Rumors in Retweet: Ideological Asymmetry in the Failure to Correct Misinformation

We used supervised machine-learning techniques to examine ideological asymmetries in online rumor transmission. Although liberals were more likely than conservatives to communicate in general about the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings (Study 1, N = 26,422) and 2020 death of the sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein (Study 2, N = 141,670), conservatives were more likely to share rumors. Rumor-spreading decreased among liberals following official correction, but it increased among conservatives. Marathon rumors were spread twice as often by conservatives pre-correction, and nearly 10 times more often post-correction. Epstein rumors were spread twice as often by conservatives pre-correction, and nearly, eight times more often post-correction. With respect to ideologically congenial rumors, conservatives circulated the rumor that the Clinton family was involved in Epstein's death 18.6 times more often than liberals circulated the rumor that the Trump family was involved. More than 96% of all fake news domains were shared by conservative Twitter users.

Corporate Moral Responsibility, Distributive Justice, the Common Good, and Catholic Social Teaching: The Case of Gilead Sciences and Remdesivir

Applying the moral principles of Catholic social teaching's (CST) on capitalism, distributive justice, private ownership, the common good, and the role of the state in the economy as the overall theoretical framework and utilizing secondary data, media reports, and scientific literature, this article explores the corporate moral responsibility of the top drug makers in the ownership and pricing of their essential medicines and COVID-19 vaccines. Specifically, it presents the case of the Gilead Sciences' business strategies and overpricing of Remdesivir drug to illustrate how predatory capitalism undermines the moral responsibility of drug makers and CST's moral principle on the common good in today's pandemic. Distributive justice requires that the publicly funded and developed medicines and vaccines should be priced and distributed fairly to promote the common good and prevent the public from "paying twice" for these essential medicines. Given the public character of these medicines and the demands of social justice, the price of Remdesivir and other essential medicines of Gilead Sciences and Big Pharma for COVID-19 could have been lower than what was officially announced. Ultimately, these medicines could have been made global public health goods in accordance with CST's doctrines on distributive justice, the common good, and the social dimension of private ownership.

Paternal Incarceration, Race and Ethnicity, and Maternal Health

BACKGROUND

Although increased attention has been placed on the potential deleterious consequences of paternal incarceration on maternal health, little empirical research has attempted to understand the physiological processes that might underlie this relationship. Moreover, exposure to incarceration and access to resources that shape family incarceration patterns are unequally distributed across racial and ethnic lines, yet few studies utilize analytic frameworks that account for this social reality. Using a within race/ethnicity analytic framework, the present study addresses these gaps by examining relationships between paternal incarceration and telomere length for Black, Latina/o, and White mothers.

METHODS

Data were drawn from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a longitudinal, stratified multistage probability sample of couples and children in 20 large U.S. cities. The final analytic sample consisted of 2174 mothers that were followed from pregnancy to age 9 of the focal child.

RESULTS

Findings revealed exposure to paternal incarceration was negatively associated with telomere length for Black mothers, but not for Latina/o and White mothers. Mediation analysis also showed paternal incarceration-telomere length relationships did not operate through secondary stressors, such as economic instability, poor mental health, and parenting stress.

CONCLUSION

Overall, results demonstrated that the detrimental physiological consequences of paternal incarceration for mothers depended on racial and ethnic background. Findings from this study can provide a foundation upon which health scholars and criminal justice stakeholders may better understand whether and how paternal incarceration shapes deleterious health patterns for the mothers who remain to care for the children of those incarcerated.

Estimated impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the prevalence and treatment of depressive symptoms in Peru: an interrupted time series analysis in 2014-2021

PURPOSE

The COVID-19 pandemic increased the burden of mental disorders worldwide. Peru has been one of the countries most affected by COVID-19, however, studies evaluating the medium and long-term consequences of the pandemic on Peruvians' mental health are recent and represent a new field of study in proliferation. We aimed to estimate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the prevalence and treatment of depressive symptoms using nationally representative surveys in Peru.

METHODS

Our study is an analysis of secondary data. We carried out a time series cross-sectional analysis based on the National Demographic and Health Survey of Peru, collected using a complex sampling design. The Patient Health Questionnaire-9 was used to measure mild (5-9 points), moderate (10-14 points), and severe (15 points or more) depressive symptoms. The participants were men and women aged 15 years and older, living in urban and rural areas of all regions of Peru. The main statistical analysis used segmented regression with Newey-West standard errors, taking into account that each year of the evaluation was divided into four measures (quarter measure).

RESULTS

We included 259,516 participants. An average quarterly increase of 0.17% (95% CI 0.03-0.32%) in the prevalence of moderate depressive symptoms was identified after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic (approximately an increase of 1583 new cases of moderate depressive symptoms by each quarter). The percentage of cases treated for mild depressive symptoms increased quarterly by an average of 0.46% (95% CI 0.20-0.71%) after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic (approximately an increase of 1242 new cases treated for mild depressive symptoms by each quarter).

CONCLUSION

In Peru, increases in the prevalence of moderate depressive symptoms and the proportion of cases treated with mild depressive symptoms were found after the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, this study is a precedent for future research assessing the prevalence of depressive symptoms and the proportion of cases receiving treatment during the pandemic and post-pandemic years.

Does unionization and working under collective agreements promote health?

