scholarly journals Cyber Terrorism and Public Support for Retaliation – A Multi-Country Survey Experiment

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Ryan Shandler ◽  
Michael L. Gross ◽  
Sophia Backhaus ◽  
Daphna Canetti
Keyword(s):  
Television News ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Randomized Experiments ◽  
Cyber Terrorism ◽  
News Reports ◽  
Terror Attacks ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms ◽  
Psychological Mechanism

Abstract Does exposure to cyber terrorism prompt calls for retaliatory military strikes? By what psychological mechanism does it do so? Through a series of controlled, randomized experiments, this study exposed respondents (n = 2,028) to television news reports depicting cyber and conventional terror attacks against critical infrastructures in the United States, United Kingdom and Israel. The findings indicate that only lethal cyber terrorism triggers strong support for retaliation. Findings also confirm that anger bridges exposure to cyber terrorism and retaliation, rather than psychological mechanisms such as threat perception or anxiety as other studies propose. These findings extend to the cyber realm a recent trend that views anger as a primary mechanism linking exposure to terrorism with militant preferences. With cyber terrorism a mounting international concern, this study demonstrates how exposure to this threat can generate strong public support for retaliatory policies, depending on the lethality of the attack.

Examining the pull, the push, and their simultaneous effects on managerial turnover

2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (12) ◽  
pp. 2639-2654 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoonhee Choi ◽  
Namgyoo K. Park
Keyword(s):  
Top Management Team ◽  
The United States ◽  
Management Team ◽  
Top Management ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Economic Mechanism ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms ◽  
Managerial Turnover ◽  
Psychological Mechanism

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the economic and psychological mechanisms in turnover at the managerial level. The paper investigates how (1) the ease of moving posed by alternative jobs (i.e. the economic mechanism) and (2) the desire to move due to low job satisfaction (i.e. the psychological mechanism) simultaneously influence top management team (TMT) turnover and these managers' subsequent job position and pay.Design/methodology/approachUsing 25 years of panel data on more than 2,000 top managers in the United States, the paper utilizes fixed-effects logistic regressions and the ordinary least squares model to test the hypotheses.FindingsThe authors find that CEO awards (an economic mechanism) and low compensation (a psychological mechanism) independently have positive effects on turnover. Turnover due to the economic mechanism leads to a higher position and pay, whereas turnover due to the psychological mechanism does not guarantee the same outcome. Further, when examining how pay dissatisfaction influences turnover simultaneously with CEO awards, the authors find that managers with the highest pay leave their firm, and not those with the lowest pay.Originality/valueThe paper employs the pull-and-push theory in the employee turnover literature and applies it to the top management team literature. By doing so, this paper contributes original insights to how economic and psychological mechanisms simultaneously affect managerial turnover and its subsequent outcomes.

Negativity Biases and Political Ideology: A Comparative Test across 17 Countries

2020 ◽  
Vol 114 (3) ◽  
pp. 775-791
Author(s):  
PATRICK FOURNIER ◽  
STUART SOROKA ◽  
LILACH NIR
Keyword(s):  
Political Ideology ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
News Reports ◽  
Psychophysiological Study ◽  
The Social ◽  
Static Images ◽  
Physiological Reactions ◽  
Considerable Body

There is a considerable body of work across the social sciences suggesting negativity biases in human attentiveness and decision-making. Recent research suggests that individual variation in negativity biases is correlated with political ideology: persons who have stronger physiological reactions to negative stimuli, this work argues, hold more conservative attitudes. However, such results have mostly been encountered in the United States. Does the link between psychophysiological negativity biases and political ideology apply elsewhere? We answer this question with the most extensive cross-national psychophysiological study to date. Respondents across 17 countries and six continents were exposed to negative and positive televised news reports and static images. Sensors tracked participants’ skin conductance, and a survey captured their left–right political orientation. Analyses performed at three levels of aggregation—respondent-as-a-case, stimuli-as-a-case, and second-by-second time-series—fail to find strong support for the link between negativity biases and political ideology.

