1,721,007 research outputs found
Public misperceptions of European integration in the UK
No full textWe analyse public perceptions and misperceptions of European integration in the context of the Brexit referendum in the UK. Erroneous information about the EU was salient in the public domain before the referendum, but the prevalence of EU related misperceptions among voters has not yet been examined much. We use a population based survey that was conducted before the referendum to measure misperceptions in two domains: the role of the EU for the British economy and EU related costs. Hypotheses to explain misperceptions are derived from the public opinion literature and political psychology. Most voters hold misperceptions and this includes Euroskeptics as well as individuals who support the EU. Yet, misperceptions vary in systematic ways. Individuals with more education are less ill informed. In line with motivated reasoning, citizens’ perceptions are also biased by their predispositions: while many voters hold misperceptions, the magnitude of misperceptions that portray the EU negatively is greater among Euroskeptics
Partisanship and older Americans’ engagement with dubious political news
No full textStudies based on digital trace data show that older Americans visit and share dubious news sources far more often than younger cohorts, tendencies often attributed to lower levels of digital literacy. At the same time, survey experiments show that older Americans are no worse, if not better, at discerning between false and accurate news. If older Americans can identify misleading news content equally well, why are they still more likely to engage with it in observational settings? In this article, we combine survey measures and digital trace data for three nationally representative samples (N = 9,944) to argue that the existing literature overemphasizes the importance of factors like digital literacy relative to standard political variables such as political interest and partisanship, factors known to increase across the lifespan. Calcified partisanship in particular makes older Americans vulnerable to hyperpartisan news—which is highly slanted but not verified as explicitly false. High rates of engagement with this category of content, which has been examined in survey studies of older citizens less regularly in the literature, may partially explain the high rates of engagement with dubious news domains in behavioral trace data. In all, our findings have important implications for how we understand—and might intervene to reduce—high engagement among this cohort with dubious news
Shifting medical guidelines: Compliance and spillover effects for revised antibiotic recommendations
Full text linkThis is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this recordData sharing statement:
All data and analysis scripts, along with materials and analysis plan, are permanently available at the site of the trial registration. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/8NFWCRationale: Experts have recently argued that guidelines to take the full course of antibiotics are due for revision, instead recommending that patients stop when they feel better. It is unknown how communicating revised guidelines from medical experts about how long to take a course of antibiotics will affect beliefs, behavior, and trust in guidelines more generally. Objective. This study seeks to understand how revisions to long standing advice impacts the beliefs, behavior, and trust toward such guidelines from medical experts. Method: In a pre-registered experiment, we use a national sample of UK participants (N = 1,263) to test the effects of a message that reverses the prior full-course guideline (versus a status quo message to take the full course). We also test a secondary intervention that emphasizes that medical guidance and evidence may change over time. Results: Early stoppage messages significantly shifted personal beliefs and perceived expert consensus about early stoppage (a shift of 16%, 95% CI: 13.8% to 17.9%, p <.001) and behavioral intent (a shift of 19%, 95% CI: 15.3 to 21.8%, p < .001) in the intended direction. Yet, the new guideline also slightly decreased acceptance of uncertainty about future guidelines (a decrease of 2%, 95% CI: 0.2% to 3.1%, p = .022) and general intention to comply with other guidelines in the future (a decrease of 6%, 95% CI: 2.6% to 8.4%, p < .001); it did not affect perceptions of medical researchers’ or doctors’ credibility or respondents’ epistemic efficacy. Prior belief about early stoppage did not moderate receptivity to messages. Notably, though, we also find receptivity to early stoppage messages was contingent on deference to experts. We find no effect of a secondary intervention that emphasizes that medical guidance and evidence may change over time. Conclusions. Overall, our findings suggest the (U.K.) public is likely to accept new guidelines that change long standing advice to take a full course of antibiotics. While respondents show wariness about further future revisions, these data do not show that changing guidelines undermines trust in the experts that produce them
The politics of vaccine hesitancy in Europe