Health promoters recognize the social determinants of health (SDOH) shape health outcomes yet generally neglect how unionization and collective agreements (CAs) shape these SDOH. This is surprising since extensive evidence indicates unions and CAs influence wages and benefits, job security, working conditions and income inequality, which go on to affect additional SDOH of food and housing security, child development and social exclusion. We argue unions and CAs should be a health promotion focus by examining how they influence the SDOH and health outcomes in wealthy developed nations in four ways. First, we consider how union density (UD) and CA coverage (CAC) are associated with differences between wealthy western nations in percentage of low-waged workers, extent of income inequality, and low birthweight and infant mortality rates. Second, we bring together literature that shows greater UD and CAC within national sub-jurisdictions are associated over time with more equitable distribution of the SDOH and better health outcomes. Third, we document-also using available literature-how within nations, union membership and working under a CA shape the SDOH one experiences. Fourth, we carry out a Canadian case study-applying a political economy lens-to examine how power relations, working through economic and political systems, determine extent of unionization and CAC and the inclination of health promoters to consider these issues. Implications for health promoters are considered.

Children's moral reasoning about self- versus other-benefiting public health measures

The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced novel public health measures such as masking and social distancing. In adults, framing these behaviors as benefiting others versus the self has been shown to affect people's perceptions of public health measures and willingness to comply. Here we asked whether self- versus other-oriented frames of novel public health measures influence children's endorsement and moral reasoning. Children aged 5 to 10 years viewed hypothetical dilemmas of aliens in which we manipulated the frame (other-oriented or self-oriented) of the prevention behavior and the severity (high or low) of the potential harm. Across two studies (Study 1: N = 48; Study 2: N = 61), results showed that across ages framing the behaviors as other-oriented, but not self-oriented, yielded more positive ratings of individuals who followed the public health measures and more negative ratings of those who did not. Across both frames, children generally endorsed these public health measures when the severity was high. Children used more moralizing concepts in other-oriented frames and were more critical of intentional transgressions over accidental transgressions, demonstrating further evidence that other-oriented frames induce moral reasoning. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these framing effects for sociomoral reasoning and action.

A belief systems analysis of fraud beliefs following the 2020 US election

Beliefs that the US 2020 Presidential election was fraudulent are prevalent despite substantial contradictory evidence. Why are such beliefs often resistant to counter-evidence? Is this resistance rational, and thus subject to evidence-based arguments, or fundamentally irrational? Here we surveyed 1,642 Americans during the 2020 vote count, testing fraud belief updates given hypothetical election outcomes. Participants' fraud beliefs increased when their preferred candidate lost and decreased when he won, and both effects scaled with partisan preferences, demonstrating partisan asymmetry (desirability effects). A Bayesian model of rational updating of a system of beliefs-beliefs in the true vote winner, fraud prevalence and beneficiary of fraud-accurately accounted for this partisan asymmetry, outperforming alternative models of irrational, motivated updating and models lacking the full belief system. Partisan asymmetries may not reflect motivated reasoning, but rather rational attributions over multiple potential causes of evidence. Changing such beliefs may require targeting multiple key beliefs simultaneously rather than direct debunking attempts.

The Representational Deficit of Latinxs in the U.S. House of Representatives

This paper explores the extent to which Latinxs were substantively represented in the 112th U.S. House of Representatives (2011–2013). We make use of a large national sample of Americans to tap into the congruence of the attitudes of constituents with actual roll call votes taken by their legislators in office. In doing so, we are able to make comparisons between constituent attitudes and legislative behavior for Latinx versus non-Latinx constituents. Using a more refined measure than previous studies of constituent-legislator dyads across congressional districts, we find that Latinx respondents face a representational deficit relative to non-Latinx whites and explore the various factors, individual- and contextual-level, that explain variation in that relationship. One such factor is the size of the Latinx population in a district. We find that larger Latinx populations are associated with decreased representation for Latinx respondents and, further, that this deficit is largely rooted in anti-Latinx attitudes and behavior on the part of non-Latinx whites in those districts. On the whole, the findings here are consistent with the backlash hypothesis.

Interrelationship between Share of Women in Parliament and Gender and Development: A Critical Analysis

Gender and development are among the two most important components of any economy to sustain its perpetual and sustainable economic growth in both the long as well as short run. The role of women in parliament and the interrelationship between gender and development is critically analysed. Women’s representation in parliament is the dependent variable and the predictor variables considered are gender development index, female access to assets, female labour force, and country GDP per capita. Data were collected from the UNDP human development report for the period 2015 to 2021–2022 and World Bank for 188 countries of which finally 159 were considered to develop the model based on data availability. We have used the theoretical lens of social stratification theory and gender role theory to frame the hypothesis. A random effects model-based panel regression analysis of the data indicated a strong positive relationship between gender development index and the dependent variable, but no relationship between female labour force, and access to assets. The study addresses a critical gap in policy and development of the literature on gender, politics, and development using a global data set, establishing the importance of indicators such as gender development index, and laying down the path for future research on the subject.

Online-Network-Group Use and Political-Participation Intention in China: The Analysis Based on CSS 2019 Survey Data

Although there are many studies discussing the effect of Internet use on political participation, the literature has rarely focused on the relationship between the use of online-network groups and the political-participation intention in contemporary China. The discussion of this relationship is significant, as it offers a new perspective on reviewing the mobilization theory of media, especially in the context of online-network groups, and potentially provides a new channel for mobilizing a wider range of people for politics once the relationship is significant. This study aims to answer the following question: Can we predict the political-participation intention of Chinese citizens through the use of online-network groups? Based on the data of the China Social Survey 2019, this study uses the hierarchical logistic-regression method. The research finds that the specific online-network groups that can predict political-participation intention are mainly concentrated in the category of emotional relationships. Among them, although most of the online-network groups are positively correlated with political-participation intention, the possibility of generating political-participation intention of those who join the relative network group is significantly lower than for those who do not. The virtual connection built by online communication technology, the social relations, and the influence of social groups on individuals can help to explain the correlation between them.

