Messaging to Reduce Booster Hesitancy among the Fully Vaccinated.

Vaccine hesitancy was a serious problem in the United States throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, due in part to the reduction in public trust in science that accompanied the pandemic. Now we are facing a new, similar but more extensive problem: booster hesitancy. Even fewer Americans are current on the mRNA booster.

The impact of probabilistic tornado warnings on risk perceptions and responses.

Many warnings issued to members of the public are deterministic in that they do not include event likelihood information. This is true of the current polygon-based tornado warning used by the American National Weather Service, although the likelihood of a tornado varies within the boundaries of the polygon. To test whether adding likelihood information benefits end users, two experimental studies and one in-person interview study were conducted.

COVID-19: Risk perception, risk communication, and behavioral intentions.

Critical to limiting the spread of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and future pandemics is compliance with behavioral recommendations such as mask wearing and social distancing. Compliance may depend upon understanding the seriousness of the health consequences and the likelihood they will occur. However, the statistics that speak to these issues in an ongoing pandemic are complex and may be misunderstood.

Risk perception, decision-making, and risk communication in the time of COVID-19.

After first being declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization [WHO], (2020) in March 2020, coronavirus disease (COVID-19) spread rapidly and in the process altered our very way of life. At the same time, it became increasingly clear that a wide range of new behavioral science research was necessary to understand fully how people comprehend and respond to such an unprecedented and long lasting health threat as COVID-19. One of the primary aims for this Special Issue was to gather and publish that research.

Explaining how long CO₂ stays in the atmosphere: Does it change attitudes toward climate change?

Despite overwhelming scientific consensus about climate change, the majority of Americans are not very worried about it. This may be due in part to insufficient understanding of the urgency and seriousness, which may be related among some, to distrust of the scientific community. We test these hypotheses in an experimental study using a broadly nationally representative sample.

Communicating weather forecast uncertainty: Do individual differences matter?

Research suggests that people make better weather-related decisions when they are given numeric probabilities for critical outcomes (Joslyn & Leclerc, 2012, 2013). However, it is unclear whether all users can take advantage of probabilistic forecasts to the same extent. The research reported here assessed key cognitive and demographic factors to determine their relationship to the use of probabilistic forecasts to improve decision quality.

Understanding clinical and non-clinical decisions under uncertainty: a scenario-based survey.

Background: Prospect theory suggests that when faced with an uncertain outcome, people display loss aversion by preferring to risk a greater loss rather than incurring certain, lesser cost. Providing probability information improves decision making towards the economically optimal choice in these situations. Clinicians frequently make decisions when the outcome is uncertain, and loss aversion may influence choices.

Climate Projections and Uncertainty Communication.

Lingering skepticism about climate change might be due in part to the way climate projections are perceived by members of the public. Variability between scientists' estimates might give the impression that scientists disagree about the fact of climate change rather than about details concerning the extent or timing. Providing uncertainty estimates might clarify that the variability is due in part to quantifiable uncertainty inherent in the prediction process, thereby increasing people's trust in climate projections.

The use of uncertainty forecasts in complex decision tasks and various weather conditions.

Recent research on weather-related decision-making suggests that the inclusion of numeric uncertainty estimates in weather forecasts improves decision quality over single value forecasts or specific advice. However, it is unclear if the benefit of uncertainty estimates extends to more complex decision tasks, presumably requiring greater cognitive effort, or to tasks in which the decision is clear-cut, perhaps making the additional uncertainty information unnecessary. In the present research, participants completed a task in which they used single value weather forecasts, either alone, with freeze probabilities, advice, or both, to decide whether to apply salt to roads in winter to prevent icing or to withhold salt and risk a penalty.

The cry wolf effect and weather-related decision making.

Despite improvements in forecasting extreme weather events, noncompliance with weather warnings among the public remains a problem. Although there are likely many reasons for noncompliance with weather warnings, one important factor might be people's past experiences with false alarms. The research presented here explores the role of false alarms in weather-related decision making.

Reducing probabilistic weather forecasts to the worst-case scenario: anchoring effects.

Many weather forecast providers believe that forecast uncertainty in the form of the worst-case scenario would be useful for general public end users. We tested this suggestion in 4 studies using realistic weather-related decision tasks involving high winds and low temperatures. College undergraduates, given the statistical equivalent of the worst-case scenario (1 boundary of the 80% predictive interval), demonstrated biased understanding of future weather conditions compared with those given both bounds or no uncertainty information.

Uncertainty forecasts improve weather-related decisions and attenuate the effects of forecast error.

Although uncertainty is inherent in weather forecasts, explicit numeric uncertainty estimates are rarely included in public forecasts for fear that they will be misunderstood. Of particular concern are situations in which precautionary action is required at low probabilities, often the case with severe events. At present, a categorical weather warning system is used.

Directed forgetting of autobiographical events.

Two diary experiments demonstrated directed forgetting (DF) of autobiographical events, previously observed only for less complex memory items. Using a 2-week diary paradigm, we compared recall between a group of participants who were directed to forget Week 1 memories (forget group) and a group who did not receive a forget instruction (remember group). In Experiment 1, the forget group remembered fewer items from Week 1 than did the remember group.