COVID-19 vaccine sceptics are persuaded by pro-vaccine expert consensus messaging

To further understand how to combat COVID-19 vaccination hesitancy, we examined the effects of pro-vaccine expert consensus messaging on lay attitudes of vaccine safety and intention to vaccinate. We surveyed N = 729 individuals from four countries. Regardless of its content, consensus messaging had an overall small positive effect. Most critically, the direction of the effect varied depending on the baseline attitudes of participants: consensus information improved the attitude of vaccine sceptics and uncertain individuals, while having no effect on vaccine supporters. We also analysed whether the persuasiveness of expert consensus would increase after puncturing an illusion of explanatory depth in individuals. This further manipulation had no direct effect, nor interacted with the type of expert consensus. We conclude that highlighting expert consensus may be a way to increase support toward COVID-19 vaccination in those already hesitant or sceptical with little risk of side-effects.

Effects of Exposure to COVID-19 News and Information: A Meta-Analysis of Media Use and Uncertainty-Related Responses During the Pandemic

This meta-analysis integrates 47 empirical studies, comprising 89,826 participants from 21 countries, to examine the cumulative effects and potential moderators of exposure to COVID-19 news and information on attendant emotions, appraisals, and behaviors. Overall media exposure indicated only small positive effect sizes on adverse psychological reactions, though it was moderately and positively associated with disease concern and preventive measures. Social media exposure was associated with all these responses, but traditional news media exposure was only associated with disease concern. The associations between overall media exposure and adverse psychological reactions were moderated by COVID-19 experience, healthcare profession, and country type.

School Autonomy Policies Lead to Increases in Principal Autonomy and Job Satisfaction

We explore whether decentralization of decision-making influences school principals’ subjective experience of autonomy, job demands, burnout, and job satisfaction. Using six-years of longitudinal data, we used two Australian education reforms as a natural experiment of the effect of decentralization. Exploiting state-to-state variation in the policies, we used difference-in-differences models, finding that the decentralization policies had a small influence on increasing self-perceptions of autonomy without increasing job demands. We also found that the policies had a small positive effect on job satisfaction.

Impact of Electronic Monitoring on Employees: A Meta-Analysis

Electronic monitoring is more and more widespread and affects many employees around the globe. The current meta analysis collected data of 59 independent samples (with 223 effect sizes) to estimate the effect of electronic monitoring on job satisfaction, stress, and performance. A random-effects model indicated a small negative effect of monitoring on job satisfaction, r=-.09, and a small positive effect on stress, r=.12. There was no relationship with performance, r=-.01. Even if the effects of monitoring on job satisfaction and stress are small, taking the large number of employees who are monitored for several hours a day into account, these effects may have a severe and negative impact on employees’ well-being. Performance maintenance is the main justification for the use of electronic monitoring, but the non-existing relationship of monitoring with performance questions the validity of this justification.

Psycho-Social Constraints on Naturalistic Adult Second Language Acquisition

The following study investigated a rare case of adult immersion in a second language context without prior exposure to the language. It aimed to investigate whether Length of Residence (LoR) acts as a strong index of L2 speech performance when coupled with daily exposure and interaction with first language speakers. Twenty-two females from Africa and Asia who worked as Foreign Domestic Helpers (FDH) in Omani homes and with varying LoRs performed an AX discrimination and a production task which tapped into Omani consonants and clusters that are absent from their L1s; their accent was also rated by L1 Omani listeners. Results showed a surprising lack of significance of LoR on all the production and perception measures examined. Discrimination results showed a low sensitivity to Arabic consonantal contrasts that are lacking in the L1 across all participants, and a small positive effect of L1 literacy. Production results exhibited low accuracy on all Arabic consonants and a marked foreign accent as judged by L1 listeners, with a small positive effect of L2 literacy. We argue that the nature of the interactions between FDH and employers, along with uneven power relations and social distance, counteract any advantage of LoR and the immersion setting examined here.

