Does reductive information increase satisfaction with scientific explanations? Three preregistered tests of the reductive allure effect.

Understanding information processing biases is critical for improving scientific literacy. Research suggests that people rate scientific explanations with reductive jargon (e.g.

Understanding family-level decision-making when seeking access to acute surgical care for children: Protocol for a cross-sectional mixed methods study.

Background: There is limited understanding of how social determinants of health (SDOH) impact family decision-making when seeking surgical care for children. Our objectives of this study are to identify key family experiences that contribute to decision-making when accessing surgical care for children, to confirm if family experiences impact delays in care, and to describe differences in family experiences across populations (race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, rurality).

Methods: We will use a prospective, cross-sectional, mixed methods design to examine family experiences during access to care for children with appendicitis.

Toward a Comprehensive, Data-Driven Model of American Political Goals: Recognizing the "Values" and "Vices" Within Both Liberalism and Conservativism.

When a person indicates they are "liberal" or "conservative," an important part of what they are communicating is their for how they would like society to be structured. However, past theories have described these goals in dramatically different fashions, suggesting that either conservativism or liberalism reflects a divisive or unifying goal. To help overcome this impasse, we systematically compared a broad, representative sample of all possible higher-order goals (drawn a previous lexical investigation of more than 1,000 goals) to the political ideology of American adults (total = 1,588).

Getting COVID-19: Anticipated negative emotions are worse than experienced negative emotions.

Objective: When people think about negative events that may occur in the future, they tend to overestimate their emotional reactions, and these "affective forecasts" can influence their present behavior (Wilson and Gilbert, 2003). The present research examined affective forecasting for COVID-19 infection including the associations between emotions and preventive intentions and behavior.

Methods: In two studies, we compared individuals' anticipated emotions and recalled emotions for COVID-19 infection.

The Naturalness Bias Influences Drug and Vaccine Decisions across Cultures.

The naturalness bias - preferring natural to synthetic drugs or vaccines - occurred across cultures (Americans, Canadians, and Chinese).Chinese participants showed a stronger naturalness bias than Americans did when the medical context was focused on vaccination, and safety concerns mediated this effect.The naturalness bias may influence medical decision making across cultures, but Chinese participants may be more sensitive to naturalness in a vaccine context.

Development and Validation of the Single-Item Mindfulness Scale (SIMS).

Mindfulness is a focused attention to and acceptance of present experiences. Although several reliable and valid multi-item measures of trait mindfulness exist, researchers may sometimes want a short and quick measure of mindfulness. In this project, we developed and validated the Single-Item Mindfulness Scale (SIMS) to assess trait mindfulness.

Religiosity and the Naturalness Bias in Drug and Vaccine Choices.

Research reveals a bias for natural versus synthetic drugs. We sought to determine if this bias is associated with religiosity. Three cross-sectional studies (N = 1399 U.

What is the "opposite" of a value? A lexical investigation into the structure of generally undesirable goal content.

Objectives: Past taxonomies of goal-content have focused (either exclusively or predominantly) on generally-desirable values, and they suggest that some values oppose other values. However, many goals are generally-undesirable (i.e.

Evaluation of the moderated-expression and differential configuration hypotheses in the context of "successful" or "noncriminal" psychopathy.

The concept of "successful" psychopathy has intrigued the field, yet relatively little actual science exists to understand what makes those high in psychopathic traits more or less successful, or even what constitutes "success." In the current study, we examined the validity of the moderated expression hypothesis, including an elaborated version that considers differential configuration of psychopathy traits, as accounting for differences in criminal and noncriminal (the most common operationalization of "success") expressions of psychopathy. The latter was conceptualized from the perspective of the triarchic psychopathy model.

Be Responsible?

The bystander effect reveals that people are less likely to help a person in need when others are present. We examined the impact of priming the concept of responsibility on the bystander effect in a field study. Lone pedestrians ( = 259) were randomly assigned to a two (Bystanders: none and three nonresponsive bystanders) by two (Shirt: blank shirt and shirt with "Be Responsible" written on the front) design.

