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Professor seeks to quantify ?value of life? with study

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  • Professor seeks to quantify ?value of life? with study

    Source: http://www.dailytargum.com/universit...tudy-1.1316467

    Professor seeks to quantify ?value of life? with study

    Adrienne Clark / Correspondent
    Updated: Wednesday, January 28, 2009

    What is the value of a human life in the eyes of the public? Would you inconvenience yourself today to save the lives of many later on? Is age a factor when considering the value of a life?

    University Department of Psychology Chair and Professor Gretchen Chapman poses questions such as these with her research on decision-making, with the assistance of several Graduate School for Applied and Professional Psychology students.

    ?One of the really interesting areas of the field is moral decision making,? said Chapman, a University of Pennsylvania graduate. ?First, there is the instant emotional reaction, then after the fact, [participants] will think of reasons to support their initial decision, emotion over reasoning, which is backwards.?
    Chapman conducted a study to look at how people measure the value of a human life. Computers presented a scenario of 1,000 people potentially dying in bird flu epidemic and gave different demographics that participants could choose whether or not to save.

    Participants? ages ranged from young college students to older adults. There were two studies conducted, one with 300 college students and another with 500 adults in a national web survey, Chapman said.

    The demographics ranged in age, from 5 to 80 years old, and length of time left for them to live. In another scenario, it was assumed the people to be saved had a pre-existing condition that only gave them two years left to live.

    ?What we found is that if people have a regular life expectancy in relation to age, people wanted to save the younger, longer-living people,? Chapman said. ?When everyone had two years left, they treated the young and old exactly the same.?

    When the scenario was described in terms of lives lost, life expectancy was again a factor, but Chapman found younger people felt saving people of their similar age range was more important, and older people felt saving younger and older people was equally important.

    ?If a young person dies, it was considered the most tragic,? she said. ?If an old person dies, then people feel it is more acceptable. There?s an egocentric bias.?


    Chapman said she would like to see her work be used to help people make decisions more rationally and to study decision making to help people make their lives better or even save the planet, in terms of environmental decision making like electricity use.

    Students who have been advised by Chapman, like GSAPP Graduate Assistant Meng Li, a Class of 2011 student, think her work can be applied to everyday decision-making and has the potential for many different practical applications.

    ?I think the mind is much more interesting to explore than the body,? Li said. ?We know more facts about the body but the mind is still unexplored; behaviors and people are very interesting.?

    GSAPP Class of 2008 alumna Alison Phillips, who has worked with Chapman since the summer of 2006, said Chapman helped ignite her curiosity in decision-making.

    ?She may have felt chagrined for being responsible for sparking my interest in a difficult-to-research area, but she has continued to give her support and show interest in all of my efforts,? Phillips said. ?Dr. Chapman is the type of adviser who gives as much freedom to your research directions as she gives support to your research efforts ? all the while keeping your work scientifically rigorous.?

  • #2
    Re: Professor seeks to quantify ?value of life? with study

    #1:
    "Chapman said she would like to see her work be used to help people make decisions more rationally and to study decision making to help people make their lives better or even save the planet, in terms of environmental decision making like electricity use.

    Students who have been advised by Chapman, like GSAPP Graduate Assistant Meng Li, a Class of 2011 student, think her work can be applied to everyday decision-making and has the potential for many different practical applications."


    With all respect to the prof./students study, spare us from studies which would be than used from others to create triages and diferences on other peoples necks at the same time when their society not invest more to shield more secure their health from diseases.

    I suggest to the team to conduct another study in which they would have to answering the inner questions with a presumption that they himself personaly and their families would die because of lack of countermeasures for them.

    With the above input variable, we'll see how much would be the value of "their" lifes in the study output ...

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Professor seeks to quantify ?value of life? with study

      no numbers ?

      just look at wars, how much money they spend to protect soldiers,
      $$total/total deaths (+wounded?)

      look at insurances
      accidents at work and how much is spent for protection...

      if you get x$ for a p-chance to die, what would you accept for x ?

      some people smoke, some drive risky bikes

      you won't spare the airbags for $1000, if you could ?!




      can I make a poll, or is it "tasteless" ?
      I'm interested in expert panflu damage estimates
      my current links: http://bit.ly/hFI7H ILI-charts: http://bit.ly/CcRgT

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Professor seeks to quantify ?value of life? with study

        #3: you won't spare the airbags for $1000, if you could ?!

        With your own private money fluxed through taxes into the citizens health security pot I shurely not dare to do it - spare on your neck after you gave me the annual money to shield you ...

        And additionaly, I do not spare on airbags even with my money neither - save your neck first, than your money ...

        If you think diferent than maybe that's all is playing games, or ru.rul. if you like.


        #3: can I make a poll, or is it "tasteless" ?

        The problem is that many people when they doing the polls, or surveys, or fill study inputs, tends to cheat it partly compared to their real thinking in such an frangent - a few words here, few there, it would remains their little secret...
        Finaly, the Big.Bro. isn't yet into their's brain ...

        Additionaly, the most part of the developed nations jangsters (students/etc.) are not enaugh squized or old to imagine an realy scared situation for their lives, or an ugly death - they have an natural intimate feeling that they would live "forewer, or near", that they can move mountains ...

        But because the above reasons, the study outcome conclusions can be faked.
        More worst, such studies were not enaugh statisticaly relevant (<100.000 individuals) on an human mass of 8 bilions, but it would impact the lives of those remaining 8 bil. through newly modificated and instaurated procedures from the "above" based on such studies, impacting their health.

        If the world countries infect. disease bio-shielding methods would remain the same as 100 years ago, than stop to collect this part of money through taxes, and start to admit it in public by the country mass-TV-media that no help would be given in that case ...

        Comment

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