It's electric! An environmental equity perspective on the lifecycle of our energy sources

Energy policy decisions are driven primarily by economic and reliability considerations, with limited consideration given to public health, environmental justice, and climate change. Moreover, epidemiologic studies relevant for public policy typically focus on immediate public health implications of activities related to energy procurement and generation, considering less so health equity or the longer-term health consequences of climate change attributable to an energy source. A more integrated, collective consideration of these three domains can provide more robust guidance to policymakers, communities, and individuals. Here, we illustrate how these domains can be evaluated with respect to natural gas as an energy source. Our process began with a detailed overview of all relevant steps in the process of extracting, producing, and consuming natural gas. We synthesized existing epidemiologic and complementary evidence of how these processes impact public health, environmental justice, and climate change. We conclude that, in certain domains, natural gas looks beneficial (e.g., economically for some), but when considered more expansively, through the life cycle of natural gas and joint lenses of public health, environmental justice, and climate change, natural gas is rendered an undesirable energy source in the United States. A holistic climate health equity framework can inform how we value and deploy different energy sources in the service of public health.

How Do Nominal Characteristics Lose Status Value? Asymmetry in Status Deconstruction

Existing theories explain how the states of nominal characteristics acquire status value and the implications of status characteristics for the distribution of rewards, honor, and esteem in groups. It is less clear how characteristics lose status value. In this article, we combine the logic of status construction theory with loss aversion from decision theory to develop novel predictions about status loss. We predict that removing the mechanism of status construction theory will result in fading consensual status beliefs and that this will occur faster for low status actors. This results in a period of conflicting or asymmetric status beliefs between groups. Results from a six-condition controlled experiment support key predictions of consensual status loss, with low status actors viewing a gain in their status faster than high status actors view a loss to theirs. We discuss ways to extend and refine the work and the implications of our theory for racial and gender status-based inequalities.

Empirical validation study and psychometric evaluation of the properties of the populist attitudes scale for the portuguese population

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE

Recent developments in Europe and Portugal provide a fertile ground for the rise of populism. Despite the growing interest in the topic, there is no reliable tool to gauge Portuguese citizens' populist attitudes to date. The Populist Attitudes Scale (POP-AS), developed by Akkerman et al. [1], is one of the best-known instruments for measuring populist attitudes. However, no version for use in the Portuguese population is available. This paper describes the psychometric validation of the POP-AS for the Portuguese population.

METHODS

Trustworthy measures of validity suggested by Boateng et al. [2] to address the psychometric features of the POP-AS were approached. A robust psychometrical pipeline evaluated the reliability, construct validity, cross national/educational validity, and internal validity of the POP-AS.

RESULTS

The Portuguese version of the POP-AS exhibited sound internal consistency and demonstrated adequate properties of validity: a one-factor model was obtained, revealing evidence of construct validity; invariance was ensured for education and partially ensured for the country; All the items of the POP-AS revealed relatively good values of discrimination and contributed adequately to the total score of the scale, ensuring evidence of internal validity.

CONCLUSION

Psychometric analysis supports the POP-AS as a valid and reliable instrument for measuring populist attitudes among Portuguese citizens. A validation framework for measurement instruments in political science was proposed. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Inferring the impact of humanitarian responses on population mortality: methodological problems and proposals

Reducing excess population mortality caused by crises due to armed conflict and natural disasters is an existential aim of humanitarian assistance, but the extent to which these deaths are averted in different humanitarian responses is mostly unknown. This information gap arguably weakens governance and accountability. This paper considers methodological challenges involved in making inferences about humanitarian assistance's effect on excess mortality, and outlines proposed approaches. Three possible measurement questions, each of which contributes some inferential evidence, are presented: (1) whether mortality has remained within an acceptable range during the crisis (for which different direct estimation options are presented); (2) whether the humanitarian response is sufficiently appropriate and performant to avert excess mortality (a type of contribution analysis requiring in-depth audits of the design of humanitarian services and of their actual availability, coverage and quality); and (3) the actual extent to which humanitarian assistance has reduced excess deaths (potentially the most complex question to answer, requiring application of causal thinking and careful specification of the exposure, and for which either quasi-experimental statistical modelling approaches or a combination of verbal and social autopsy methods are proposed). The paper concludes by considering possible 'packages' of the above methods that could be implemented at different stages of a humanitarian response, and calls for investment in improved methods and actual measurement.

Distilling the distillers: examining the political activities of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States

BACKGROUND

Understanding of the alcohol industry's means of influencing public policy is increasingly well established. Less is known, however, about the specific organisations that lead the political strategies of the alcohol industry. To fill this gap, this paper explores the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS), a key trade association in the United States (US), which also operates internationally.

METHODS

This study explores how DISCUS is organised and the main political activities it pursues to advance its policy interests. The study triangulates data from several sources, including DISCUS documents, as well as federal lobbying and election expenditure data.

RESULTS

This study demonstrates that DISCUS is a key political actor in the US and global alcohol policymaking context. There are identifiable strategies used by DISCUS to shape alcohol policy debates, including framing and lobbying. We also find key synergies between these strategies and identify their operation at varying levels of policy decision-making.

CONCLUSIONS

Generating more secure inferences about the nature of the alcohol industry's efforts to advance its interests, and with what success and at what cost, requires researchers to investigate other trade associations in different contexts, and use other data sources.

Inequality and private health insurance in Zimbabwe: history, politics and performance

INTRODUCTION

Zimbabwe has one of the highest rates of private health insurance (PHI) expenditures as a share of total health expenditures in the world. The perfomamce of PHI, known as Medical Aid Societies in Zimbabwe, requires close monitoring since market failures and weaknesses in public policy and regulation can affect overall health system performance. Despite the considerable influence of politics (stakeholder interests) and history (past events) in shaping PHI design and implementation, these factors are frequently sidelined when analyzing PHI in Zimbabwe. This study considers the roles of history and politics in shaping PHI and determining its impact on health system performance in Zimbabwe.