Social psychology and COVID-19: What the field can tell us about behavior in a pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc in the lives of people around the world. Pandemics are powerful situations that can be examined from a social psychological lens. In this special section, four articles present data collected before and during the pandemic, providing a type of quasi-experimental design that helped examine the impact of the pandemic on social behavior.

What shall we call God? An exploration of metaphors coded from descriptions of God from a large U.S. undergraduate sample.

People use numerous metaphors to describe God. God is seen as a bearded man, light, and love. Based on metaphor theories, the metaphors people use to refer to God reflect how people think about God and could, in turn, reflect their worldview.

Trait mindfulness is negatively associated with distress related to COVID-19.

Unlabelled: Research suggests that mindfulness is associated with psychological health including a healthier response to stressors.

Objective: This research tested associations between trait mindfulness and mental health factors related to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).

Methods: Two studies (Study 1  = 248 college students; Study 2  = 300 U.

Predictors of the intention to receive a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine.

Background: It is imperative to understand the predictors of vaccine hesitancy for current and future pandemics.

Methods: A representative sample (age, race & gender) of 1054 US adults was collected in October 2020 to examine the predictors of vaccine hesitancy. Participants were asked several questions including their intention to receive a vaccine for the novel coronavirus.

Leveraging individual differences to understand grounded procedures.

We applaud the goals and execution of the target article, but note that individual differences do not receive much attention. This is a shortcoming because individual differences can play a vital role in theory testing. In our commentary, we describe programs of research of this type and also apply similar thinking to the mechanisms proposed in the target article.

Injury patients' perceptions of drink-driving: A qualitative assessment of drink-driving behavior in Moshi, Tanzania.

Background: Globally, about 2.3 billion people are current alcohol drinkers, and 283 million have an alcohol use disorder. Alcohol use while driving is a major contributor to road traffic injuries (RTI).

Alcohol stigma as it relates to drinking behaviors and perceptions of drink drivers: A mixed method study in Moshi, Tanzania.

Background: Alcohol is a leading risk factor for road traffic injury in low- and middle-income countries, such as Tanzania. This research seeks to explore the drinking patterns, perceptions, and stigma of drink driving behavior of injury patients at Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center in Moshi, Tanzania.

Methods: This mixed methods study incorporated the Perceived Alcohol Stigma (PAS), an additive Likert scale, and the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT).

Road traffic crash experience among commercial motorcyclists in Kigali, Rwanda.

Road traffic injuries (RTI) cause ∼1.2 million deaths and 50 million injuries annually, disproportionately occurring in low- and middle-income countries. Although policy changes and infrastructural developments have continued to contribute to the decrease in RTI-related deaths, limited studies have investigated the relationship between motorcycle taxi driver behaviors and RTIs in Rwanda.

Lexical derivation of the PINT taxonomy of goals: Prominence, inclusiveness, negativity prevention, and tradition.

What do people want? Few questions are more fundamental to psychological science than this. Yet, existing taxonomies disagree on both the number and content of goals. Thus, we adopted a lexical approach and investigated the structure of goal-relevant words from the natural English lexicon.

Perceptions of alcohol use among injury patients and their family members in Tanzanian society.

Alcohol is one of the leading causes of death and disability worldwide. Rates of alcohol abuse in Moshi, Tanzania, are about 2.5 times higher than the Tanzanian average.

A Behavioral Confirmation and Reduction of the Natural versus Synthetic Drug Bias.

Research reveals a biased preference for natural v. synthetic drugs; however, this research is based on self-report and has not examined ways to reduce the bias. We examined these issues in 5 studies involving 1125 participants.

Development and validation of the Single Item Trait Empathy Scale (SITES).

Empathy involves feeling compassion for others and imagining how they feel. In this article, we develop and validate the Single Item Trait Empathy Scale (SITES), which contains only one item that takes seconds to complete. In seven studies (N=5,724), the SITES was found to be both reliable and valid.

Myeloproliferative Disorders.

The emergency providers generally encounters myeloproliferative disorders (MPNs) in 1 of 2 ways: as striking laboratory abnormalities of seeming unknown consequence, or in previously diagnosed patients presenting with complications. The course of patients with MPNs is highly variable, but major complications can arise. Emergent conditions related to hyperviscosity need to be recognized early and treated aggressively.