1,721,005 research outputs found
Money and Time Scarcity: Implications for Economic Decision Making
Full text linkPoverty, as a multidimensional concept, includes economic and political elements, as well as social and psychological components. The study of poverty has received much attention in psychological science and in the study of the cognitive consequences of this condition. Mullainathan and Shafir (2013) defined the concept of scarcity as the perception of not having enough. Several studies have investigated the link between scarcity and cognitive ability, suggesting that scarcity imposes additional burdens on people’s mind, through taxing their attention (Mullainathan & Shafir, 2012, 2013). Supporting these results, Mani, Mullainathan, Shafir, and Zhao (2013) suggested that being poor means facing not only with a shortfall of economic resources but also with a contemporary shortfall of cognitive resources. The poor, in this perspective, are less capable not because of intrinsic traits, but because of the very context of poverty, with its related concerns, imposes load and impedes cognitive capacity. Generally, these cognitive resources deficiencies are common in people living in a state of scarcity, which is not necessarily related to money, but that may encounter time constrain (So & Agrawal, 2008) or physical hunger (Briers, Pandelaere, Dewitte, & Warlop, 2006), indicating a common mindset in those who experience the perception of not having enough resources.
Considering the high economic insecurity experienced in many parts of the world and the generalizability of the consequences of the scarcity, the main goal of my dissertation is to determine whether a scarcity mindset is immutable or if it is influenced by contextual factors (e.g. how information is framed). Through three different sets of studies, I investigated how experiencing a condition of scarcity affects individuals’ ability to evaluate resources and their economic decisions. Specifically, in Chapter 2, I reported a set of studies in which I examined the effect of monetary scarcity on the economic decision. I assume that people experiencing a condition of monetary scarcity will be less accurate when making economic decisions and more prone to make, in general, suboptimal and inconvenient decision. While, in Chapter 3, I investigated how the experience of scarcity of money compared to scarcity of time impacts allocation trade-offs between both these two resources. I hypothesized that, as a resource, time (vs. money) would be undervalued, regardless of the type of scarcity people were experiencing. Results from these studies shown that there is a common scarcity mindset that characterizes the perception of not having enough. Interestingly, by investigating the tradeoff between time and money when one of these resources is perceived as scarce, people tend to perceive the relevance of the money rather than time as predominant.
In the last set of studies, in Chapter 4, I investigated, through three studies, the effect of economic scarcity on the perception of the real (vs. nominal) value of the money. Based on previous research on the money illusion bias, I hypothesized that people experiencing scarcity should be less able to think in terms of the real value of the money, as compared to people that did not experience scarcity. The results confirmed that participants experiencing a condition of scarcity were more prone to experience the money illusion bias, indicating that those participants were more likely to consider the nominal value of money, instead of its real value.
It is relevant to build on and extend a deeper understanding of scarcity, especially because the psychology of scarcity will offer substantial practical implications to individuals, practitioners, and policy-makers. A better understanding of what triggers a scarcity mindset could help prevent its often-detrimental downstream consequences in people daily lives and try to point to effective solutions
Joint analysis of the intention to vaccinate and to use contact tracing app during the COVID-19 pandemic
Full text link: Pharmacological and non-pharmacological measures will overlap for a period after the onset of the pandemic, playing a strong role in virus containment. We explored which factors influence the likelihood to adopt two different preventive measures against the COVID-19 pandemic. An online snowball sampling (May-June 2020) collected a total of 448 questionnaires in Italy. A Bayesian bivariate Gaussian regression model jointly investigated the willingness to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and to download the national contact tracing app. A mixed-effects cumulative logistic model explored which factors affected the motivation to adopt one of the two preventive measures. Despite both COVID-19 vaccines and tracing apps being indispensable tools to contain the spread of SARS-CoV-2, our results suggest that adherence to the vaccine or to the national contact tracing app is not predicted by the same factors. Therefore, public communication on these measures needs to take in consideration not only the perceived risk associated with COVID-19, but also the trust people place in politics and science, their concerns and doubts about vaccinations, and their employment status. Further, the results suggest that the motivation to comply with these measurements was predominantly to protect others rather than self-protection
Associations of COVID-19 risk perception with vaccine hesitancy over time for Italian residents
Full text linkVaccination and contact tracing apps as preventive measures against the COVID-19 pandemic: Which similarities and which differences?