The Impact of Economic Coercion on Public Opinion: The Case of US–China Currency Relations

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (9) ◽  
pp. 1555-1583
Author(s):  
Dimitar Gueorguiev ◽  
Daniel McDowell ◽  
David A. Steinberg
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
External Threats ◽  
Economic Coercion ◽  
The Impact

In recent years, the United States has increasingly tried to change other governments’ economic policies by threatening to punish those countries if they do not change course. To better understand the political consequences of these tactics, this paper examines how external threats influence public support for policy change in targeted states. We consider three mechanisms through which economic coercion might alter public opinion: by changing individuals’ interests, by activating their national identities, and by providing them with new information about a policy’s distributive effects. To test these rival explanations, we focus on the case of China–US currency relations. Using data from a survey experiment of Chinese internet users, we find strong support for the informational updating theory. Our evidence suggests that economic coercion can reduce support for policy change because it leads individuals to update their beliefs about who wins and loses from economic policy changes.

The Representation of the U.S.-Mexico Border in Television News: Textual Analysis on Bodies and Security Enforcement

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (29) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Gonzalez Hernandez
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Television News ◽  
The United States ◽  
Border Region ◽  
Local Network ◽  
News Reports ◽  
Mexico Border ◽  
United States Mexico ◽  
The U.S

This article analyzes how television news has enhanced the role of representation of the United States-Mexico border in themes such as immigration, theme represented in “spectacular” ways related to “warfare”. Using textual analysis on TV reports, my aim is to show how local television network news in the United States (NBC) and Mexico (Televisa) construct the representation of the U.S./Mexico border through a particular conflicting vision to account for border enforcements and interventions on both sides and with similar visual strategies. The analysis centers on actual “visual text” or television news reports, which tries to demonstrates how assumptions guide the activity of local network coverage, and how, at the same time, limits what is reported in news. This consequently contributes to the perpetuation of a representation related to ¨crisis¨ in the border region.

scholarly journals Acceptability of App-Based Contact Tracing for COVID-19: Cross-Country Survey Study (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Altmann ◽  
Luke Milsom ◽  
Hannah Zillessen ◽  
Raffaele Blasone ◽  
Frederic Gerdon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Phone ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Survey Study ◽  
Contact Tracing ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
User Acceptability ◽  
The Government ◽  
Viable Approach

BACKGROUND The COVID-19 pandemic is the greatest public health crisis of the last 100 years. Countries have responded with various levels of lockdown to save lives and stop health systems from being overwhelmed. At the same time, lockdowns entail large socioeconomic costs. One exit strategy under consideration is a mobile phone app that traces the close contacts of those infected with COVID-19. Recent research has demonstrated the theoretical effectiveness of this solution in different disease settings. However, concerns have been raised about such apps because of the potential privacy implications. This could limit the acceptability of app-based contact tracing in the general population. As the effectiveness of this approach increases strongly with app uptake, it is crucial to understand public support for this intervention. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study is to investigate the user acceptability of a contact-tracing app in five countries hit by the pandemic. METHODS We conducted a largescale, multicountry study (N=5995) to measure public support for the digital contact tracing of COVID-19 infections. We ran anonymous online surveys in France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We measured intentions to use a contact-tracing app across different installation regimes (voluntary installation vs automatic installation by mobile phone providers) and studied how these intentions vary across individuals and countries. RESULTS We found strong support for the app under both regimes, in all countries, across all subgroups of the population, and irrespective of regional-level COVID-19 mortality rates. We investigated the main factors that may hinder or facilitate uptake and found that concerns about cybersecurity and privacy, together with a lack of trust in the government, are the main barriers to adoption. CONCLUSIONS Epidemiological evidence shows that app-based contact tracing can suppress the spread of COVID-19 if a high enough proportion of the population uses the app and that it can still reduce the number of infections if uptake is moderate. Our findings show that the willingness to install the app is very high. The available evidence suggests that app-based contact tracing may be a viable approach to control the diffusion of COVID-19.

