Gretchen B. Chapman

Blinded review is often proposed as a solution to inequities in merit-based evaluations. We tested this claim in a high-stakes field experiment comparing single-blind review (reviewer identities withheld) and double-blind review (reviewer and author identities withheld) for 530 academic conference submissions. On reliability, both processes showed moderate reliability, leading to only 40% overlap among top-rated submissions. This low overlap indicates that differences between review systems partly stem from noise in the review system. In terms of fairness, our analysis indicates that single-blind reviews favored more senior coauthors and first authors who were PhD students or research scientists while disfavoring Asian (versus White) first authors. Meanwhile, male first authors received slightly higher ratings in both conditions (especially under double-blind), but the greater the proportion of male coauthors, the lower the review ratings were under double-blind (versus single-blind). On validity, we find that for submissions accepted and presented as a talk, neither review ratings nor author characteristics predicted talk quality, number of questions, or attendance. However, review ratings from both systems similarly predicted judged poster presentation quality (for a subset of submissions) and eventual publication (for all submissions). These findings highlight limitations in both single- and double-blind approaches. Double-blind review is not a cure-all for inequities that might arise via single-blind. Yet, including author identities does not appear to enhance reliability or validity enough to justify the risks this information poses in potentially advantaging a particular individual or group. This paper was accepted by Jack Soll, behavioral economics and data analysis. Funding: This work was supported by the National Science Foundation [Grant SBE 1824259]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.01646 .

Although perceived vaccine efficacy is strongly associated with vaccination behavior, little is known about how well laypeople understand what vaccine efficacy rates mean. Three experiments (N=3402) explored errors in how laypeople process numerical information about vaccine efficacy rates and examined the effects of three tutorial interventions designed to bring lay perceptions in line with normative efficacy calculations. Findings indicate that responses to questions about efficacy rate tend to align with normatively correct calculations, whereas responses to questions about the rate of infections indicate an incorrect calculation whereby the post-vaccination risk of infection is assumed to be the efficacy rate subtracted from 100%. Both quantitative and conceptual tutorial interventions helped participants calculate efficacy rates that were more aligned with the normatively correct values and infection rates that were less aligned with the incorrect values, particularly when participants had higher numeracy levels or responded with numeric inputs rather than choices between options.

OBJECTIVES: Organ procurement organization (OPO) donation requestor staff approach grieving families to discuss donating organs from their loved ones. We have carried out a qualitative study to explore the barriers that OPO donation requestor staff face in accessing pediatric families and requesting consent. DESIGN AND PARTICIPANTS: Qualitative methods using structured interviews (n = 31) and focus groups (n = 33 participants) with donation requestor OPO personnel. SETTING: Phone interviews were conducted from November 2022 to January 2023, and focus groups were held at an August 2023 conference for donation and transplant professionals. SUBJECTS: 64 donation requestor OPO personnel. INTERVENTIONS: None. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Content analysis was used to code transcribed responses. Participants described a lack of access to pediatric families and portrayed clinical care teams as sometimes protective of the family or even preventing OPO staff from talking with the family. Participants shared potential solutions to overcome barriers, including fostering teamwork between clinical care teams and OPO staff and developing bridging language for clinicians to use when introducing donation requestors. CONCLUSIONS: Donation requestors face unique challenges when approaching grieving pediatric families, and more multidisciplinary work is needed to improve communication.

Spatiotemporal pairwise movement analysis involves identifying shared geographic-based behaviors between individuals within specific time frames. Traditionally, this task relies on sequence modeling and behavior analysis techniques applied to tabular or video-based data, but these methods often lack interpretability and struggle to capture partial matching. In this paper, we propose a novel method for pairwise spatiotemporal partial trajectory matching that transforms tabular spatiotemporal data into interpretable trajectory images based on specified time windows, allowing for partial trajectory analysis. This approach includes localization of trajectories, checking for spatial overlap, and pairwise matching using a Siamese Neural Network. We evaluate our method on a co-walking classification task, demonstrating its effectiveness in a novel co-behavior identification application. Our model surpasses established methods, achieving an F1-score up to 0.73. Additionally, we explore the method's utility for pair routine pattern analysis in real-world scenarios, providing insights into the frequency, timing, and duration of shared behaviors. This approach offers a powerful, interpretable framework for spatiotemporal behavior analysis, with potential applications in social behavior research, urban planning, and healthcare.

