Good news reduces trust in government and its efficacy: The case of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine announcement

The announcement of Pfizer/BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine success on November 9, 2020 led to a global stock market surge. But how did the general public respond to such good news? We leverage the unexpected vaccine announcement to assess the effect of good news on citizens’ government evaluations, anxiety, beliefs and elicited behaviors in the US and the UK. While most outcomes were unaffected by the news, trust in government and elected politicians (and their competency) saw a significant decline in both countries. As the news did not concern the governments, and the governments did not have time to act on the news, our results suggest that the decline of trust is more likely explained by the psychological impact of good news on reasoning style. In particular, we suggest two possible styles of reasoning that might explain our results: a form of motivated reasoning and a reasoning heuristic of relative comparison.

The Double Framing Effect of Emotive Metaphors in Argumentation

In argumentation, metaphors are often considered as ambiguous or deceptive uses of language leading to fallacies of reasoning. However, they can also provide useful insights into creative argumentation, leading to genuinely new knowledge. Metaphors entail a framing effect that implicitly provides a specific perspective to interpret the world, guiding reasoning and evaluation of arguments. In the same vein, emotions could be in sharp contrast with proper reasoning, but they can also be cognitive processes of affective framing, influencing our reasoning and behavior in different meaningful ways. Thus, a double (metaphorical and affective) framing effect might influence argumentation in the case of emotive metaphors, such as “Poverty is a disease” or “Your boss is a dictator,” where specific “emotive words” (disease, dictator) are used as vehicles. We present and discuss the results of two experimental studies designed to explore the role of emotive metaphors in argumentation. The studies investigated whether and to what extent the detection of a fallacious argument is influenced by the presence of a conventional vs. novel emotive metaphor. Participants evaluated a series of verbal arguments containing either “non-emotive” or “emotive” (positive or negative) metaphors as middle terms that “bridge” the premises of the argument. The results show that the affective coherence of the metaphor's vehicle and topic plays a crucial role in participants' reasoning style, leading to global heuristic vs. local analytical interpretive processes in the interplay of the metaphorical and the affective framing effects.

Judging accidental harm: The interplay between harm severity and intention towards the victim

When judging a perpetrator who harmed someone accidentally, humans rely on distinct cognitive processes: one that focuses on the victim’s harm and condemns the perpetrator, and another one that examines the perpetrator’s intention and exculpates the perpetrator. The present study investigates how individuals (as third-parties) solve the cognitive tension generated by the judgment of accidental harm by simultaneously manipulating harm severity, the perpetrator’s intention, and by determining the effect of reasoning style. In two pre-registered experiments, participants recruited online completed a moral judgment task consisting of short narratives which depicted the interaction between a perpetrator and a victim in a daily life context. We assessed how participants perceived the perpetrator’s behavior as wrong, blameworthy, and punishment-deserving. In experiment 1 (N = 224), we manipulated the perpetrator’s intent to harm (accidental vs. intentional harm) and the severity of outcome for the victim (mild vs. severe harm). In experiment 2 (N = 210), we used accidental harm scenarios in which we manipulated the perpetrator’s intention towards the victim (positive vs. neutral) and outcome severity (mild vs. severe harm). We additionally assessed participants’ reasoning style in both experiments and explored its role in modulating moral judgment. As expected, participants’ judgment of wrongness and punishment were harsher following severe harm relative to mild harm (experiments 1 and 2), and following intentional as compared to accidental harm (experiment 1). Moreover, participants were more lenient with the perpetrator of accidental harm whose intention towards the victim was positive (experiment 2). Importantly, in both experiments, the perpetrator’s intent not only interacted with outcome severity but also polarized moral judgments in participants with a more deliberative reasoning style, especially following mild harm. These findings extend previous studies by showing that harm severity modulates moral judgment and interacts with intent and reasoning style to shape moral judgment of accidents.

Emotions, reasoning, and mental health as predictors of behavior during three phases of the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has required people worldwide to adjust their behavior for several months in response to a crisis of rare proportions. Little is known about the specific factors that affected the progression of the public’s reactions during the pandemic. Individual factors associated with pandemic-related behavior in general, and compliance with public health measures in particular, are not firmly established. We undertook a survey of behavior, emotions, reasoning style, and mental health in the province of Quebec at the beginning, the peak, and the aftermath of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. We recruited 530 responders from a convenience sample; 154 responders participated in all three surveys. Emotions were most intense at the beginning of the first wave of the pandemic, not at its peak. Responders’ compliance with three public health measures decreased between the peak and the aftermath of the first wave of the pandemic; however, mask wearing also became more common. Pandemic-related behavior in general, and compliance with public health measures specifically, were predicted by avoidance-related emotions evoked by the pandemic. Approach-related emotions linked to the societal response contributed specifically to the prediction of compliance with public health measures. In contrast, reasoning style and mental health did not as consistently predict behavior during the pandemic. Our research may help inform public health policy during other waves of the COVID-19 pandemic and future global health crises.

