We examined how personal values, beliefs and concerns about COVID-19, and socio-demographics, relate to two important COVID-19 preventative behaviors: willingness to get vaccinated for COVID-19 and social distancing, in 1413 Australian adults. As expected, social focus values influenced the extent of compliance with these preventative behaviors, even when controlling for beliefs and concerns about COVID-19 and socio-demographics. We also examined the persuasiveness of four different value-expressive messages promoting social distancing, in a subsample of 737 Australian adults.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Broad community acceptance of a COVID-19 vaccination will be critical for effectively halting the spread of the virus. In this study, we focus on factors that differentiate those who are undecided from those who are either willing or unwilling to accept a prospective COVID-19 vaccine.
Methods: An online survey in May 2020 assessed Australian adults' willingness to receive a COVID-19 vaccine (yes, maybe, no).
We used a mathematical modeling approach, based on a sample of 2,019 participants, to better understand what the cognitive reflection test (CRT; Frederick In Journal of Economic Perspectives, 19, 25-42, 2005) measures. This test, which is typically completed in less than 10 min, contains three problems and aims to measure the ability or disposition to resist reporting the response that first comes to mind. However, since the test contains three mathematically based problems, it is possible that the test only measures mathematical abilities, and not cognitive reflection.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Aging Hum Dev
February 2011
Consistent with the global trend to shift responsibility for retirement income provision from the public purse to individuals has been encouragement to save more and to manage investment strategy. Analyzing data from 2,300 respondents to a randomly distributed questionnaire, this article focuses on the motivational importance of social norms. The study finds injunctive social norms (what is commonly approved or disapproved of) exert greater influence than descriptive social norms (what is commonly done) in predicting retirement savings intentions.
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