Full text linkBACKGROUND: Vaccine hesitancy threatens public health. Some evidence suggests that vaccine hesitancy in Europe may be linked with the success of populist parties, but more systematic analysis is needed. METHODS: We examine the prevalence of individual-level vaccine hesitancy across the European Union (EU) and its association with political orientations. We also analyze whether success of populist parties is linked with vaccine hesitancy and uptake. We draw on individual-level Eurobarometer data from 2019, with a total of 27 524 respondents across the EU. We also rely on national and regional-level populist party vote shares. Finally, for a time-series analysis, we rely on aggregated populist party support as measured in the European Social Survey waves 1–9 (2002–18), and national immunization coverage rates from the WHO from 2002 to 2018. RESULTS: While vaccine hesitancy is confined to a minority of the population, this group is large enough to risk herd immunity. Political orientations on a left-right dimension are not strongly linked to vaccine hesitancy. Instead, vaccine hesitancy is associated with anti-elite world views and culturally closed rather than cosmopolitan positions. CONCLUSIONS: Vaccine hesitancy is not only present in all EU member states but also maps on broader dimensions of cultural conflict. Hesitancy is rooted in a broader worldview, rather than misperceptions about health risks. Pro-vaccine interventions need to consider the underlying worldview, rather than simply targeting misperceptions
Not Just Asking Questions: Effects of Implicit and Explicit Conspiracy Information About Vaccines and Genetic Modification
Full text linkThis is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Taylor & Francis (Routledge) via the DOI in this record.While conspiracy ideation has attracted overdue attention from social scientists in recent years, little work focuses on how different pro-conspiracy messages affect the take-up of conspiracy beliefs. In this study, we compare the effect of explicit and implicit conspiracy cues on the adoption of conspiracy beliefs. We also examine whether corrective information can undo conspiracy cues, and whether there are differences in the effectiveness of corrective information based on whether a respondent received an explicit or implicit conspiracy cue. We examine these questions using a real-world but low-salience conspiracy theory concerning Zika, GM mosquitoes, and vaccines. Using a preregistered experiment (N = 1018: https://osf.io/hj2pw/), we find that both explicit and implicit conspiracy cues increase conspiracy beliefs, but in both cases corrections are generally effective. We also find reception of an explicit conspiracy cue and its correction is conditional on feelings toward the media and pharmaceutical companies. Finally, we find that examining open-ended conspiracy belief items reveals similar patterns, but with a few key differences. These findings have implications for how news media cover controversial public health issues going forward.European Research Counci
How Politics Shape Views Toward Fact-Checking: Evidence from Six European Countries
No full textFact-checking has spread internationally, in part to confront the rise of digital disinformation campaigns. American studies suggests ideological asymmetry in attitudes toward fact-checking, as well as greater acceptance of the practice among those more interested in and knowledgeable about politics. We examine attitudes toward fact-checking across six European counties to put these findings in a broader context (N = 6,067). We find greater familiarity with and acceptance of fact-checking in Northern Europe (Sweden and Germany) than elsewhere (Italy, Spain, France, and Poland). We further find two dimensions of political antipathy: a left–right dimension and an “anti-elite” dimension (including dissatisfaction with democracy and negative feelings toward the European Union), the latter of which more consistently predicts negative feelings toward fact-checkers in the countries examined. Our findings demonstrate that despite general acceptance of the movement, significant political divides remain. Those less likely to trust fact-checkers could be more vulnerable to disinformation targeting these divides, leading to a spiral of cynicism
Association of vaccine hesitancy and immunization coverage rates in the European Union
No full textWhile previous studies have validated vaccine hesitancy scales with uptake behavior at the individual level, the conditions under which aggregated survey data are useful are less clear. We show that vaccine public opinion data aggregated at the subnational level can serve as a valid indicator of aggregate vaccine behaviour. We use a public opinion survey (Eurobarometer EB 91.2) with data on vaccine hesitancy for the EU in 2019. We link this information to (subnational) regional immunization coverage rates for childhood vaccines – DTP3, MCV1, and MCV2 -- obtained from the WHO for 2019. We conduct multilevel regression analyses with data for 177 regions in 20 countries. Given the variation in vaccine hesitancy and immunization rates between countries and within countries, we affirm the valuable role that surveys can play as a public health surveillance tool when it comes to vaccine behavior. We find statistically significantly lower regional vaccine immunization rates in regions where vaccine hesitancy is more pronounced. Our results suggest that different uptake rates across subnational regions are due, at least in part, to differences in attitudes towards vaccines and vaccination. The results are robust to several alternative specifications
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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