{"title":"An Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills (IMB) Model of Pandemic Risk and Prevention","authors":"J. Fisher, W. Fisher","doi":"10.56296/aip00004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.56296/aip00004","url":null,"abstract":"COVID-19 will be with us well into the future, and four years into the pandemic, it continues to cause serious individual and public health consequences and economic impact worldwide. Mindful of the staggering continuing costs of the COVID-19 pandemic, calls are urgently being made to “prepare now for the next pandemic.” Containing future pandemics will require at the very core widespread, voluntary, and sustained behavior change to prevent spread of pandemic disease. Such efforts must be based upon well-validated behavioral science models of health behavior change articulated to foreseeable future pandemic contexts. Past public health attempts to change behaviors that can spread pandemic-related pathogens have generally been reactive and have very rarely exploited well-tested behavioral science models of health behavior change. We present an Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills (IMB) Model of Pandemic Risk and Prevention as a conceptual foundation for understanding the determinants and dynamics of pandemic risk and preventive behavior and as a systematic framework for the design, implementation, and evaluation of interventions to promote and maintain pandemic preventive behavior. Our model is highly generalizable across pandemic scenarios. It is currently testable in the context of COVID-19 (e.g., in interventions to increase the very low rates of bivalent booster vaccine uptake in adults, and vaccination uptake in children), and can be tested in future localized epidemics, and in pandemic simulation studies. The IMB model of Health Behavior Change, upon which our new model is based, is an empirically well validated and supported multivariate model utilized successfully for decades to understand and promote behavior change in multiple health domains. Our introduction of the IMB Model of Pandemic Risk and Prevention aims to contribute to theoretically- and empirically-based efforts to reduce risk and promote prevention in future pandemics and in the continuing COVID-19 pandemic.","PeriodicalId":386495,"journal":{"name":"advances.in/psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125178334","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
J. Jetten, Chongting Zhao, Belén Álvarez, S. Kaempf, Frank Mols
{"title":"Trying to unplug for 24 hours: Conspiracy mentality predicts social isolation and negative emotions when refraining from internet use","authors":"J. Jetten, Chongting Zhao, Belén Álvarez, S. Kaempf, Frank Mols","doi":"10.56296/aip00003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.56296/aip00003","url":null,"abstract":"Imagine that you pledge to not go online for 24 hours. How would you feel? And is your unplugging experience affected by the extent to which you believe in conspiracy theories? In two studies, we invited participants to unplug for 24 hours from all digital media and online content (e.g., internet-based television, radio, digital newspapers, smart phones, and social media apps). In a Chinese sample (Study 1, N = 97) we found that feeling less socially supported and more isolated during the unplugging experience did not affect positive emotions and that unplugging was associated with more negative emotions and lower life satisfaction. This association was replicated for negative emotions in an Australian sample (Study 2, N = 102). Furthermore, there was evidence in both studies that believing more strongly in conspiracy theories was associated with more negative emotions during the unplugging experience. Higher social isolation and lower social support mediated the relationship between conspiracy beliefs and negative emotions during unplugging. Our results suggest that part of the reason people feel negative about unplugging is because they feel they are cut off from social support — an aversive experience that is particularly prevalent among those who embrace conspiracy theories to a greater extent.","PeriodicalId":386495,"journal":{"name":"advances.in/psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124082210","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reinventing academic publishing","authors":"J. Kunst","doi":"10.56296/aip00001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.56296/aip00001","url":null,"abstract":"Unlike most academic journals, advances.in/psychology aims to publish high-quality research and to financially compensate editors as well as reviewers for their work. As incoming editor-in-chief, I explain how this publishing model works, give an overview of the journal and its mission, and present our future perspective on academic publishing.","PeriodicalId":386495,"journal":{"name":"advances.in/psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130336911","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
N. Saleh, F. Makki, S. van der Linden, J. Roozenbeek
{"title":"Inoculating against extremist persuasion techniques – Results from a randomised controlled trial in post-conflict areas in Iraq","authors":"N. Saleh, F. Makki, S. van der Linden, J. Roozenbeek","doi":"10.56296/aip00005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.56296/aip00005","url":null,"abstract":"Extremist organisations often use psychological manipulation techniques to persuade new members to join. Previous research has found that people can be made more aware of such techniques through psychological “inoculation” interventions, which seek to foster resistance against unwanted persuasion attempts. We conducted a field experiment (N = 191) in post-conflict regions of Iraq to assess the effectiveness of a short inoculation game, Radicalise, in improving vulnerable individuals’ resistance against extremist manipulation techniques. In a conceptual replication of Saleh et al. (2021), we translated and adapted the game for the Iraqi context and then conducted a 2x2 mixed (pre-post / treatment-control) randomised controlled experiment among a group of vulnerable youth in areas previously under ISIS control. We included two outcome measures: participants’ ability and confidence in correctly assessing WhatsApp messages making use of extremist manipulation techniques, and the ability to identify the factors that make an individual vulnerable to extremist recruitment. We find that playing the game significantly improved participants’ ability (p = 0.034, d = 0.31) in spotting manipulative messaging while the improvement in participants' confidence fell just above the traditional 0.05 significance level (p = 0.051, d = 0.29). However, unlike in Saleh et al. (2021), we find that playing the game did not impact participants’ ability to identify vulnerable individuals (p = 0.896, d = 0.02). However, we note that our field study may have been underpowered compared to the original study and our results should therefore be interpreted with some caution.","PeriodicalId":386495,"journal":{"name":"advances.in/psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128545443","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Superior social cognitive abilities in childhood are associated with better reward-seeking strategies in adolescence: evidence for a Social-Motivational Flexibility Model","authors":"D. I. Tsomokos, E. Flouri","doi":"10.56296/aip00002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.56296/aip00002","url":null,"abstract":"We examined the role of a crucial component of Theory of Mind in childhood, namely the attribution of false beliefs to other agents, in the ability to adjust risk-taking strategies during decision-making in adolescence. The analytic sample was 9575 children from the UK's Millennium Cohort Study, followed at ages 5, 7, and 14 years. The ability to attribute false beliefs was measured at ages 5 and 7 years through a vignette version of the Sally-Anne Task administered by an unfamiliar assessor in a socially demanding dyadic interaction. Risk adjustment was measured at age 14 years with the Cambridge Gambling Task. Even after controlling for a range of individual and family factors, such as sex, ethnicity, verbal ability, family income, and parental education, as well as emotional and behavioural problems, we found that social cognitive abilities in childhood are positively associated with risk adjustment in decision-making during adolescence.","PeriodicalId":386495,"journal":{"name":"advances.in/psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133841997","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}