METHODS

We reviewed 50 sources of information using Arksey & O'Malley's (2005) methodological framework. To frame our analysis, we used a conceptual framework that integrates economic theory with political and historical aspects developed by Thomson et al. (2020) to analyze PHI in diverse contexts.

RESULTS

We present a timeline of the history and politics of PHI in Zimbabwe from the 1930s to present. Zimbabwe's current PHI coverage is segmented along socio-economic lines due to a long history of elitist and exclusionary politics in coverage patterns. While PHI was considered to perform relatively well up to the mid-1990s, the economic crisis of the 2000s eroded trust among insurers, providers, and patients. That culminated in agency problems which severely lessened PHI coverage quality with concurrent deterioration in efficiency and equity-related performance dimensions.

CONCLUSION

The present design and performance of PHI in Zimbabwe is primarily a function of history and politics rather than informed choice. Currently, PHI in Zimbabwe does not meet the evaluative criteria of a well-performing health insurance system. Therefore, reform efforts to expand PHI coverage or improve PHI performance must explicitly consider the relevant historical, political and economic aspects for successful reformation.

Conflict, Chaos, and the Art of Institutional Design

The metaphor of an organization as a garbage can is often invoked as a playful insult. However, as was recognized early on by management theorists studying garbage can ideas, the unpredictability arising from garbage can decision making has the potential to be adaptively rational for organizations facing complex task environments. The chaos produced by preference conflict and fluid participation in collective decision making can aid in search by enabling organizations to escape local performance peaks or competency traps. The decades-old hypothesis that conflict and chaos could promote adaptively rational search, however, has largely been overlooked in research on organizational design. This paper uses an agent-based model to evaluate these competing views and, in the process, identify conditions under which garbage can decision making is adaptively rational for executives searching for high-quality strategies. I show that the biased and chaotic outcomes that emerge as a result of garbage can decision making—the very features of garbage cans that lead them to be perceived to be dysfunctional—can facilitate short-term exploitation and long-term exploration of uncertain technical landscapes when organizations engage in serial judgment of local alternatives if internal conflict over desired outcomes is not too extreme. I conclude that decision-making routines that encourage chaotic conflict are robust to bounded rationality and complex task uncertainty and thus should be included in the organizational designer’s portfolio.

Supplemental Material: The online supplement is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2023.1662 .

A framework for residents' pursuit of excellence based upon non-cognitive and cognitive attributes

PURPOSE

Excellence, although variably conceptualized, is commonly used in medicine and the resident excellence literature is limited. Both cognitive attributes (CAs) and non-cognitive attributes (NCAs) are essential for academic and clinical performance; however, the latter are difficult to evaluate. Undergirded by an inclusive and non-competitive approach and utilizing CAs and NCAs, we propose a criterion-referenced behavioral framework of resident excellence.

METHODS

Perceptions of multiple stakeholders (educational administrators, faculty, and residents), gathered by survey (n = 218), document analysis (n = 52), and focus group (n = 23), were analyzed. Inductive thematic analysis was followed by deductive interpretation and categorization using sensitizing concepts for excellence, NCAs, and CAs. Chi-squared tests were used to determine stakeholder perception differences.

RESULTS

All stakeholders had similar perceptions (P > .05) and 13 behavioral attributes in 6 themes undergirded by insight and conscientiousness were identified. The NCAs included: interpersonal skills (works with others, available, humble), professional (compassionate, trustworthy), commitment to profession (visible, volunteers), commitment to learn (proactively seeks feedback, creates learning opportunities), and work-life balance/integration (calm demeanor, inspirational). The CA (medical knowledge and intellect) included: applies knowledge to gain expertise and improves program's caliber.

CONCLUSION

Resident excellence is posited as a pursuit. The attributes are non-competitive, inclusionary, potentially achievable by all, and do not negatively affect freedom of choice. However, contextual and cultural differences are likely and these need validation across societal equity segments. There are implications for learners (adaptive reflection and learning goal orientation), faculty (reduced bias and whole-person feedback), and system leaders (enhancing culture and learning environments) to foster excellence.

News Media Coverage of the Problem of Purchasing Fake Prescription Medicines on the Internet: Thematic Analysis

BACKGROUND

More people are turning to internet pharmacies to purchase their prescription medicines. This kind of purchase is associated with serious risks, including the risk of buying fake medicines, which are widely available on the internet. This underresearched issue has been highlighted by many newspaper articles in the past few years. Newspapers can play an important role in shaping public perceptions of the risks associated with purchasing prescription medicines on the internet. Thus, it is important to understand how the news media present this issue.

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to explore newspaper coverage of the problem of purchasing fake prescription medicines on the internet.

METHODS

Newspaper articles were retrieved from the ProQuest electronic database using search terms related to the topic of buying fake prescription medicines on the internet. The search was limited to articles published between April 2019 and March 2022 to retrieve relevant articles in this fast-developing field. Articles were included if they were published in English and focused on prescription medicines. Thematic analysis was employed to analyze the articles, and the Theory of Planned Behavior framework was used as a conceptual lens to develop the coding of themes.

RESULTS

A total of 106 articles were included and analyzed using thematic analysis. We identified 4 superordinate themes that represent newspaper coverage of the topic of buying prescription medicines on the internet. These themes are (1) the risks of purchasing medicines on the internet (eg, health risks and product quality concerns, financial risks, lack of accountability, risk of purchasing stolen medicines), (2) benefits that entice consumers to make the purchase (eg, convenience and quick purchase, lower cost, privacy of the purchase), (3) social influencing factors of the purchase (influencers, health care providers), and (4) facilitators of the purchase (eg, medicines shortages, pandemic disease such as COVID-19, social media, search engines, accessibility, low risk perception).