Soft Modeling of Military Expenditure, Income Inequality, and Profit Rate, 1988–2008

This paper investigates the nexus of military expenditure, income inequality, and profit rate, applying the non-parametric technique of Partial Least Squares Path Modeling (PLS-PM) to 21 countries for 1988–2008. The findings suggest that military expenditure has a positive effect on income inequality while income inequality has a positive impact on profit rate. In contrast, military expenditure has a (relatively small) positive effect on profit rate. However, these results change significantly once unobserved heterogeneity is considered. Accordingly, based on four segments, although the positive effect of income inequality on profit rate remains the same for each segment, for some segments, the effect of military expenditure on income inequality and profit rate become negative.

The Effect of Telehealth Interventions on Function and Quality of Life for Older Adults with Pre-Frailty or Frailty: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Telehealth interventions improve health outcomes by increasing access to care. We conducted a systematic review to synthesize evidence on the effect of telehealth interventions compared with no intervention or usual care for older adults with pre-frailty or frailty for physical function, quality of life (QOL), and frailty. We searched for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in MEDLINE, PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, Cochrane, PsycINFO, and SPORTDiscus. Two authors reviewed records and assessed risk of bias. A narrative synthesis of findings was conducted. When appropriate, the standard mean difference (SMD) was used to compare telehealth interventions with control conditions. We used GRADE to determine the certainty of the evidence. Twelve RCTs were included. Low certainty evidence highlighted positive effects for the function and mental component of QOL favoring telehealth interventions (SMD = 0.31, 95% CI = [0.15, 0.47]; and SMD = 0.43, 95% CI = [0.22, 0.64], respectively). Despite a small positive effect of telehealth interventions, insufficient, and low certainty evidence precludes making definitive recommendations.

Pension communication, knowledge, and behaviour

Many recent pension reforms require individuals to make more decisions on supplementary savings, investment choices, etc. Governments and the pension industry try to assist individuals through pension communication but little is known about the effectiveness of such policies. This paper uses Dutch longitudinal data to analyse the causal links between communication, pension knowledge, and conscious pension decision-making. A robust finding is that pension knowledge has a positive causal effect on active pension decision-making. Providing an annual pension statement might have a small positive effect on pension knowledge, but this result is sensitive to the identifying assumptions.

Effect of a COVID-19 on Social, Psychological, Economic and Health Conditions in Libya

The purpose of this paper was to measure the effect of a COVID-19 on social, psychological, economic, and health conditions in Libyan society. This study was undertaken through a questionnaire survey using the Google Form survey questionnaires in order to collect the data. A random sampling method was used from 1st June to 15th July 2020by obtaining greater insight into the issue. A result of this study revealed that the COVID-19 had a different effect on four dimensions (social, psychological economic, and health conditions). The findings of the study indicate that there is a small positive effect on social, middle, and above middle positive effects on psychological and economic respectively and high positive effect on health conditions with various percentages in Libyan society. This has been one of the first academic studies on the COVID-19 on social, psychological, economic, and health conditions addressed the Libyan society. Arguably, many of the areas covered in this study warrant more specific and in-depth investigation. The researchers hope that this paper will be beneficial to both Libyan people and the government in improving and developing the social aspects to avoid spreading COVID-19 in the future.

The (Minimal) Persuasive Advantage of Political Video over Text

Concerns about video-based political persuasion are widespread in both popular and academic circles. These concerns are predicated on the assumption that video is more persuasive than text — that is, that “seeing is believing.” To date, however, this assumption remains largely untested in the context of politics. Here we provide such a test. We begin by drawing a theoretical distinction between two dimensions of belief for which there could be an effect of video versus text: (i) one’s belief that a presented event actually occurred, and (ii) the extent to which one’s attitudes are changed. To assess these two possibilities, we ran a high-powered survey experiment (20,428 observations from n = 4808 Americans, quota-matched to the general population on age, gender, ethnicity, and geographic region). Participants were presented with a selection of both political and non-political stories; for each story, they were randomly assigned to view either a short video or an annotated transcript of the video. While we find that video significantly increases belief that the presented events occurred, the effect is very small (Cohen’s d = 0.11). Moreover, we find that video has a small positive effect on the persuasiveness of, and engagement with, non-political content — but not political content. These results suggest that fears about the unique persuasive power of video-based political messaging may be premature. Though video may seem (slightly) more believable than text, this enhanced credibility does not necessarily facilitate political persuasion.