavior is negatively associated with (e) perceived time barriers and (f) frequency of shopping in supermarkets. Surprisingly, green purchases are not significantly related to moral thinking, monetary barriers, or the socioeconomic characteristics of the consumers. Implications for policy makers and for companies and marketers engaged in the promotion and commercialization of green products are discussed. |
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Niels Jungbluth, Carmen Tanner, Evidence for the coincidence effect in environmental judgments: Why isn't it easy to correctly identify environmentally friendly food products?, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, Vol. 9 (1), 2003. (Journal Article)
The coincidence effect-a phenomenon known in similarity research-suggests that people assign extra weight to features that 2 items have in common. The role of this effect in 2 kinds of environmental judgments about food products is investigated. Task 1 ("How environmentally friendly is a particular food product compared with a reference?") provided some evidence for the coincidence hypothesis. However, Task 2 ("How much more or less environmentally harmful is a food product compared with a standard?") showed anticoincidence. People's subjective evaluations were examined in regard to how they matched or deviated from objective measures of harmful environmental consequences related to food products. Coincidence and anticoincidence help to explain when and why subjective and objective evaluations may diverge. |
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Carmen Tanner, Steps to Transdisciplinary Sustainability Research, Human Ecology Review, Vol. 10 (2), 2003. (Journal Article)
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Carmen Tanner, S Wölfing Kast, Von Antiökologen und Musterökologen: Optionen und Restriktionen des ökologischen Lebensmitteleinkaufs, In: Transdisziplinäre Forschung in Aktion : Optionen und Restriktionen nachhaltiger Ernährung : Themenband Schwerpunktprogramm Umwelt Schweiz, Hochschulverlag, ETH Zürich, Zürich, p. 53 - 102, 2002. (Book Chapter)
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Sybille Wölfing Kast, Carmen Tanner, Restriktionen und Ressourcen nachhaltiger Einkaufsgewohnheiten: Segmentierung Schweizer Konsumenten und Konsumentinnen, Umweltpsychologie, Vol. 6 (2), 2002. (Journal Article)
Based on a strategy that searches for target groups, the study is aimed at detecting distinct consumer segments that differ regarding personal and contextual contributions or barriers to green food purchases. The theoretical framework taken is an alternative perspective of environmental behavior which holds that behavioral choices are typically restricted by a host of constraints. The segmentation is based on dimensions that have been identified as prevalent factors of green food purchases in a survey with Swiss households. These dimensions are: 1) attitudes toward environmental protection, 2) toward fair trade and 3) toward regional production; 4) perceived time barriers; 5) action-related knowledge and 6) frequency of supermarket use to buy food products. Regarding the market segments, the results revealed between the two extreme subgroups – the anti-ecologists and the ideal ecologists – several groups that are susceptible to a mixture of barriers and contributions to green purchases. Applied implications about how to enhance consumer’s demand of green products and how sellers can adopt are discussed. |
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Carmen Tanner, Constraints on environmental behavior, Journal of Environmental Psychology, Vol. 19 (2), 1999. (Journal Article)
The purpose of this study was to examine crucial predictors of driving frequency. In contrast to traditional psychological environmental research emphasizing primarily personal variables in explaining environmental behavior, the perspective taken in this article is that behavior is generally prevented by a host of constraints. Therefore, this study was aimed at identifying prevalent constraints inhibiting individuals from reducing their driving frequency. By means of questionnaire data collected from a sample of Swiss adults two classes of constraints were examined: (a) Subjective factors that were assumed to affect the preference for proenvironmental behavioral alternatives (sense of responsibility, perceived behavioral barriers); and (b) objective conditions that inhibit the performance of proenvironmental action (socio-demographic variables such as lack of automobile, place of residence, income). Multiple regression analyses indicated that subjective constraints explained a significant amount of variance in behavioral reports, but structural constraints also contributed to explaining variance. Theoretical and applied implications of examining constraints to which people are subjected to and implications for further research are discussed. |
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Carmen Tanner, Die ipsative Handlungstheorie: Eine alternative Sichtweise ökologischen Handelns, Umweltpsychologie, Vol. 2, 1998. (Journal Article)
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Carmen Tanner, Das Unsichtbare sichtbar machen, Ökologisches Wirtschaften, Vol. 12 (3-4), 1997. (Journal Article)
Präferenzen für Umweltgüter hängen immer vom Kontext ab, in dem der einzelne seine Entscheidung trifft. Da viele Umweltbelastungen nicht unmittelbar erfahrbar sind, müssen ökologische Handlungsalternativen in der konkreten Situation erst einmal "in den Sinn" kommen. Wahrnehmungshilfen wie Meßwerte, Okobilanzen oder Umweltlabels können dabei ökologische Präferenzen wachrufen. |
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Carmen Tanner, S Arnold, K Foppa, Coralie Jaeggi, Was uns vom umweltverantwortlichen Handeln abhält, In: Umweltproblem Mensch : Humanwissenschaftliche Zugänge zu umweltverantwortlichem Handeln, Haupt Verlag, Bern, p. 181 - 196, 1996. (Book Chapter)
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Carmen Tanner, K. Foppa, Umweltwahrnehmung, Umweltbewusstsein und Umweltverhalten, Umweltsoziologie, Vol. 36, 1996. (Journal Article)
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K Foppa, Carmen Tanner, Wahrnehmung von Umweltproblemen, In: Kooperatives Umwelthandeln : Modelle, Erfahrungen, Massnahmen, Rüegger, Chur, p. 113 - 132, 1995. (Book Chapter)
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Carmen Tanner, Warum handeln wir nicht umweltgerecht?, Psychoscope, Vol. 3, 1995. (Journal Article)
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