CONCLUSIONS

This theory-based study explored the news media coverage of the problem of fake prescription medicines being purchased on the internet by highlighting the complexity of personal beliefs and the range of external circumstances that could influence people to make these purchases. Further research is needed in this area to identify the factors that lead people to buy prescription medicines on the internet. Identifying these factors could enable the development of interventions to dissuade people from purchasing medicines from unsafe sources on the internet, thus protecting consumers from unsafe or illegal medicines.

Political endorsement by Nature and trust in scientific expertise during COVID-19

High-profile political endorsements by scientific publications have become common in recent years, raising concerns about backlash against the endorsing organizations and scientific expertise. In a preregistered large-sample controlled experiment, I randomly assigned participants to receive information about the endorsement of Joe Biden by the scientific journal Nature during the COVID-19 pandemic. The endorsement message caused large reductions in stated trust in Nature among Trump supporters. This distrust lowered the demand for COVID-related information provided by Nature, as evidenced by substantially reduced requests for Nature articles on vaccine efficacy when offered. The endorsement also reduced Trump supporters' trust in scientists in general. The estimated effects on Biden supporters' trust in Nature and scientists were positive, small and mostly statistically insignificant. I found little evidence that the endorsement changed views about Biden and Trump. These results suggest that political endorsement by scientific journals can undermine and polarize public confidence in the endorsing journals and the scientific community.

Utility disconnection protections and the incidence of energy insecurity in the United States

Energy insecurity-the inability to secure one's energy needs-impacts millions of Americans each year. A particularly severe instance of energy insecurity is when a utility disconnects a household from service, affecting its ability to refrigerate perishable food, purchase medicine, or maintain adequate temperatures. Governments can protect vulnerable populations from disconnections through policies, such as shutoff moratoria or seasonal protections that limit disconnections during extreme weather months. We take advantage of the temporary disconnection moratoria that states implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic to assess the efficacy of state protections on rates of disconnection, spending across other essential needs, and uptake of bill payment assistance. We find that protections reduce disconnections and the need for households to forgo other expenses. We further find that protections are most beneficial to people of color and households with young children. We conclude with a discussion of the policy implications for energy-insecure populations.

Priming COVID-19's consequences can increase support for investments in public health

Can messaging that emphasizes the costs of COVID-19 increase popular support for more proactive public health policies? People who experience disasters often become more supportive of policies to address their underlying causes, and the pandemic may have similar spillover effects for public opinion. To test this idea, the study implements a survey experiment in Italy, Germany, and the United States in which half of the respondents were randomly assigned to a prime about the impact of the pandemic prior to answering questions about their support for public health policies. The results show that respondents who received the prime became more favorable toward increased government spending on domestic and foreign public health programs alike. These treatment effects were consistent across countries, across two different surveys in the United States conducted at different points in time, and across partisan subgroups. However, the treatment did not consistently increase support for more active and intrusive government policies to address specific public health challenges like smoking or HIV/AIDS. The results suggest that public health advocates may benefit from messaging that connects COVID-19 to the need for public health funding beyond the context of the pandemic.

Corporate social responsibility and risk-taking in banking

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to examine whether banks’ commitment to corporate social responsibility (CSR) is related to the diversification of their activities and whether CSR, as a result, affects banks’ risk profile.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a sample of 215 publicly traded U.S. bank holding companies between 1996 and 2016, this study applies regression analysis to examine the links between CSR and activity diversification and risk-taking. It also conducts a mediation test to determine whether CSR affects risk through its influence on banks’ activity diversification.

Findings

The results of this study show that banks engaging in positive CSR activities significantly increase the diversification of their banking activities, consistent with the theory that CSR serves as an implicit risk hedging strategy. Mediation analysis provides evidence that this translates into more stable and less risky banks.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the literature by suggesting that activity diversification is a channel through which CSR reduces bank risk and improves asset quality.

Political polarization of news media and influencers on Twitter in the 2016 and 2020 US presidential elections

Social media has been transforming political communication dynamics for over a decade. Here using nearly a billion tweets, we analyse the change in Twitter's news media landscape between the 2016 and 2020 US presidential elections. Using political bias and fact-checking tools, we measure the volume of politically biased content and the number of users propagating such information. We then identify influencers-users with the greatest ability to spread news in the Twitter network. We observe that the fraction of fake and extremely biased content declined between 2016 and 2020. However, results show increasing echo chamber behaviours and latent ideological polarization across the two elections at the user and influencer levels.

The Impact of Race and Gender-Related Discrimination on the Psychological Distress Experienced by Junior Doctors in the UK: A Qualitative Secondary Data Analysis

Almost half of NHS doctors are junior doctors, while high proportions are women and/or Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) individuals. Discrimination against this population is associated with poorer career-related outcomes and unequal representation. We aimed to qualitatively explore junior doctors’ experience of workplace racial and gender-based discrimination, and its impact on their psychological distress (PD). In this study, we carried out a secondary analysis of data from a UK-based parent study about junior doctors’ working cultures and conditions. Interview data was examined using thematic analysis. Transcripts (n = 14) documenting experiences of race and/or gender-based discrimination were sampled and analysed from 21 in-depth interviews conducted with UK junior doctors. Four themes were generated about the experiences and perpetrators of discrimination, the psychological impact of discrimination, and organisational interventions that tackle discrimination. Discrimination in various forms was reported, from racially charged threats to subtle microaggressions. Participants experienced profoundly elevated levels of PD, feeling fearful, undermined, and under-confident. Discrimination is associated with elevated levels of PD, whilst negatively impacting workforce sustainability and retention. This reduces the opportunity for more diversity in NHS medical leadership. We encourage NHS hospitals to review their policies about discrimination and develop in-person workshops that focus on recognising, challenging, and reporting workplace discrimination.

