The Double Bind of Communicating About Zoonotic Origins: Describing Exotic Animal Sources of COVID-19 Increases Both Healthy and Discriminatory Avoidance Intentions.

Many novel diseases are of zoonotic origin, likely including COVID-19. Describing diseases as originating from a diverse range of animals is known to increase risk perceptions and intentions to engage in preventative behaviors. However, it is also possible that communications depicting use of exotic animals as food sources may activate stereotypes of cultures at the origin of a disease, increasing discriminatory behaviors and disease stigma.

Vaccine skepticism reflects basic cognitive differences in mortality-related event frequency estimation.

Vaccines have prevented and nearly eliminated several deadly diseases, yet they face skepticism from the public. One potential driver of vaccine skepticism is how people process event frequencies such as rare adverse reactions to vaccines. Misestimations may distort the perceived risks of vaccinating.

When calculators lie: A demonstration of uncritical calculator usage among college students and factors that improve performance.

Calculators are often unnecessary to solve routine problems, though they are convenient for offloading cognitively effortful processes. However, errors can arise if incorrect procedures are used or when users fail to monitor the output for keystroke mistakes. To investigate the conditions under which people's attention are captured by errant calculator outputs (i.