scholarly journals Comparative experimental evidence on compliance with social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Becher ◽  
Daniel Stegmueller ◽  
Sylvain Brouard ◽  
Eric Kerrouche
Keyword(s):  
Behavioral Interventions ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Social Distancing ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Central Public Health ◽  
The Us ◽  
List Experiment ◽  
Substantial Heterogeneity ◽  
Cross National

Social distancing is a central public health measure in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, but individuals' compliance cannot be taken for granted. We use a survey experiment to examine the prevalence of non-compliance with social distancing in nine countries and test pre-registered hypotheses about individual-level characteristics associated with less social distancing. Leveraging a list experiment to control for social desirability bias, we find large cross-national variation in adherence to social distancing guidelines. Compliance varies systematically with COVID-19 fatalities and the strictness of lockdown measures. We also find substantial heterogeneity in the role of individual-level predictors. While there is an ideological gap in social distancing in the US and New Zealand, this is not the case in European countries. Taken together, our results suggest caution when trying to model pandemic health policies on other countries' experiences. Behavioral interventions targeted towards specific demographics that work in one context might fail in another.

Dilemmas of Distrust: Conspiracy Beliefs, Elite Rhetoric, and Motivated Reasoning

2021 ◽  
pp. 106591292110345
Author(s):  
Scott Radnitz
Keyword(s):  
Relative Weight ◽  
State Level ◽  
Motivated Reasoning ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Conspiracy Beliefs ◽  
The Individual

Conspiracy theories are playing an increasingly prominent role worldwide in both political rhetoric and popular belief. Previous research has emphasized the individual-level factors behind conspiracy belief but paid less attention to the role of elite framing, while focusing mostly on domestic political contexts. This study assesses the relative weight of official conspiracy claims and motivated biases in producing conspiracy beliefs, in two countries where identities other than partisanship are salient: Georgia and Kazakhstan. I report the results of a survey experiment that depicts a possible conspiracy and varies the content of official claims and relevant contextual details. The results show that motivated reasoning stemming from state-level geopolitical identities is strongly associated with higher conspiracy belief, whereas official claims have little effect on people’s perceptions of conspiracy. Respondents who exhibit higher conspiracy ideation are more likely to perceive a conspiracy but do not weight motivated biases or official claims differently from people with lower conspiratorial predispositions. The findings indicate the importance of (geopolitical) identities in shaping conspiracy beliefs and highlight some of the constraints facing elites who seek to benefit from the use of conspiracy claims.

Monetary Power Reconsidered: The Struggle between the Bundesbank and the Fed over Monetary Leadership

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 938-951 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arie Krampf
Keyword(s):  
Inflation Targeting ◽  
World Order ◽  
Institutional Power ◽  
Sequence Of Events ◽  
The Us ◽  
Macroeconomic Coordination ◽  
Monetary Order ◽  
Reserve System ◽  
Cross National

Abstract This article reexamines the theory of monetary power to explain the role of the Bundesbank (and Germany) in the emergence of the rules-based low-inflation regime in the late1980s and early 1990s. Our theory of monetary power draws on the notion of institutional power and the concept of monetary leadership, understood as the capacity to attract foreign investment, and thereby explains how domestic institutional features and contingent historical events affect countries’ external monetary power. This theory is employed to trace how the Bundesbank go-it-alone strategy in 1989 triggered a cross-national sequence of events that changed the international monetary order in a way that was consistent with the German interests. The transition was marked by a shift from the US-led pragmatist approach of international macroeconomic coordination to a rules-based approach founded on the principle of low-inflation–targeting. The article argues that this change took place despite the opposition of the Federal Reserve System (Fed) and the US Treasury. The article contributes to the literature on the decline of US hegemonic power as well as the literature on the mechanism of institutional change at the international level. It also sheds new light on current debates about the putative decline of the rules-based world order.

EXPRESS: Trust Propensity across Cultures: The Role of Collectivism

2021 ◽  
pp. 1069031X2110366
Author(s):  
Stanford A. Westjohn ◽  
Peter Magnusson ◽  
George R. Franke ◽  
Yi Peng
Keyword(s):  
Past Research ◽  
Trust Game ◽  
Outcome Variable ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Trust Propensity ◽  
Explanatory Mechanism ◽  
Level Analysis

Does collectivism influence an individual's willingness to trust others? Conflicting empirical results from past research and the role of trust in international marketing make this question important to resolve. We investigate this question across cultures and at the individual level with four studies using multiple methods. Study 1 establishes correlational evidence between societal-level collectivism and individual-level trust propensity with results from a multi-level analysis of data from over 6,000 respondents in 36 different countries. Study 2 offers an individual-level analysis using the trust game, introducing a more rigorous behavioral outcome variable. Study 3 contributes causal evidence at the individual level based on experiments in both the US and China and offers evidence of social projection as the explanatory mechanism. Finally, Study 4 demonstrates managerial relevance by using advertising to prime collectivism and assessing its effect on trust in the firm.