Validated names for experimental studies on race and ethnicity

A large and fast-growing number of studies across the social sciences use experiments to better understand the role of race in human interactions, particularly in the American context. Researchers often use names to signal the race of individuals portrayed in these experiments. However, those names might also signal other attributes, such as socioeconomic status (e.g., education and income) and citizenship. If they do, researchers would benefit greatly from pre-tested names with data on perceptions of these attributes; such data would permit researchers to draw correct inferences about the causal effect of race in their experiments. In this paper, we provide the largest dataset of validated name perceptions to date based on three different surveys conducted in the United States. In total, our data include over 44,170 name evaluations from 4,026 respondents for 600 names. In addition to respondent perceptions of race, income, education, and citizenship from names, our data also include respondent characteristics. Our data will be broadly helpful for researchers conducting experiments on the manifold ways in which race shapes American life.

The Good Talk! A Serious Game to Boost People's Competence to Have Open Conversations About COVID-19: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial

BACKGROUND

Vaccine hesitancy is one of the many factors impeding efforts to control the COVID-19 pandemic. Exacerbated by the COVID-19 infodemic, misinformation has undermined public trust in vaccination, led to greater polarization, and resulted in a high social cost where close social relationships have experienced conflict or disagreements about the public health response.

OBJECTIVE

The purpose of this paper is to describe the theory behind the development of a digital behavioral science intervention-The Good Talk!-designed to target vaccine-hesitant individuals through their close contacts (eg, family, friends, and colleagues) and to describe the methodology of a research study to evaluate its efficacy.

METHODS

The Good Talk! uses an educational serious game approach to boost the skills and competences of vaccine advocates to have open conversations about COVID-19 with their close contacts who are vaccine hesitant. The game teaches vaccine advocates evidence-based open conversation skills to help them speak with individuals who have opposing points of view or who may ascribe to nonscientifically supported beliefs while retaining trust, identifying common ground, and fostering acceptance and respect of divergent views. The game is currently under development and will be available on the web, free to access for participants worldwide, and accompanied by a promotional campaign to recruit participants through social media channels. This protocol describes the methodology for a randomized controlled trial that will compare participants who play The Good Talk! game with a control group that plays the widely known noneducational game Tetris. The study will evaluate a participant's open conversation skills, self-efficacy, and behavioral intentions to have an open conversation with a vaccine-hesitant individual both before and after game play.

RESULTS

Recruitment will commence in early 2023 and will cease once 450 participants complete the study (225 per group). The primary outcome is improvement in open conversation skills. Secondary outcomes are self-efficacy and behavioral intentions to have an open conversation with a vaccine-hesitant individual. Exploratory analyses will examine the effect of the game on implementation intentions as well as potential covariates or subgroup differences based on sociodemographic information or previous experiences with COVID-19 vaccination conversations.

CONCLUSIONS

The outcome of the project is to promote more open conversations regarding COVID-19 vaccination. We hope that our approach will encourage more governments and public health experts to engage in their mission to reach their citizens directly with digital health solutions and to consider such interventions as an important tool in infodemic management.

INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID)

PRR1-10.2196/40753.

Local governance and financial distress in local governments: the mediating role of delivery system

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to establish the mediating role of local government delivery system (here after delivery system) in the relationship between local governance (hereafter, governance) and financial distress of local governments in Uganda.

Design/methodology/approach

This study is correlational and cross-sectional. It uses a questionnaire survey on a sample of 109 local governments (districts) of Uganda. The data are analysed using SPSS, partial least squares structural equation modelling and Jose’s MedGraph.

Findings

Results indicate that government delivery system mediates the relationship between governance and financial distress. Delivery system in terms of capacity development and community participation causes positive variances in local government’s financial distress. Also, governance in terms of political clientelism significantly contributes to financial distress more than oversight mechanisms and audit quality. The study finds that delivery system causes more variance in financial distress than governance.

Originality/value

This study applies the new public management and network governance theory and tests the efficacy of delivery system and governance on financial distress in one-go and succeeded in explaining financial distress of local government using Uganda as the setting; the authors join previous scholars that root for multi-theoretical approaches. Also, this study’s design has allowed for the consideration of more than simply the main effects of governance and delivery systems by exploring the mediating role of delivery systems in the link between governance and financial distress. As such, the authors may now have a more accurate and detailed description of the relationships between governance, delivery system and local government financial distress.

Accuracy and social motivations shape judgements of (mis)information

The extent to which belief in (mis)information reflects lack of knowledge versus a lack of motivation to be accurate is unclear. Here, across four experiments (n = 3,364), we motivated US participants to be accurate by providing financial incentives for correct responses about the veracity of true and false political news headlines. Financial incentives improved accuracy and reduced partisan bias in judgements of headlines by about 30%, primarily by increasing the perceived accuracy of true news from the opposing party (d = 0.47). Incentivizing people to identify news that would be liked by their political allies, however, decreased accuracy. Replicating prior work, conservatives were less accurate at discerning true from false headlines than liberals, yet incentives closed the gap in accuracy between conservatives and liberals by 52%. A non-financial accuracy motivation intervention was also effective, suggesting that motivation-based interventions are scalable. Altogether, these results suggest that a substantial portion of people's judgements of the accuracy of news reflects motivational factors.

