MTurk Participants Have Substantially Lower Evaluative Subjective Well-Being Than Other Survey Participants

What Influences Audience Susceptibility to Fake Health News: An Experimental Study Using a Dual Model of Information Processing in Credibility Assessment

This experimental study investigates the effects of several heuristic cues and systematic factors on users' misinformation susceptibility in the context of health news. Specifically, it examines whether author credentials, writing style, and verification check flagging influence participants' intent to follow article behavioral recommendations provided by the article, perceived article credibility, and sharing intent. Findings suggest that users rely only on verification checks (passing/failing) in assessing information credibility. Of the two antecedents to systematic processing, social media self-efficacy moderates the links between verification and participants' susceptibility. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Women's preferences for a new contraceptive under development: an exploratory study

Objective

Currently available contraceptive methods do not meet the needs of all users. We sought to explore preferences of potential end-users regarding an on-demand, non-hormonal female contraceptive currently under development, using a web-based survey.

Study design

We recruited respondents for an exploratory survey via web link on Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Individuals were eligible if they were 18-44 years of age, identified as cis-gender female, were English-speaking, not pregnant, and had used barrier contraception previously. Respondents provided demographic characteristics and a basic reproductive history. We then provided a brief description of the potential contraceptive. Respondents were asked about their interest in the proposed contraceptive and preferences for method attributes.

Results

A total of 500 respondents completed the survey. Three-quarters of respondents were <35 years of age and 48.2% were currently using a barrier contraceptive method. Three-fourths of respondents (73.8%) expressed interest in using the contraceptive under development. The majority wanted the method to be small (≤2 inches), rod-shaped, and low cost (<$5 per use). More than half (59.4%) said it was important to be able to use the method without partners' knowledge. The most reported potential concerns were vaginal irritation (51.6%) and lack of effectiveness (46.4%). Sixty percent of respondents were confident they could use the method correctly.

Discussion

Available contraceptive methods lack attributes preferred by some users. Development of new contraceptives frequently does not involve end-user input early in the development process. Individuals in this sample displayed interest in the proposed contraceptive and expressed preferences that can inform the further development of this method.

"But not the music": psychopathic traits and difficulties recognising and resonating with the emotion in music

Recognising and responding appropriately to emotions is critical to adaptive psychological functioning. Psychopathic traits (e.g. callous, manipulative, impulsive, antisocial) are related to differences in recognition and response when emotion is conveyed through facial expressions and language. Use of emotional music stimuli represents a promising approach to improve our understanding of the specific emotion processing difficulties underlying psychopathic traits because it decouples recognition of emotion from cues directly conveyed by other people (e.g. facial signals). In Experiment 1, participants listened to clips of emotional music and identified the emotional content (Sample 1, N = 196) or reported on their feelings elicited by the music (Sample 2, N = 197). Participants accurately recognised (t(195) = 32.78, p < .001, d = 4.69) and reported feelings consistent with (t(196) = 7.84, p < .001, d = 1.12) the emotion conveyed in the music. However, psychopathic traits were associated with reduced emotion recognition accuracy (F(1, 191) = 19.39, p < .001) and reduced likelihood of feeling the emotion (F(1, 193) = 35.45, p < .001), particularly for fearful music. In Experiment 2, we replicated findings for broad difficulties with emotion recognition (Sample 3, N = 179) and emotional resonance (Sample 4, N = 199) associated with psychopathic traits. Results offer new insight into emotion recognition and response difficulties that are associated with psychopathic traits.

Policies and Price Tags: The Public's Perception of Face Transplantation and Its Funding

Study Design

Survey study.

Objective

Facial vascularized composite allotransplantation (FVCA) can cost over 1 million dollars per procedure and is usually not covered by insurance, yet this financial burden and public opinion surrounding this procedure are not well understood. This study is the first to evaluate the layperson's opinions on the allocation of financial responsibility for FVCA and its inclusion in organ donation registries.

Methods

Eight hundred and fifteen laypersons were surveyed through MTurk to assess their agreement with 11 statements about FVCA perceptions, funding, and inclusion on organ donation registries. Responses were analyzed with the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test, the Kruskal-Wallis test, and the Dunn's test.

Results

The majority of respondents were supportive of FVCA in 10 out of 11 statements (P < 0.0001). They would be willing to undergo FVCA if they suffered from facial disfigurement; believe FVCA is as important as other organ transplants; believe faces should be included on the organ donation registry; support insurance companies providing coverage for FVCA regardless of trauma etiology; support tax dollars funding the procedure; and believe FVCA improves physical appearance and quality of life. Although respondents generally supported their tax dollars funding the procedure, fewer supported this for self-inflicted trauma (P > 0.01).

Conclusions

This study highlights a disconnect between public preference for insurance coverage of FVCA and current lack of coverage in practice. Respondents' acceptance of including faces in organ donation registries may help alleviate the issue of locating a donor, and increasing financial coverage may broaden this procedure's accessibility to a wider range of individuals.