scholarly journals Support for Minimum Legal Sales Age Laws Set to Age 21 Across Australia, Canada, England, and United States: Findings From the 2018 ITC Four Country Smoking and Vaping Survey

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (12) ◽  
pp. 2266-2270
Author(s):  
Summer Sherburne Hawkins ◽  
Janet Chung-Hall ◽  
Lorraine Craig ◽  
Geoffrey T Fong ◽  
Ron Borland ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Household Income ◽  
Smoking Status ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Support ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Former Smokers ◽  
Sectional Analysis

Abstract Introduction Although the United States has seen a rapid increase in tobacco minimum legal sales age (MLSA) laws set to age 21, there is wide variation across high-income countries and less is known about policy support outside of the United States. We examined the prevalence of support for tobacco MLSA 21 laws as well as associations by sociodemographic, smoking, and household characteristics among current and former adult smokers. Methods In this cross-sectional analysis, we used the 2018 International Tobacco Control Four Country Smoking and Vaping Survey to examine support for MLSA 21 laws among 12 904 respondents from Australia, Canada, England, and United States. Results Support for raising the legal age of purchasing cigarettes/tobacco to 21 ranged from 62.2% in the United States to 70.8% in Canada. Endorsement also varied by age, such that 40.6% of 18–20 years old supported the policy compared with 69.3% of those aged ≥60 years. In the adjusted regression model, there was also higher support among respondents who were female than male, non-white than white, those who did not allow smoking in the household than those that did, and those who had children in the household than those that did not. There were no differences by household income, education, or smoking status. Conclusions Most current and former smokers, including a sizable minority of those aged ≤20 years, support raising the legal age of purchasing cigarettes/tobacco to 21. Implications There was strong support for MLSA 21 laws among smokers and former smokers across Australia, Canada, England, and the United States, providing evidence for the increasing public support of the passage of these laws beyond the United States.

scholarly journals Misinformation Regarding 5G and COVID-19 and the Psychological Mechanism Behind Them

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. p56
Author(s):  
Yufan Chen
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Field ◽  
Conspiracy Theory ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
News Reports ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
Psychological Mechanism

In late 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic started to spread around the world (Fauci, Lane, & Redfield, 2020). Along with the virus, misinformation about the pandemic started to spread as well. Rumors regarding the usefulness of masks, conspiracy theories regarding the legitimacy and origin of the virus, and the astonishing amount of fake news about the virus posted online every day are extremely hard to distinguish from factual news reports (Mian & Khan, 2020; Brennan, Simon, Howard, & Nielson, 2020). One example of this alarming phenomenon is the conspiracy theory that links the pandemic to 5G, which is in the early stages of being commercialized (Shafi et al., 2017). This conspiracy theory claims that 5G and the radiation it causes disrupted the natural magnetic field of the earth, and started this pandemic (Geary, 2020). Though it might look like an absurd concept, the “5G causes Corona” conspiracy theory has gained an extremely large following, and the effect of that is clear on and off the internet, as multiple 5G antennas have been vandalized all over the world by mobs claiming they are the means of spreading the coronavirus (Reichert, 2020). The fabrication and spreading of misinformation regarding 5G and its link to the coronavirus are largely connected with the multiple psychological mechanisms and manipulation of sources.

scholarly journals Acceptability of App-Based Contact Tracing for COVID-19: Cross-Country Survey Study

10.2196/19857 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. e19857 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Altmann ◽  
Luke Milsom ◽  
Hannah Zillessen ◽  
Raffaele Blasone ◽  
Frederic Gerdon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Phone ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Survey Study ◽  
Contact Tracing ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
User Acceptability ◽  
The Government ◽  
Viable Approach