The Emerging Prevalence of Obesity within Families in Europe and its Associations with Family Socio-Demographic Characteristics and Lifestyle Factors; A Cross-Sectional Analysis of Baseline Data from the Feel4Diabetes Study

The Feel4Diabetes study is a type 2 diabetes prevention program that recruited 12,193 children [age: 8.20 (±1.01) years] and their parents from six European countries. The current work used pre-intervention data collected from 9576 children-parents pairs, to develop a novel family obesity variable and to examine its associations with family sociodemographic and lifestyle characteristics. Family obesity, defined as the presence of obesity in at least two family members, had a prevalence of 6.6%. Countries under austerity measures (Greece and Spain) displayed higher prevalence (7.6%), compared to low-income (Bulgaria and Hungary: 7%) and high-income countries (Belgium and Finland: 4.5%). Family obesity odds were significantly lower when mothers (OR: 0.42 [95% CI: 0.32, 0.55]) or fathers (0.72 [95% CI: 0.57, 0.92]) had higher education, mothers were fully (0.67 [95% CI: 0.56, 0.81]) or partially employed (0.60 [95% CI: 0.45, 0.81]), families consumed breakfast more often (0.94 [95% CI: 0.91 0.96]), more portions of vegetables (0.90 [95% CI: 0.86, 0.95]), fruits (0.96 [95% CI: 0.92, 0.99]) and wholegrain cereals (0.72 [95% CI: 0.62, 0.83]), and for more physically active families (0.96 [95% CI: 0.93, 0.98]). Family obesity odds increased when mothers were older (1.50 [95% CI: 1.18, 1.91]), with the consumption of savoury snacks (1.11 [95% CI: 1.05, 1.17]), and increased screen time (1.05 [95% CI: 1.01, 1.09]). Clinicians should familiarise themselves with the risk factors for family obesity and choose interventions that target the whole family. Future research should explore the causal basis of the reported associations to facilitate devising tailored family-based interventions for obesity prevention.

Sustainability and duration of early central places in prehispanic Mesoamerica

During the last millennium BCE, central places were founded across many regions of western (non-Maya) Mesoamerica. These early central places differed in environmental location, size, layout, and the nature of their public spaces and monumental architecture. We compare a subset of these regional centers and find marked differences in their sustainability--defined as the duration of time that they remained central places in their respective regions. Early infrastructural investments, high degrees of economic interdependence and collaboration between domestic units, and collective forms of governance are found to be key factors in such sustainability.

Effect Mechanism of Extracurricular Tuition and Implications on “Double Reduction” Policy: Extracurricular Tuition Intensity, Psychological Resilience, and Academic Performance

Since its implementation in July 2021, the “double reduction (the reduction of the excessive academic burden on primary and middle school students, and the over-heated off-campus tutoring)” policy (“the Policy”), which aims to foster a sound environment for extracurricular education, has attracted much social attention. At the preliminary stage where data and cases are insufficient, it is of theoretical and practical significance to evaluate extracurricular tuition and its effect mechanism before the Policy was implemented. This study analyzed the said question based on the data from the China Education Panel Survey between 2014 and 2015 (CEPS2014–2015) by virtue of propensity score matching (PSM) and the intermediate effect. The research found that: (1) extracurricular tuition (ET) is positively correlated with academic performance (AP); (2) high and low extracurricular tuition intensities (ETIs) show no difference in improving academic performance, and the group analysis shows that extracurricular tuition is influenced by the “optimal starting zone (OSZ)”; and (3) psychological resilience (PR) is an intermediate variable of extracurricular tuition, which acts as a “conversion valve”. Based on the above findings, the research raised the following suggestions. Firstly, we suggest to emphasize the promotion effect of after-class service on students’ academic performance and switch the functions of extracurricular tuition to after-sale service. Then, pay attention to the reverse effect of high extracurricular tuition intensity on students’ physical and psychological health and their academic performance. In practice, explore the effective “optimal starting zone” of extracurricular tuition for students. Lastly, cultivate students’ psychological resilience by shifting the core of education quality improvement from simple stacking of disciplinary knowledge to psychological health development.

How Do People Come to Judge What Is "Reasonable"? Effects of Legal and Sociological Systems on Human Psychology

How do people decide what is reasonable? People often have to make those judgments, judgments that can influence tremendously consequential decisions-such as whether to indict someone in a legal proceeding. In this article, we take a situated cognition lens to review and integrate findings from social psychology, judgment and decision-making, communication, law, and sociology to generate a new framework for conceptualizing judgments of reasonableness and their implications for how people make decisions, particularly in the context of the legal system. We theorize that differences in structural and social contexts create information asymmetries that shape people's priors about what is and is not reasonable and how they update their priors in the face of new information. We use the legal system as a context for exploring the implications of the framework for both individual and collective decision-making and for considering the practical implications of the framework for inequities in law and social policy.

Ideological distrust: re-understanding the debate on state ideology, normalization of state-religion relationship, and legal system in Indonesia

This study intends to explain the phenomenon of ideological distrust among Indonesian students, the normalization of state-religion relations, and their evaluation of religious law in the national legal system. This study used primary data obtained from a 6-month online survey. It concludes that ideological distrust among students does not correlate with the political track records and capacity of state actors, instead, it correlates with the evaluation of religious norms that these students adhere to. The improvement in the performance quality of public institutions is not capable to reduce the distrust among students toward the state ideology. Meanwhile, Muslim students deem that the normalization of state-religion relations in Indonesia is necessary since the two are not in a harmonious condition and the current legal system still ignores religious norms.

Disagreement among experts about public health decision making: is it polarisation and does it matter?

It is common for aspects of the COVID-19 response-and other public health initiatives before it-to be described as polarised. Public health decisions emerge from an interplay of facts, norms and preferred courses of action. What counts as 'evidence' is diverse and contestable, and disagreements over how it should be interpreted are often the product of differing choices between competing values. We propose a definition of polarisation for the context of public health expertise that acknowledges and accounts for epistemic and social values as part of evidence generation and its application to public health practice. The 'polarised' label should be used judiciously because the descriptor risks generating or exacerbating the problem by oversimplifying complex issues and positions and creating groups that seem dichotomous. 'Independence' as a one-size-fits-all answer to expert polarisation is insufficient; this solution is premised on a scientistic account of the role of evidence in decision making and does not make room for the value difference that is at the heart of both polarisation and evidence-based decision making.

