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Changing Vaccine Hesitant Attitudes Of Parents Using Moral Persuasion, Max Vitro
Changing Vaccine Hesitant Attitudes Of Parents Using Moral Persuasion, Max Vitro
Master's Theses
In the fight against Covid-19, overt, science-based messaging is not enough to persuade everyone to get vaccinated no matter how encouraging the data. Recent studies on attitudes toward vaccines and other health-promoting measures have provided clues as to why so many are still opposed, suggesting many who were resistant had reasons that were rooted along moral grounds. This process of moralization occurs when a belief becomes a moral matter of ‘right and wrong’ rather than a means to an end. Because moral beliefs are more entrenched, they’ve proven much more difficult to change. There is one approach that could increase …
Leveraging Moral Foundations To Increase Covid-19 Vaccination, Cara Elizabeth Ray
Leveraging Moral Foundations To Increase Covid-19 Vaccination, Cara Elizabeth Ray
Dissertations
Despite the vast majority of the eligible U.S. adult population being vaccinated against COVID-19, geographical clusters of unvaccinated individuals pose a substantial risk of outbreak. It is important to encourage as many individuals as possible to vaccinate against COVID-19 to reduce its spread and severity. Past research has identified endorsement of the purity and liberty moral foundations – intuitive domains of moral concern – as predictors of vaccine hesitancy and political conservatism, while conservatism is itself associated with vaccine hesitancy. Across two online surveys, I examined the effects of a message invoking the purity and liberty foundations as well as …
The Effect Of Imagined Intergroup Contact On Heterosexism, Laurel Mertz
The Effect Of Imagined Intergroup Contact On Heterosexism, Laurel Mertz
Master's Theses
Heterosexism and other forms of prejudice against the LGBTQ community remain prevalent across the world. Thus, the study of how to reduce heterosexism has become a much more common and necessary domain of research in recent years. Previous research has demonstrated mixed results of the effect of imagined intergroup contact on heterosexism. the current study sought to evaluate various contexts in which imagined intergroup contact would decrease or increase levels of both implicit and explicit heterosexist attitudes. I predicted that individuals who imagined winning a basketball game with a gay teammate would display more positive attitudes toward gay men whereas …
The Dogmatism Of Dissent: How Open-Minded Cognition Influences Protest Attitudes, Chad Osteen
The Dogmatism Of Dissent: How Open-Minded Cognition Influences Protest Attitudes, Chad Osteen
Master's Theses
While protestors are often thought of and portrayed as dogmatic actors on the political stage, research has yet to empirically investigate the cognitive processes of protestors. While previous research has investigated how open-minded cognition relates to political party and ideology, its relationship to political activism has remained under studied. This study used a between subject's design to determine how priming system rejection may affect open-minded cognition and protest attitudes. The sample of 450 participants recruited through Amazon's Mechanical Turk is based off a power analysis with small to medium effect sizes (r2=0.25) and a power of .95. Using SurveyGizmo software, …
Expertise, Democratic Values, And Tolerance, Erika D. Price
Expertise, Democratic Values, And Tolerance, Erika D. Price
Dissertations
Political tolerance (the willingness to extend civil liberties to disliked groups) has been disturbingly low among the American public since measurement of tolerance began in the 1950's. The few voters who do exhibit tolerant attitudes tend to be people who know a great deal about politics (i.e. people high in "political expertise"). Researchers have theorized many explanations for why political experts are more tolerant on average; for example, experts may place more value on the legal and normative `rules' of democracy (i.e. "democratic norms"), which guarantee free speech, or they may consider democratic norms to be more important than non-experts …
The Perceived Threat Of Secularism And Militancy Among Religious Fundamentalists, Chase Wilson
The Perceived Threat Of Secularism And Militancy Among Religious Fundamentalists, Chase Wilson
Master's Theses
Religious fundamentalism has been found to predict endorsement of aggressive counterterrorism techniques, such as the use of severe interrogations and pre-emptive military attacks (e.g. Barnes, Brown & Osterman, 2012). The present study tested whether a perceived increase in secularism constitutes a psychological threat to American religious fundamentalists, and thus increases endorsement of such counterterrorism tactics. Replicating previous research, religious fundamentalism was found to positively predict endorsement of aggressive counterterrorism techniques, even when controlling for ideology and party identification. Contrary to hypothesis, the secularism prime had no effect. An unpredicted finding of this study was that religious fundamentalism only related to …
Understanding The Mechanism Behind Social Tuning Of Automatic Prejudice: Attitudinal Alignment Or Social Norms?, Amanda Renee Daniel
Understanding The Mechanism Behind Social Tuning Of Automatic Prejudice: Attitudinal Alignment Or Social Norms?, Amanda Renee Daniel
Master's Theses
To explore the effect of social tuning on individual's implicit prejudice, college students were brought into a lab to perform several tasks. Likability of the experimenter was manipulated in order to motivate individuals to socially tune or not (likable, dislikable). Ostensible attitudes of the experimenter were also manipulated (egalitarian, no known attitude). After these manipulations, students completed several Implicit Associations Tests (IATs). Results were analyzed using a factorial ANOVA design (2 (affiliative motivation: high, low) X 2 (views: egalitarian, control), revealing no interactions of likability or attitudes. I discuss the implications of these findings and explore possible solutions.
Personal Beliefs And Public Print: The Influence Of Pre-Existing Attitudes And Pretrial Publicity Information On Final Verdicts, Sara Marie Locatelli
Personal Beliefs And Public Print: The Influence Of Pre-Existing Attitudes And Pretrial Publicity Information On Final Verdicts, Sara Marie Locatelli
Dissertations
Pretrial publicity (PTP), defined as any news story about a case not yet in trial, has been shown to affect trial outcomes. Results, however, are mixed, with studies finding strong effects, others weaker effects, and some no effects. These differences are sometimes attributed to methodology and study stimuli. In the present research, the effect of participant attitudes was explored. Participant attitudes can have a strong influence on perceptions about a piece of information, and could explain differences in use of PTP as well as findings that judicial remedies to alleviate PTP effects are ineffective. Participants were exposed to one of …
Components Of Religious Beliefs, Religious Maturity, And Religious History As Predictors Of Proscribed And Non-Proscribed Explicit And Implicit Prejudices, Luke Fiedorowicz
Components Of Religious Beliefs, Religious Maturity, And Religious History As Predictors Of Proscribed And Non-Proscribed Explicit And Implicit Prejudices, Luke Fiedorowicz
Dissertations
Many theorists propose a link between religiosity and prejudice; however, many studies show contradictory results. Recently, there has also been a growing interest in the differences between implicit and explicit prejudices. Current literature suggests that explicit and implicit attitudes are linked and one can influence the other. However, it is possible there are different sets of predictors of each attitude type. African-Americans have historically been the most openly targeted minority in America. Recently, gay men and lesbians have also faced increased prejudice. The purpose of this project was to examine several aspects of religiosity (involvement, intrinsic/extrinsic, fundamentalism, quest, history, and …