Between ideal and reality

2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sungae Yoo ◽  
Hye Jeong Kim ◽  
So Young Kwon
Keyword(s):  
Online Learning ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
College Instructors ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Us ◽  
Learner Interaction ◽  
National Comparison ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Cross National

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine similar and/or different perspectives on, and practices of online-learning interaction as projected by the participating educators who are from either Korea or the USA. Design/methodology/approach – In this study, the authors analyzed how college instructors from two countries, Korea and the USA, consider the role of online-learning interaction in their students' learning by interviewing nine instructors from both countries. The authors examined the educators' responses using constructivism and Confucianism as the frame of reference. Findings – The analysis showed that the US instructors tend to focus on learner-to-learner interaction, whereas Korean instructors emphasized teacher-to-learner interaction. Korean instructors perceived a gap between ideal and reality in integrating interaction as a part of online activities in the course. Originality/value – This study focuses on a cross-national comparison of online-learning interaction between Korea and the USA. Thus, it will provide practical ideas for global or multicultural user experiences on online-learning courses.

scholarly journals Retrospective economic judgments predict individual-level changes in vote preference in the US

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 272-289
Author(s):  
Hui Bai ◽  
Christopher M. Federico
Keyword(s):  
Economic Voting ◽  
Reciprocal Effects ◽  
Temporal Dimension ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
The Us ◽  
Vote Preference ◽  
Level Shifts ◽  
Over Time

While many studies have investigated what predicts citizens’ vote preferences, less is known about what predicts change in citizens’ vote preferences over time. This paper focuses on the role of judgments about national economy in the recent past (i.e., “sociotropic economic retrospections”). Two longitudinal studies show that sociotropic economic retrospections (along with partisanship, ideology, and whether incumbent is running for re-election) at a given time point predict within-person changes in vote choice over time. Furthermore, cross-lagged panel analyses found that sociotropic economic retrospections and political preferences may have reciprocal effects on each other. Together, these results illustrate the temporal dimension of economic voting by suggesting that sociotropic economic retrospections not only predict votes at single points in time, but also individual-level shifts in vote preference over time. As such, the association between sociotropic economic retrospections and vote preference is more dynamic than past literature suggests.

scholarly journals “It Would Be Better If You Can Hang Out With Different People”: An Examination of Cross-National Interaction in Postsecondary Classrooms

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Johnstone ◽  
Diana Yefanova ◽  
Gayle Woodruff ◽  
Mary Lynn Montgomery ◽  
Barbara J. Kappler
Keyword(s):  
International Students ◽  
Real World ◽  
Domestic Students ◽  
Student Interactions ◽  
Course Content ◽  
Global Perspectives ◽  
The Us ◽  
Group Interviews ◽  
Cross National

This study examines the motivations and experiences of international and domestic students on three U.S. campuses related to cross-national interactions within classroom settings. The study also examines the role of instructors in facilitating such interactions through individual and group interviews. Findings indicate that domestic students appreciate the global perspectives of international students related to course content. International students, in turn, appreciate the “real world” perspectives that domestic students provide about the US (but do not necessarily find value in their content-related comments). The implications of this study are that cross-national interactions have different meanings for different stakeholders (i.e., some perceive to benefit academically while others perceive to benefit culturally). The implications of this study relate to how instructors structure student interactions and what might be reasonable outcomes for students in international groups in postsecondary classrooms. 

Why Do People Engage in Unlawful Political Protest? Examining the Role of Authoritarianism in Illegal Protest Behavior

2021 ◽  
pp. 1532673X2110532
Author(s):  
Isabel Inguanzo ◽  
Araceli Mateos ◽  
Homero Gil de Zúñiga
Keyword(s):  
Ordinary Least Squares ◽  
Political Protest ◽  
Panel Survey ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Us ◽  
Relevant Variables ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Different Levels

Prior research on individual-level drivers of protest has primarily focused on legal protest. However, less is known about what makes people engage in unlawful protest activities. Building upon previous literature on the collective action dilemma, socialization on violent and high-risk social movements, and political psychology, we expect that illegal protest frequency varies at different levels of authoritarianism. We explore the relationship between authoritarian values and illegal protest by analyzing a two-wave panel survey data gathered in the US. The results of cross-sectional, lagged, and autoregressive ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models show that when controlling for legal protest and other relevant variables in protest behavior, authoritarianism predicts illegal protest following an inverted U-shaped relationship. In other words, average levels of authoritarianism predict more frequent engagement in illegal protest, while this frequency decreases as approaching the poles of the authoritarianism scale.

scholarly journals Digital signatures: a tool to prevent and predict dishonesty?

