Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Rise And Fall Of The American Fear Of Climate Change: Examining The Trends Of Climate Change Fear In The United States, Hannah Waldorf

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The changing climate is a situation that can be characterized by the threat of dangerous and irreparable changes to the planet. These alterations include an increase in global temperatures, food and water insecurities, extreme weather patterns, social unrest, and political conflict. Fear of the climate’s change has decreased within the past two years (2020 and 2021)—this paper will examine factors that influence the change in American climate fear. Using data from The Chapman University Survey on American Fears (CSAF)—which includes 1,035 participants—it is expected that the current downward trend in climate change fear is rooted in changes of media consumption, …

The Implications Of Covid-19 On Fear Of Financial Collapse, Alexis Reekie

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

By disrupting the general value paradigm, the typical hierarchy of values, individuals directly affected by the COVID-19 virus have realized an overall shift in perspective, indicating a need to understand the effects of the COVID-19 virus on one’s outlook regarding economic anxiety and fear of financial collapse. The possibility of a global health crisis reaching levels of devastation are certainly great and worth investigating. Throughout this research paper I worked to determine the correlation between fear of financial crises and individuals who have been affected by the COVID-19 virus. Utilizing the Chapman Survey of American Fears (FEAR survey) questions pertaining …

The Acute And Persisting Impact Of Covid-19 On Trajectories Of Adolescent Depression: Sex Differences And Social Connectedness, Sabrina R. Liu, Elyssia Poggi Davis, Anton M. Palma, Curt A. Sandman, Laura M. Glynn

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Background

The COVID-19 era is a time of unprecedented stress, and there is widespread concern regarding its short- and long-term mental health impact. Adolescence is a sensitive period for the emergence of latent psychopathology vulnerabilities, often activated by environmental stressors. The present study examined COVID-19′s impact on adolescent depression and possible influences of different domains of social connectedness (loneliness, social media use, social video game time, degree of social activity participation).

Methods

A community sample of 175 adolescents (51% boys, mean age = 16.01 years) completed questionnaires once before and twice during the COVID-19 pandemic. Piecewise growth modeling examined the …

Quality Evaluation Of Consumer Health Information Websites Found On Google Using Discern, Craap, And Honcode, Ivan A. Portillo, Catherine V. Johnson, Scott Y. Johnson

Library Articles and Research

Online health misinformation is a growing problem, and health information professionals and consumers would benefit from an evaluation of health websites for reliability and trustworthiness. Terms from the Google COVID-19 Search Trends dataset were searched on Google to determine the most frequently appearing consumer health information websites. The quality of the resulting top five websites was evaluated. The top five websites that appeared most frequently were WebMD, Mayo Clinic, Healthline, MedlinePlus, and Medical News Today, respectively. All websites, except Medline Plus, received HONcode certification. Based on DISCERN and CRAAP scores, MedlinePlus was found to be the most reliable health website.

The Efficiency Of U.S. Public Space Utilization During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Seth G. Benzell, Avinash Collis, Christos Nicolaides

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

The COVID-19 pandemic has called for and generated massive novel government regulations to increase social distancing for the purpose of reducing disease transmission. A number of studies have attempted to guide and measure the effectiveness of these policies, but there has been less focus on the overall efficiency of these policies. Efficient social distancing requires implementing stricter restrictions during periods of high viral prevalence and rationing social contact to disproportionately preserve gatherings that produce a good ratio of benefits to transmission risk. To evaluate whether U.S. social distancing policy actually produced an efficient social distancing regime, we tracked consumer preferences …

Anti-Intellectualism And American Fears: An Analysis Of Social And Political Factors That Influence Distrust In Scientific Authority, Naomi Hill

Political Science Student Papers and Posters

In the last few decades of our history, strong sentiments of anti-intellectualism and distrust in scientific authority have developed and spread throughout American society. Recently, the outward displays of denial and distrust surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change have demonstrated just how pervasive these views are becoming. This study looked at public opinion on a variety of anti-intellectual views among the American public. The main question this research was attempting to answer is what are the political and social correlates of anti-intellectualism? The data I used to test this question was the 2021 Chapman University Survey on American Fears. …