Background The COVID-19 pandemic is the greatest public health crisis of the last 100 years. Countries have responded with various levels of lockdown to save lives and stop health systems from being overwhelmed. At the same time, lockdowns entail large socioeconomic costs. One exit strategy under consideration is a mobile phone app that traces the close contacts of those infected with COVID-19. Recent research has demonstrated the theoretical effectiveness of this solution in different disease settings. However, concerns have been raised about such apps because of the potential privacy implications. This could limit the acceptability of app-based contact tracing in the general population. As the effectiveness of this approach increases strongly with app uptake, it is crucial to understand public support for this intervention. Objective The objective of this study is to investigate the user acceptability of a contact-tracing app in five countries hit by the pandemic. Methods We conducted a largescale, multicountry study (N=5995) to measure public support for the digital contact tracing of COVID-19 infections. We ran anonymous online surveys in France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We measured intentions to use a contact-tracing app across different installation regimes (voluntary installation vs automatic installation by mobile phone providers) and studied how these intentions vary across individuals and countries. Results We found strong support for the app under both regimes, in all countries, across all subgroups of the population, and irrespective of regional-level COVID-19 mortality rates. We investigated the main factors that may hinder or facilitate uptake and found that concerns about cybersecurity and privacy, together with a lack of trust in the government, are the main barriers to adoption. Conclusions Epidemiological evidence shows that app-based contact tracing can suppress the spread of COVID-19 if a high enough proportion of the population uses the app and that it can still reduce the number of infections if uptake is moderate. Our findings show that the willingness to install the app is very high. The available evidence suggests that app-based contact tracing may be a viable approach to control the diffusion of COVID-19.

scholarly journals Does Trust in Government Increase Support for Redistribution? Evidence from Randomized Survey Experiments

2020 ◽  
Vol 114 (2) ◽  
pp. 596-602
Author(s):  
KYLE PEYTON
Keyword(s):  
Public Support ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
The United States ◽  
Trust In Government ◽  
Regression Analyses ◽  
Randomized Experiments ◽  
National Surveys ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
Theoretical Predictions

Why have decades of high and rising inequality in the United States not increased public support for redistribution? An established theory in political science holds that Americans’ distrust of government decreases their support for redistribution, but empirical support draws primarily on regression analyses of national surveys. I discuss the untestable assumptions required for identification with regression modeling and propose an alternative design that uses randomized experiments about political corruption to identify the effect of trust in government on support for redistribution under weaker assumptions. I apply this to three survey experiments and estimate the effects that large, experimentally induced increases in political trust have on support for redistribution. Contrary to theoretical predictions, estimated effects are substantively negligible, statistically indistinguishable from zero, and comparable to estimates from two placebo experiments. I discuss implications for theory building about causes of support for redistribution in an era of rising inequality and eroding confidence in government.

scholarly journals Does Trust in Government Increase Support for Redistribution? Evidence from Randomized Survey Experiments

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle Peyton
Keyword(s):  
Public Support ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
The United States ◽  
Trust In Government ◽  
Regression Analyses ◽  
Randomized Experiments ◽  
National Surveys ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
Theoretical Predictions

Why have decades of high and rising inequality in the United States not increased public support for redistribution? An established theory in political science holds that Americans’ distrust of government decreases their support for redistribution, but empirical support draws primarily on regression analyses of national surveys. I discuss the untestable assumptions required for identification with regression modeling and propose an alternative design that uses randomized experiments about political corruption to identify the effect of trust in government on support for redistribution under weaker assumptions. I apply this to three survey experiments and estimate the effects that large, experimentally-induced increases in political trust have on support for redistribution. Contrary to theoretical predictions, estimated effects are substantively negligible, statistically indistinguishable from zero, and comparable to estimates from two placebo experiments. I discuss implications for theory-building about causes of support for redistribution in an era of rising inequality and eroding confidence in government.

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