Collective views of vaccination predict vaccine hesitancy and willingness to receive a COVID-19 vaccine

We examined the association between sociodemographic factors, views of vaccines as being an individual choice to protect oneself versus a collective choice to protect others, general vaccine hesitancy, and willingness to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. In a sample of adults (N = 619; 33% non-white), we showed that demographic factors explain significant variance in both vaccine hesitancy and willingness to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. Viewing vaccines as an individual choice to protect oneself explained additional variance in vaccine hesitancy. However, people who viewed vaccines as a collective choice to protect others showed both less vaccine hesitancy and greater willingness to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. These findings suggest that promoting prosocial attitudes about vaccinations may decrease vaccine hesitancy and increase vaccine uptake.     

The desirability of beliefs: preschoolers' appreciation of fact beliefs and subsequent emotions

In this study, we investigated the extent to which preschool children's own knowledge about reality biases their understanding that others' beliefs about reality govern others' emotions and not reality itself. Therefore, an increasing tension was created between the beliefs of the protagonist and the participant, by providing varying degrees of evidence about the validity of the protagonist's belief. Children of between 4 and 5 years of age were asked to predict the protagonist's emotion, given the protagonist's desire and the protagonist's belief. The results show that, to a certain extent, preschool children take others' beliefs into account when predicting others' emotions. When the outcome is clear, children probably feel tied to reality, and in the case of false beliefs, their knowledge about reality biases their emotion predictions, as was also evident in ‘false belief’ research (Wimmer H, Perner I. 1983. Beliefs about beliefs: representation and constraining function of wrong beliefs in young children's understanding of deception. Cognition 13: 103–128). However, when it is uncertain what the actual outcome will be, then it is not the likelihood of others' beliefs but the desirability of the outcome that biases children's predictions of others' emotions. In other words, when the actual outcome is yet unclear, 4‐ and 5‐year‐olds show a tendency for wishful thinking in their predictions of others' emotions. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Development, Reliability, and Validity of the Beliefs Toward Mental Illness Scale

The present study describes the development of a new scale to measure Beliefs toward Mental Illness (BMI), which was designed to measure cross-cultural differences in such beliefs as well as to predict treatment-seeking behavior among different cultural groups. A total of 216 students participated in this study (114 Asian students and 102 American students). A series of factor analyses examining construct validity for the BMI revealed that the BMI has three dimensions, including dangerousness, poor social and interpersonal skills, and incurability. Examination of the reliability estimates for each factor revealed moderate to high internal consistency of the BMI. Comparisons between American and Asian students revealed the expected cultural differences in their beliefs toward mental illness and treatment preference.     

Examining the roles of intuition and gender in magical beliefs

Four studies explored gender differences in magical beliefs, specifically examining whether reliance on intuition accounts for women’s higher magical beliefs (vs. men’s). In Studies 1a and 1b (N’s = 489, 1119), women’s higher magical beliefs were accounted for by measures of reliance on intuition. Study 2 (N = 533) demonstrated that an intuition induction heightened men’s magical beliefs (vs. control group), but not women’s. In Study 3 (N = 404), women—but not men—exhibited more suboptimal choices in a lottery task after imagining that a dream told them to do so. These studies suggest that reliance on intuition helps account for women’s higher magical beliefs.     

Overstepping the boundaries of free choice: Folk beliefs on free will and determinism in real world contexts

We know little about the commonality of folk beliefs around applications of psychological research on the unconscious control of behaviours. To address this, in Experiment 1 (N = 399) participants volunteered examples of where research on the unconscious has been applied to influence their behaviours. A subset of these were presented in Experiment 2 (N = 198) and Experiment 3 (N = 100). Participants rated the extent to which the behaviour being influenced in these contexts was: (1) via the unconscious, (2) free, (3) the result of prior conscious intentions, (4) under conscious control. Relative to judgements about the extent to which behaviour was influenced via the unconscious, the remaining judgements regarding conscious control of behaviours were either higher (e.g., political contexts) or lower (e.g., therapy). This study is the first to show, using ecologically valid examples, the folk beliefs people share on psychological constructs concerning free will and determinism.     