County-Level Factors That Influenced The Trajectory Of Covid-19 Incidence In The New York City Area, Ashley Wendell Kranjac, Dinko Kranjac

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

More than a century of research has shown that sociodemographic conditions affect infectious disease transmission. In the late spring and early summer of 2020, reports of the effects of sociodemographic variables on the spread of COVID- 19 were used in the media with minimal scientific proof attached. With new cases of COVID-19 surging in the United States at that time, it became essential to better understand how the spread of COVID-19 was varying across all segments of the population. We used hierarchical exponential growth curve modeling techniques to examine whether community socioeconomic characteristics uniquely influence the incidence of reported COVID-19 …

Why Do Some Americans Resist Covid-19 Prevention Behavior? An Analysis Of Issue Importance, Message Fatigue, And Reactance Regarding Covid-19 Messaging, Hannah Ball, Tayah Renea Wozniak

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

Despite the rapid transmission of and death toll claimed by COVID-19, there is evidence of resistance toward behaviors shown to effectively prevent and slow the spread of the disease, such as mask wearing and social distancing. This study applies psychological reactance theory to examine COVID-19 message factors (i.e., message fatigue, issue importance) that may be linked to nonadherence to CDC recommendations via the experience of reactance. Participants (N = 268) were current U.S. residents over the age of 18 who completed an online survey about their perceptions of COVID-19 messaging in general as well as toward a specific COVID-19 …

How Covid19 Has Impacted Students Nutrition And Eating Habits With The Abrupt Closure Of Restaurants And Campuses, Chloe Sermet

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic causing college campuses, restaurants, and businesses to shut down, many college students found themselves having to return home or find alternative food resources. Due to these factors, it was imperative to examine how college student’s eating habits have changed throughout the pandemic, dealing with lots of stressors, and whether having prior education on nutrition influenced those eating habits. To examine those effects, 17 nutrition minors and 126 non-nutrition minors participated in the current study in which they took the College Students Eating Habit survey and the Perception of Peer Pressure Scale. The outcome of the …

The Partisan Effects Of Covid-19: News Sources And Mask Wearing, Lily Martin

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Within only one year of the global pandemic caused by COVID-19, risk prevention, including the use of a mask to prevent spread of the disease, became incredibly politicized within the United States. By looking at mainstream media sources such as CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC, in this article I will be examining how news media sources affect the viewer's perceptions of mask wearing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Relying on the Chapman Survey of American Fears, a representative national sample of U.S. adults, I found that individuals who choose to watch FOX news every day were most likely to disagree that …

Vaccine Hesitancy, The Covid 19 Pandemic, And Christian Fundamentalism, Nicole Drew

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Over the past few decades, religion has continued to move to the forefront of American politics, with many viewing fundamental Christianity as synonymous with the Republican Party. Donald Trump's presidency has increased this tenfold, with significant figures within American Christianity voicing their support for him and tying him into Biblical prophecies. In the media, this appears to have affected how this demographic views the COVID 19 pandemic. The literature in this area focuses heavily on American Christians' response to mask mandates, stay-at-home orders, and other attempts to mitigate the spread of the CoronaVirus; however, research on how this same demographic …

Beliefs And Their Byproducts: The Impact Of Religiosity And Political Ideology On Attitudes Toward Covid-19, Vaccines, And Climate Change, Philip Goodrich

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Several studies have indicated that an individual’s level of religiosity impacts their views toward science and scientific phenomena. Moreover, research shows that these views can also be impacted by an individual's political affiliation and ideology. In this research paper, I examine the relationship between one’s religiosity and political ideology and their attitude toward the novel corona virus (COVID-19), vaccines, and climate change. Using data from the 2021 Chapman University Survey of American Fears, I find that while religiosity plays a role in one’s attitudes toward these three scientific phenomena, the greatest correlation stems from one’s political ideology. In other words, …

Why Deteriorating Relations, Xenophobia, And Safety Concerns Will Deter Chinese International Student Mobility To The United States, Ryan M. Allen, Ying Ye