PROYEK “KRITIK” ABED AL-JABIRI DAN IMPLIKASINYA PADA NALAR KEISLAMAN

Critical studies in an academic study are the most important aspects that are ‘necessary’ and ‘required’ to be carried out. The existence of this critical study aims to provide a broad view on a scientific study. The aim is that the study will continue and be developed again. The hope is that there will be a contribution to a civilization of human history. Patterns of excellence and distinctiveness, as a form that knowledge is not entirely final. Abed Al-Jabiri - hereinafter written by Al-Jabiri “through his critical study, tries to offer a concept to the Arabic- Islamic reasoning style. The epistemology of Arabic-Islamic reasoning that has not yet been ‘moved on’ from longstanding history. Al-Jabiri’s criticism of the stagnation of Arab-Islamic reasoning occurs because they have not been able to get out of the ‘lullabies’ of past progress. In addition, he provided a solution so that the Arab community could get out of the chaos that befell it. Through the epistemological framework of “Burhani, Bayani, and Irfani”, he invited the Arab community - we Muslims - to not merely worship the past which was considered complete.

Tort Law and Judicial Risk Regulation: Bipolar and Multipolar Risk Reasoning in Light of Tort Law’s Regulatory Effects

Although judicial decisions in tort law primarily determine the (correlative) responsibilities and liabilities of the proceeding parties, they also have regulatory effects on non-litigants. In this contribution, these regulatory consequences of tort law will be analysed in light of a court’s quest when it decides a tort claim involving (uncertain) risks. It will be argued that decisions in tort law about uncertain risks involve the possible occurrence of a false positive (eg accepting liability for a non-existing risk) and a false negative (eg denying liability for a real risk). False positives and false negatives have adverse consequences for the parties to the proceedings but, bearing in mind the regulatory effects of tort adjudication, potentially also for non-litigants. While courts might want to avoid both, scientific uncertainties and complexities make it difficult for them to assess to what extent there is a chance of either a false positive or a false negative occurring. Therefore, they necessarily need to determine which party bears the risk of the involved errors. In addition, the question arises whether courts should also take the potential regulatory consequences of their rulings into account and, if yes, how? To that purpose, they can employ a bipolar reasoning style and a multipolar reasoning style. Although tort law is about determining the applicable rights and obligations between the plaintiff and defendant (bipolar reasoning), in light of the regulatory implications of tort law and developments in several tort systems, the relevance of considerations transcending this bipolar relationship (multipolar reasoning) is increasing. However, the possibilities for courts to engage in multipolar reasoning are restrained by the bipolar nature of tort law which gives rise to information and specialism deficits. This will be illustrated by referring to issues in relation to setting the standard of care and examining causation.

Impaired self-agency inferences in schizophrenia: The role of cognitive capacity and causal reasoning style

BackgroundThe sense of self-agency, i.e., experiencing oneself as the cause of one's own actions, is impaired in patients with schizophrenia. Normally, inferences of self-agency are enhanced when actual outcomes match with pre-activated outcome information, where this pre-activation can result from explicitly set goals (i.e., goal-based route) or implicitly primed outcome information (i.e., prime-based route). Previous research suggests that patients show specific impairments in the prime-based route, implicating that they do not rely on matches between implicitly available outcome information and actual action-outcomes when inferring self-agency. The question remains: Why? Here, we examine whether neurocognitive functioning and self-serving bias (SSB) may explain abnormalities in patients’ agency inferences.MethodsThirty-six patients and 36 healthy controls performed a commonly used agency inference task to measure goal- and prime-based self-agency inferences. Neurocognitive functioning was assessed with the Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia (BACS) and the SSB was assessed with the Internal Personal and Situational Attributions Questionnaire.ResultsResults showed a substantial smaller effect of primed outcome information on agency experiences in patients compared with healthy controls. Whereas patients and controls differed on BACS and marginally on SSB scores, these differences were not related to patients’ impairments in prime-based agency inferences.ConclusionsPatients showed impairments in prime-based agency inferences, thereby replicating previous studies. This finding could not be explained by cognitive dysfunction or SSB. Results are discussed in the context of the recent surge to understand and examine deficits in agency experiences in schizophrenia.

Motivations for avoiding wheat consumption in Australia: results from a population survey

ObjectiveTo assess the prevalence of and explanations for wheat avoidance, including reported symptoms, diagnoses and information sources influencing the decision to avoid wheat, and to investigate potential psychological predictors of this behaviour.DesignCross-sectional population survey.SettingThe study was conducted in Australia, using a nationwide postal omnibus survey.SubjectsAdults aged 18 years and over (n1184; 52·9 % female) selected at random from the Australian Electoral Roll.ResultsWith cases of stated and suspected coeliac disease (1·2 %) excluded, 7·3 % of the sample reported adverse physiological effects, predominantly gastrointestinal, that they associated with wheat consumption. Few among this group (5·7 %) claimed a formally diagnosed intolerance or allergy requiring avoidance of wheat-based foods. Symptomatic wheat avoidance was highly correlated with dairy avoidance and predicted by gender (female), lesser receptiveness to conventional medicine and greater receptiveness to complementary medicine, but not by neuroticism, reasoning style or tendency to worry about illness.ConclusionsThe data indicate that many adult Australians are consciously avoiding consumption of wheat foods, predominantly without any formal diagnosis. Reported symptoms suggest a physiological but not allergenic basis to this behaviour. Questions to be answered concern whether symptoms are attributed correctly to wheat, the agents (wheat components, dietary factors or additives) and physiological mechanism(s) involved, the nutritional adequacy of avoiders’ diets, and the clinical and psychosocial processes that lead a substantial number of adults to avoid consuming wheat (or any other dietary factor) apparently independently of a medical diagnosis.