No full textPromoting the energy transition: The role of decision context and climate risk in the investment in solar versus nuclear energy
No full textThe energy transition requires modernizing the energy sector and investing in alternatives to fossil fuels. Both nuclear and renewable energies are potential solutions to lower carbon emissions, although nuclear power is generally less favored by public opinion. We investigated whether support and feelings for solar farms and nuclear power plants construction vary depending on whether these energy sources are evaluated separately (SE) or jointly (JE). We also examined how climate change risk perception influences willingness to invest (WTI) in these power plants and their perceived risks. Results confirmed that solar farms elicited more positive attitudes and feelings than nuclear power plants. Crucially, when evaluated in JE (vs. SE), solar farms were viewed even more positively and received greater support, whereas nuclear plants were perceived more negatively. Climate change risk perception correlated with the perception of nuclear plants as riskier and solar farms as less risky. There was marginally significant evidence that the former relationship emerged only in SE, whereas the latter was more pronounced in SE (vs. JE). Furthermore, climate change risk perception positively predicted the WTI in solar farms, but only in JE. In contrast, the WTI in nuclear power remained unaffected in both contexts. Finally, the perceived risk of each energy source was negatively associated with the WTI in them. These results offer insights into the psychological factors influencing people's perception and support for alternative energy infrastructures and can help develop effective communication strategies to facilitate a smooth and successful energy transition
To vaccinate or not to vaccinate? The interplay between pro- and against- vaccination reasons
Full text linkBackground By mid 2023, European countries reached 75% of vaccine coverage for COVID-19 and although vaccination rates are quite high, many people are still hesitant. A plethora of studies have investigated factors associated with COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, however, insufficient attention has been paid to the reasons why people get vaccinated against COVID-19. Our work aims to investigate the role of reasons in the decision to get vaccinated against COVID-19 in a representative sample of 1,689 adult Italians (March-April 2021) balanced in terms of age, gender, educational level and area of residence.Methods Through an online questionnaire, we asked participants to freely report up to three reasons for and against COVID-19 vaccination, and the weight each had in the decision to get vaccinated. We first investigated the role of emotional competence and COVID-19 risk perception in the generation of both reasons using regression models. Next, we studied the role that the different reasons had in the vaccination decision, considering both the intention to vaccinate (using a beta regression model) and the decision made by the participants who already had the opportunity to get vaccinated (using a logistic regression model). Finally, two different classification tree analyses were carried out to characterize profiles with a low or high willingness to get vaccinated or with a low or high probability to accept/book the vaccine.Results High emotional competence positively influences the generation of both reasons (ORs > 1.5), whereas high risk perception increases the generation of positive reasons (ORs > 1.4) while decreasing reasons against vaccination (OR = 0.64). As pro-reasons increase, vaccination acceptance increases, while the opposite happens as against-reasons increase (all p < 0.001). One strong reason in favor of vaccines is enough to unbalance the decision toward acceptance of vaccination, even when reasons against it are also present (p < 0.001). Protection and absence of distrust are the reasons that mostly drive willingness to be vaccinated and acceptance of an offered vaccine.Conclusions Knowing the reasons that drive people's decision about such an important choice can suggest new communication insights to reduce possible negative reactions toward vaccination and people's hesitancy. Results are discussed considering results of other national and international studies
Does climate change risk perception influence people’s intention to invest in solar farms vs. nuclear power plants?
Full text linkIn the hottest year so far, the COP28 ended with a global pact aiming at “transitioning away from fossil fuels” to tackle climate change. Such transition implies an energy sector’s large-scale modernization, with particular interest in nuclear and renewable energies. Previous research has consistently found that nuclear energy is generally perceived as riskier than solar energy. However, people’s support for large-scale installations to produce solar energy - solar farms - has been little investigated, but it is necessary to rigorously compare solar and nuclear energies. Further, we explored the role of climate change risk perception in this framework. We ran an online survey with a convenient Italian sample (752 participants, 39.3 ± 16.6 y.o., 57% females), implementing a three-between-subjects design using a separate (SE) vs. joint evaluation (JE; Hsee, 1996) of two energy sources: solar farms and nuclear power plants. Thus, depending on the condition, participants were given information about either solar farms, nuclear power plants, or both. Subsequently, they were asked about their energy risk perception, and their willingness to invest public funding (WTPF) in either energy source. Further, participants were asked to report their climate change risk perception. We found that people perceived solar farms as less risky than nuclear power plants, both in SE and JE. Furthermore, people were more WTPF in solar farms than in nuclear power plants, and it also depended on their energy perceived risk. Specifically, for both energy sources, the more people perceived them as risky and the less they were WTPF in them. Finally, exploratory analyses revealed that when comparing the two energy sources in the SE conditions, the interaction between condition and climate change risk perception predicts the energy perceived risk. Specifically, in the case of solar farms, the more risky people perceived climate change and the less risky they perceived the solar farms’ energy. On the contrary, in the case of nuclear power plants, the more risky people perceived climate change and the more risky they perceived the nuclear energy produced by nuclear power plants. Similar results have been found also when people saw information about both energy sources (i.e., in JE). The present study contributes to understanding the psychological mechanism driving people’s perception and decision to support different energy sources and therefore have a great impact on effective communication. These results will be valuable for researchers, behavioral scientists, and policymakers working on climate change
Emotional intelligence buffers the effect of physiological arousal on dishonesty
Full text linkWe studied the emotional processes that allow people to balance two competing desires: benefitting from dishonesty and keeping a positive self-image. We recorded physiological arousal (skin conductance and heart rate) during a computer card game in which participants could cheat and fail to report a certain card when presented on the screen to avoid losing their money. We found that higher skin conductance corresponded to lower cheating rates. Importantly, emotional intelligence regulated this effect; participants with high emotional intelligence were less affected by their physiological reactions than those with low emotional intelligence. As a result, they were more likely to profit from dishonesty. However, no interaction emerged between heart rate and emotional intelligence. We suggest that the ability to manage and control emotions can allow people to overcome the tension between doing right or wrong and license them to bend the rules
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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