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Collaborations between American and Chinese universities have been critical to global knowledge production. Chinese students accounted for over a third of all international students in the United States prior to COVID-19, but the pandemic paused most global mobility in 2020. We argue that this international mobility to the United States will not fully recover if larger stressors are left unaddressed. First, relations between the United States and China have deteriorated in recent years, especially under the Trump administration, with growing suspicion against Chinese researchers and scholars. Second, viral acts of violence and anti-Asian incidents have painted the United States as …

Effects Of News And Threat Perceptions On Americans’ Covid-19 Precautionary Behaviors, Riva Tukachinsky Forster, Megan A. Vendemia

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

Our study examines the relationship between news exposure at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, personal threat beliefs, beliefs about others’ threat perceptions, and participation in precautionary actions. A survey of 377 U.S . adults revealed a significant main effect of news exposure on various precautionary behaviors (e.g., facial mask wear, physical distancing). Personal threat beliefs and beliefs about others’ threat perceptions serve as unique mechanisms mediating the effect of news on specific CDC-recommended and less socially desirable actions. These findings can guide news sources covering health crises in a socially responsible manner.

Us Media’S Coverage Of China’S Handling Of Covid-19: Playing The Role Of The Fourth Branch Of Government Or The Fourth Estate?, Wenshan Jia, Fangzhu Lu

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

The present study is an analysis of a sample of reports on China’s handling of COVID-19 by several major US media with a focus on a controversial op-ed by the Wall Street Journal. It is found that instead of covering it objectively as a public health crisis, these media reports tend to adopt the strategy of naming, shaming, blaming, and taming against China. In other words, they seize the outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan as an opportunity to serve Trump’s “America First” doctrine by a coordinated attempt to destroy the Chinese dream and arresting China’s ascendency. First, the naming/shaming …

Examining The Impact Of Socioeconomic Variables On Covid-19 Death Rates At The State Level, James L. Doti

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

This study uses a step-wise regression model to identify the socioeconomic variables most significant in explaining COVID-19 death rates on a state-level basis. The regression tests cover the 1/1/2020 to 12/1/2020 period as well as the first and second halves of 2020. This study also uses the Oxford stringency index to measure more precisely the efficacy of governmental mandates at the state level. The results in this study rigorously showed that while the density variables were the most significant explanatory variables during the first half of the year, their significance fell during the second half. Use of the Oxford stringency …

When Peril Responds To Plague: Predatory Journal Engagement With Covid-19, Ryan M. Allen

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Purpose

The academic community has warned that predatory journals may attempt to capitalize on the confusion caused by the COVID-19 pandemic to further publish low quality academic work, eroding the credibility of scholarly publishing.

Design/methodology/approach

This article first chronicles the risks of predatory publishing, especially related to misinformation surrounding health research. Next, the author offers an empirical investigation of how predatory publishing has engaged with COVID-19, with an emphasis on journals related to virology, immunology and epidemiology as identified through Cabells' Predatory Reports, through a content analysis of publishers' websites and a comparison to a sample from DOAJ.

Findings

The …

Global Cultural Shifts Induced By Covid-19, Wenshan Jia

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

"While COVID-19 has reportedly been bringing about numerous changes in geopolitics, economy, health, and security around the world, little has been written about changes in cultural practices it has been bringing about. I hereby unravel such emerging changes in the hope that readers could adapt to such changes."

Benefit-Cost Analysis Of Covid-19 Policy Intervention At The State And National Level, James L. Doti

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

This study analyzes the benefits of statewide policy intervention in reducing COVID-19 deaths and the costs of that intervention in lost jobs and lower real gross state product (RGSP). Policy interventions are measured by the Oxford stringency index which places a daily numerical value on the level of a state’s policy intervention.

Empirical evidence is provided that shows policy interventions have reduced COVID-19 deaths by 375,000 lives in 2020. On the cost side, it was found that policy intervention resulted in a loss of 7.3 million jobs and a decline of $410 billion in RGSP.

The study concludes by integrating …