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-285
Author(s):  
Luka Koning ◽  
Marianne Junger ◽  
Joris van Hoof
Keyword(s):  
Digital Signature ◽  
Behavioral Interventions ◽  
Personal Characteristics ◽  
Digital Signatures ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Cast Doubt ◽  
Subsequent Behavior ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Moderating Role

AbstractDishonesty is prevalent and causes great damage to society. On an individual level, besides reaping rewards, it also carries a psychological cost for those who engage in it. This principle is used to make people more honest with behavioral interventions, one of them being the well-known ‘signature nudge’. Digital transition in society has however led to changes in the way people sign, which may affect the effectiveness of this nudge. In two experiments, the current study investigates the relationship between digital signatures and honesty, building on previous research by examining novel signature types, the moderating role of personal characteristics, effect decay, and the predicting value of digital signature characteristics. Results show no effect of any signature intervention and no unilateral relation between digital signature characteristics and subsequent behavior. These findings contrast with earlier research and cast doubt on the use of signature interventions as a tool to prevent or predict dishonest behavior.

scholarly journals Race, Gender, and Affirmative Action Attitudes in American and Canadian Universities

2015 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 18-41
Author(s):  
Ivan Katchanovski ◽  
Neil Nevitte ◽  
Stanley Rothman
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Affirmative Action ◽  
North American ◽  
Student Attitudes ◽  
Canadian Universities ◽  
The Us ◽  
Cross National ◽  
American Academic ◽  
Academic Study

Direct comparisons of American and Canadian faculty and students’ views concerning issues of race, gender, and affirmative action in higher education are rare. The 1999 North American Academic Study Survey provides a unique opportunity to analyze the role of national and positional factors in faculty and student attitudes towards race, gender, and affirmative action in the US and Canada. The findings indicate that national factors are more important than positional factors on many racial and affirmative-action issues. Differences between students and faculty are more pronounced than are cross-national variations on many gender-related issues.

scholarly journals Global adoption of personal and social mitigation behaviors during COVID-19: The role of trust & confidence

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (9) ◽  
pp. e0256159
Author(s):  
Pauline Jones ◽  
Anil Menon ◽  
Allen Hicken ◽  
Laura S. Rozek
Keyword(s):  
National Health ◽  
Physical Contact ◽  
Local Health ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Health Organizations ◽  
Health Ministry ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Cross National

What influences the adoption of SARS-CoV-2 mitigation behaviors–both personal, such as mask wearing and frequent handwashing, and social, such as avoiding large gatherings and physical contact–across countries? Understanding why some individuals are more willing to change their behavior to mitigate the spread of a pandemic will not only help us to address the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic but also to respond to future ones. Researchers have pointed to a variety of factors that may influence individual adoption of personal and social mitigation behaviors, including social inequality, risk perception, personality traits, and government policies. While not denying the importance of these factors, we argue that the role of trust and confidence has received insufficient attention to date. Our study explores whether there is a difference in the way trust and confidence in particular leaders and organizations affect individual compliance and whether this effect is consistent across different types of mitigation behaviors. Specifically, we utilize an original cross-national survey conducted during the first wave of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic (May-June 2020) to investigate how trust in scientists, medical professionals, politicians, and religious leaders and confidence in global, national, and local health organizations affects individual compliance in 16 countries/territories across five world regions. Our analyses, which control for the aforementioned factors as well as several others, suggest that trust in politicians and confidence in national health ministries have the most consistent influence on whether individuals adopt both personal and social mitigation behaviors. Across our sample, we find that greater trust in politicians is associated with lower levels of individual compliance with public health directives, whereas greater confidence in the national health ministry is associated with higher levels of individual compliance. Our findings suggest the need to understand trust and confidence as among the most important individual level characteristics driving compliance when developing and delivering messaging about the adoption of mitigation behaviors. The content of the message, it seems, will be most effective when citizens across countries trust its source. Trusted sources, such as politicians and the national health ministry, should thus consider working closely together when determining and communicating recommended health behaviors to avoid contradicting one another.

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