Defining Virtual Consumerism Through Content and Sentiment Analyses

This study set out to better understand virtual consumerism (VC) by applying natural language processing (NLP) methods for sentiment and content analyses. A total of 318 articles related to VC were identified on theguardian.com Web site and analyzed by text mining methodology. A thematic, content analysis using the Leximancer program was performed to explore VC as a concept, and its related concepts and concept associations. For the purposes of "deep-dive insights," further content and sentiment analyses were performed with MonkeyLearn and valence aware dictionary for sentiment reasoning. This triangulation in methodology enabled a comprehensive unstructured qualitative data analysis. The study identified key themes that characterize and define VC. It uncovered that, although there is predominantly positive sentiment toward VC reported in The Guardian online articles, negative sentiment also exists, presenting challenges for the industry to maneuver. The findings reveal that in the context of VC, a virtual experience is also a social experience in a virtual space, which is becoming and evolving. There are certain industries and sectors that are embracing VC, such as marketing, advertising and public relations, software development/IT, art/design, and entertainment, as well as science/technology. Some sectors and industries are experiencing challenges, such as security/law enforcement and medical, and hence display negative sentiment toward VC. Overall, this study presents a working definition of VC, a synopsis of the state of VC, and highlights areas for potential research to further our understanding of this phenomenon. It contributes to an improved understanding of VC for the industry and academia, and provides impetus for future studies focused on the emergent VC-relevant conceptual relationships.

Utopian or dystopian? The portrayal of the metaverse in popular news on social media

The metaverse has sparked lots of interest worldwide as many giant tech companies are pursuing this futuristic idea. However, it has not been properly studied empirically by social science scholars yet. Considering the vital role played by media frames in affecting people's attitudes and behaviors towards the technology, this study examined the framing of the metaverse in popular news across Social Network Sites (SNSs) by cluster analyzing Entman's four operational frame elements. It identified five frames: economic prospect frame, unwanted future frame, consumer prospect frame, threatening future frame, and probable future frame. Overall, findings suggest a polarized framing of the metaverse on social media. While the majority of voices about the metaverse are optimistic, there is also a strong negative and dystopian perspective in more than one third of the SNS news. This positive or negative one-sided framing of the metaverse on SNSs may therefore fragmentize and polarize the audience, rather than informing in a balanced way. Implications for future research are discussed.

Fostering collective climate action and leadership: Insights from a pilot experiment involving mindfulness and compassion

Recent research suggests that mindfulness, compassion, and self-compassion relate to inner transformative qualities/capacities and intermediary factors that can support increased pro-environmental behavior and attitudes across individual, collective, organizational, and system levels. However, current insights focus on the individual level, are restricted to certain sustainability fields, and wider experimental evidence is scarce and contradictory. Our pilot study addresses this gap and tests the aforementioned proposition in the context of an intervention: an EU Climate Leadership Program for high-level decision-makers. The intervention was found to have significant effects on transformative qualities/capacities, intermediary factors, and pro-environmental behaviors and engagement across all levels. The picture is, however, more complex for pro-environmental attitudes. With due limitations (e.g., small sample size), this preliminary evidence confirms the feasibility and potential of mindfulness- and compassion-based interventions to foster inner-outer transformation for sustainability and climate action. Aspects that should be taken into account in larger confirmatory trials are discussed.

Polarization of public trust in scientists between 1978 and 2018 Insights from a cross-decade comparison using interpretable machine learning

The U.S. public's trust in scientists reached a new high in 2019 despite the collision of science and politics witnessed by the country. This study examines the cross-decade shift in public trust in scientists by analyzing General Social Survey data (1978-2018) using interpretable machine learning algorithms. The results suggest a polarization of public trust as political ideology made an increasingly important contribution to predicting trust over time. Compared with previous decades, many conservatives started to lose trust in scientists completely between 2008 and 2018. Although the marginal importance of political ideology in contributing to trust was greater than that of party identification, it was secondary to that of education and race in 2018. We discuss the practical implications and lessons learned from using machine learning algorithms to examine public opinion trends.

Ten simple rules for socially responsible science

Guidelines concerning the potentially harmful effects of scientific studies have historically focused on ethical considerations for minimizing risk for participants. However, studies can also indirectly inflict harm on individuals and social groups through how they are designed, reported, and disseminated. As evidenced by recent criticisms and retractions of high-profile studies dealing with a wide variety of social issues, there is a scarcity of resources and guidance on how one can conduct research in a socially responsible manner. As such, even motivated researchers might publish work that has negative social impacts due to a lack of awareness. To address this, we propose 10 simple rules for researchers who wish to conduct socially responsible science. These rules, which cover major considerations throughout the life cycle of a study from inception to dissemination, are not aimed as a prescriptive list or a deterministic code of conduct. Rather, they are meant to help motivated scientists to reflect on their social responsibility as researchers and actively engage with the potential social impact of their research.

Disgusting Democrats and Repulsive Republicans: Members of Political Outgroups Are Considered Physically Gross

The status of disgust as a sociomoral emotion is debated. We conducted a stringent test of whether social stimuli (specifically, political outgroup members) can elicit physical disgust, as distinct from moral or metaphorical disgust. We employed stimuli (male faces) matched on baseline disgustingness, provided other ways for participants to express negativity toward outgroup members, and used concrete self-report measures of disgust, as well as a nonverbal measure (participants' facial expressions). Across three preregistered studies (total N = 915), we found that political outgroup members are judged to be "disgusting," although this effect is generally weaker for concrete self-report measures and absent for the nonverbal measure. This suggests that social stimuli are capable of eliciting genuine physical disgust, although it is not always outwardly expressed, and the strength of this result depends on the measures employed. We discuss implications of these results for research on sociomoral emotions and American politics.