What were relevant predictors of individuals' proclivity to adhere to recommended health‐protective behaviors during the COVID‐19 pandemic in Denmark? Applying machine learning (namely, lasso regression) to a repeated cross‐sectional survey spanning 10 months comprising 25 variables (Study 1; N = 15,062), we found empathy toward those most vulnerable to COVID‐19, knowledge about how to protect oneself from getting infected, and perceived moral costs of nonadherence to be strong predictors of individuals' self‐reported adherence to recommended health‐protective behaviors. We further explored the relations between these three factors and individuals' self‐reported proclivity for adherence to recommended health‐protective behaviors as they unfold between and within individuals over time in a second study, a Danish panel study comprising eight measurement occasions spanning eight months ( N = 441). Results of this study suggest that the relations largely occurred at the trait‐like interindividual level, as opposed to at the state‐like intraindividual level. Together, the findings provide insights into what were relevant predictors for individuals' overall level of adherence to recommended health‐protective behaviors (in Denmark) as well as how these predictors might (not) be leveraged to promote public adherence in future epidemics or pandemics.

We assessed COVID-19 vaccination and employment status among employees of a long-term care network that announced an employee vaccination mandate on July 29, 2021. The day before the announcement, 1,208 employees were unvaccinated; of these workers, 56.2 percent subsequently were vaccinated, whereas 20.9 percent (3.7 percent of active employees) were terminated because of noncompliance with the mandate.

Background: Children awaiting transplantation face a high risk of waitlist mortality due to a shortage of pediatric organ donors. Pediatric donation consent rates vary across Organ Procurement Organizations (OPOs), suggesting that some OPOs might utilize more effective pediatric‐focused donor recruitment techniques than others. An online survey of 193 donation requestor staff sheds light on the strategies that OPO staff utilize when approaching potential pediatric deceased organ donors.Methods: In collaboration with the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations, the research team contacted the executive directors and medical directors of all 57 of the OPOs in the US. Of these, 51 OPOs agreed to participate, and 47 provided contact information for donation requestor staff. Of the 379 staff invited to participate in the survey, 193 provided complete responses.Results: Respondents indicated more comfort approaching adult donors than pediatric donors, and they endorsed approach techniques that were interpersonal and emotional rather than professional and informative. Respondents were accurate in their perceptions about which donor characteristics are associated with consent. However, respondents from OPOs with high consent rates (according to data from the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients), and those from OPOs with low consent rates were very similar in terms of demographics, training, experience, and reported techniques.Conclusions: Additional research is needed to better determine why some OPOs have higher consent rates than others and whether the factors that lead to high consent rates in high‐performing OPOs can be successful when implemented by lower‐performing OPOs.

Organizations have begun using publicly-visible badges to promote ethical behaviors, such as workers’ contributions to colleagues’ projects and scientists’ engagement in transparent research practices. Across six experimental online studies, we evaluate whether badges incentivize ethical behavior as proposed (N = 2047). Our results indicate that, in some instances, badges’ signaling value undermines their ability to promote honesty. When it is possible to earn an honesty badge while still engaging in dishonest behavior, badges backfire by providing cover to dishonest individuals. Under “opaque badges,” workers will do only what is needed to earn a badge and behave more dishonestly than they would when no badge is available. Moreover, opaque badges make workers appear more honest to observers, leading them to down-weight worker behavior that would otherwise arouse suspicion. We show that removing badges’ ability to provide cover–by clarifying what workers did to earn them–can attenuate these effects.

Four studies demonstrate that the public’s understanding of government budgetary expenditures is hampered by difficulty in representing large numerical magnitudes. Despite orders of magnitude difference between millions and billions, study participants struggle with the budgetary magnitudes of government programs. When numerical values are rescaled as smaller magnitudes (in the thousands or lower), lay understanding improves, as indicated by greater sensitivity to numerical ratios and more accurate rank ordering of expenses. A robust benefit of numerical rescaling is demonstrated across a variety of experimental designs, including policy relevant choices and incentive-compatible accuracy measures. This improved sensitivity ultimately impacts funding choices and public perception of respective budgets, indicating the importance of numerical cognition for good citizenship.