欺骗识别的准确率：影响因素与提高途径

欺骗是一种常见的社会现象,通过观察他人的行为表现识别欺骗则是人们的一项重要能力。研究表明,人们的欺骗识别能力仅仅略微高于随机水平。本文关注基于行为线索的欺骗识别研究。首先,介绍欺骗识别的准确率;然后,结合Brunswik的透镜模型从欺骗线索的有效性和欺骗线索的利用两方面分析识别准确率的影响因素;并在此基础上探讨了提高识别准确率的途径。最后,对未来可能的研究方向进行展望。     

Adults' beliefs about children and mathematics: how important is it and how do children learn about it?

A series of studies was conducted which focused on US adults' beliefs about the relative importance of acquiring mathematical skills for preschool children and about how children acquire these skills. In Study 1, adults rated general information, reading and social skills as all being more important than mathematical skills. They also claimed that parents have the most influence on preschool children's learning regardless of content area. In Study 2, the parents of kindergarten children also rated reading, general information and social skills as all being more important than mathematics in preparing children for the first grade. The more important parents felt mathematics were, the more they reported engaging in a variety of mathematical-related activities with their children. However, the importance they placed on mathematics was not related to their child's actual mathematical performance. In summary, adults seem to value mathematics less than other skills in preparing young children to enter elementary school. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Metacognitions in patients with hallucinations and obsessive-compulsive disorder: the superstition factor

On the basis of the analogy between intrusive thoughts and auditory hallucinations established by Morrison et al. [(1995). Intrusive thoughts and auditory hallucinations: a cognitive approach. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 23, 265-280], the present work compares the metacognitive beliefs and processes of five groups of patients (current hallucinators, never-hallucinated people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, recovered hallucinators, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) patients, and a clinical control group) and a non-clinical group. The results show that of the five metacognitive factors considered in this study, two were found to be different in the current hallucinators group in comparison to any other group in the design. Likewise, it is found that the metacognitive beliefs of the current hallucinators coincide with those of the OCD patients in various factors, particularly that relating to superstition, and this is interpreted as lending support to the model of Morrison et al. (1995). Furthermore, the results are discussed in the light of existing research on Thought-Action Fusion, stressing the role that may be played by superstitious beliefs and magical thinking in auditory hallucinations and OCD.     

Attributional style in psychosis--the role of affect and belief type

People holding persecutory beliefs have been hypothesised to show a self-serving attributional style, which functions to protect self-esteem Bentall, Corcoran, Howard, Blackwood, and Kinderman (2001). Experimental support for this has been mixed. Freeman et al. (1998) suggested depressed and grandiose subgroups of those with persecutory beliefs might explain events differently. In this study, 71 participants completed measures of delusional beliefs, depression and attributional style. We hypothesised that those with persecutory beliefs would form grandiose and depressed subgroups, and that a self-serving attributional style would characterise only the grandiose subgroup. Hypotheses were partially confirmed. Clear subgroups were evident and only those with both persecutory and grandiose beliefs showed an externalising attributional style for negative events. Depression, irrespective of co-occurring persecutory beliefs, was related to a reduced self-serving bias and an externalising attributional style for positive events. On their own, persecutory beliefs were not related to any particular attributional style. Depressed and grandiose subgroups of those with persecutory beliefs might account for some of the inconsistencies in the attribution literature. Even within a single symptom group, care should be taken in both research and therapy to consider individual symptom patterns.     

Dysfunctional belief-based obsessive-compulsive disorder subgroups

An attempt was made to identify obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) subgroups based on differences in OCD related beliefs. OCD patients (N=367) were assessed with the Obsessional-Beliefs Questionnaire prior to treatment. Individuals' scores on measures of inflated personal responsibility and the tendency to overestimate threat, perfectionism and intolerance of uncertainty, and over-importance and over-control of thoughts were subjected to cluster analysis. Support for both a simple and complex subgroup model was found (2-subgroup and 5-subgroup taxonomies). A low-beliefs subgroup was identified in both taxonomies. The low-beliefs subgroups reported scores on belief measures equivalent to scores reported for non-OCD comparison groups in earlier studies. Additional analyses were conducted to determine relations between belief-based and symptom subgroups. Significant relationships were found (e.g., Symmetry symptom subgroup membership was associated with membership in the Perfectionism/Certainty beliefs subgroup), although the shared variance was modest. Implications for understanding OCD heterogeneity and for cognitive theory are discussed.