Vague quantifiers demonstrate little susceptibility to frame of reference effects

Comparison standards that people use when responding to survey questions, also called Frames of Reference (FoRs), can influence the validity of self-report responses. The effects of FoRs might be the stronger for items using vague quantifier (VQ) scales, which are particularly prominent in quality of life research, compared with numeric responses. This study aims to investigate the impact of FoRs on self-report measures by examining how imposing a specific FoR in survey questions affects (a) the response levels of VQ and numeric scales and (b) the relationship between VQs and a quantitative responses to the same question. A sample of 1,869 respondents rated their education, commute and sleep duration, medication use, and level of physical activity using both VQ and numeric formats. Participants were asked to compare themselves with the average US adult, with their friends who are about their age, or did not receive specific instructions regarding a reference for comparison. We found that FoR conditions did not influence the numeric responses. Among the VQ responses, only education attainment was affected by FoR. The association between the numeric responses and vague quantifiers was comparable across different FoR conditions. Our results showed that manipulating the use of interpersonal FoRs had limited effect on the responses, which suggests that at least some comparisons do not have a strong biasing effect on self-report measures. However, future research should confirm this finding for using other FoRs (e.g., historical or hypothetical comparisons) and other outcome measures.

A meta-analysis of financial self-control strategies: Comparing empirical findings with online media and lay person perspectives on what helps individuals curb spending and start saving

Self-control can be assisted by using self-control strategies rather than relying solely on willpower to resist tempting situations and to make more goal-consistent decisions. To understand how self-control strategies can aid financial goals, we conducted a meta-analysis (Study 1) to aggregate the latest research on self-control strategies in the financial domain and to estimate their overall effectiveness for saving and spending outcomes. Across 29 studies and 12 different self-control strategies, strategies reduced spending and increased saving significantly with a medium effect size (d = 0.57). Proactive and reactive strategies were equally effective. We next examined whether these strategies studied in the academic literature were present in a media sample of websites (N = 104 websites with 852 strategies) and in individuals' personal experiences (N = 939 participants who listed 830 strategies). About half the strategies identified in the meta-analysis were present in the media sample and about half were listed by lay participants as strategies they personally use. In sum, this paper provides a comprehensive overview of the self-control strategies that have been studied in the empirical literature to date and of the strategies promoted in the media and used in daily life, identifying gaps between these perspectives.

The relationship between precarious employment and subjective well-being in Korean wage workers through the Cantril ladder Scale

Background

The global labor market is moving towards increasing job instability. Relatively few studies have examined the relationship between precarious employment and subjective well-being using quantitative scales. We evaluated the association between wage workers' employment status and their subjective well-being through the Cantril ladder scale using Korean Welfare Panel Survey data (KOWEPS).

Methods

This study used KOWEPS data. A total of 4,423 wage workers were divided into permanently employed workers, temporarily employed workers and daily employed workers. The relationship between precarious employment and subjective well-being was analyzed by multiple linear regression adjusted for potential confounding factors.

Results

The more unstable the employment status, the lower the subjective well-being, which can be expressed by the Cantril ladder scale. The mean score of both temporarily employed and daily employed workers were statistically significantly lower (B = −0.454, p < 0.001; B = −0.994, p < 0.001, respectively) than permanently employed workers. This appeared to be the same when occupational and sociodemographic factors were adjusted (B = −0.153, p = 0.002 for temporarily employed, B = −0.610, p < 0.001 for daily employed).

Conclusions

The more unstable the employment status, the lower the subjective well-being score according to the Cantril ladder scale.

Evaluating the Effect of Daily Diary Instructional Phrases on Respondents' Recall Time Frames: Survey Experiment

Background

Daily diaries are extensively used for examining participants’ daily experience in behavioral and medical science. However, little attention is paid to whether participants recall their experiences within the time frames prescribed by the task.

Objective

This study aimed to describe survey respondents’ self-reported recall time frames and to evaluate the impact of different daily diary items on respondents’ reported affective states.

Methods

In this study, 577 participants completed a mood survey with one of the following 4 time frame instructions: (1) today, (2) since waking up today, (3) during the last 24 hours, or (4) in the last day. They were also asked to indicate the periods they considered when answering these items and to recall the instructional phrases associated with the items.

Results

Almost all participants in the today (141/146, 96.6%) and since waking up today (136/145, 93.8%) conditions reported using periods consistent with our expectations, whereas a lower proportion was observed in the during the last 24 hours (100/145, 69.0%) condition. A diverse range of responses was observed in the in the last day condition. Furthermore, the instructions influenced the levels of some self-reported affects, although exploratory analyses were not able to identify the mechanism underlying this finding.

Conclusions

Overall, these results indicate that today and since waking up today are the most effective instructional phrases for inquiring about daily experience and that investigators should use caution when using the other 2 instructional phrases.