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In today's globalised world languages interact in ways that were not possible a century or even three decades ago. Within the last eight years the European Union has grown from 15 to 27 member countries, and this has added 12 working languages to it. Business has gone global with small companies now able to extend their reach beyond their national or traditional markets to new ones in any country on any continent. For such expansion communication is essential. In addition to these institutional and economic uses of languages, the Internet has made it possible for the private citizen from any part of the world to communicate face to face in real time with others as well as to post individual statements of positions about their life or beliefs via blogs, social networks etc. In such a changing world, language users are constantly adapting to and changing the way language and languages are used. In particular, young people today are at home with digital technology and use it creatively to interact with others. They are, in fact, the first generation to have grown up with it and have been called "digital natives". It is therefore of interest to know what these young people think about language and the language(s) they are using. What beliefs and attitudes do they hold? ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

In this article we examine the influence of cultural beliefs on behavior or, more specifically, beliefs about cervical cancer risk factors and the use of Pap exams. Individual Latinas' (Hispanic women) holding of beliefs similar to Latinas' generally (cultural consonance) did not significantly influence their use of Pap exams. Rather, structural factors such as medical insurance, age, marital status, education, and language acculturation explained Latinas' use of this medical service. However, when Latinas held beliefs similar to those of Anglo women, then they were significantly more likely to have had a Pap exam within the past two years. Latinas whose beliefs were closer to those of physicians were significantly less likely to have had the exam recently. Arriving at these findings involved both ethnographic interviews and survey research. That these beliefs proved to be significant influences on behavior suggests not only the important ways that beliefs matter but that ethnographic methods for examining those beliefs also matter. [Latinas and cervical cancer, Pap exams, culture and behavior, ethnography and survey research]

Jewish Americans' opinions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict influence both the Israeli and the U.S. governments. Consequently, the Jewish American diaspora can act to promote or inhibit the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. Several different sociopsychological beliefs have been postulated to lead individuals to support the perpetuation of conflict. Among these beliefs are a sense of collective victimhood, dehumanization and delegitimization of the other side, a zero-sum view on the conflict, and a monolithic narrative about the conflict. In this exploratory study we examined the role of these beliefs in predicting Jewish Americans' rejection or support of compromise solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A survey study of 176 Jewish Americans shows that a monolithic view on the conflict, dehumanizing and delegitimizing of the other side, and a zero-sum view on the conflict played an important role in predicting opposition to compromise solutions for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Beliefs about collective victimhood did not predict support for compromise solutions. Findings are discussed in terms of the centrality of narrative misrecognition in preventing agreement to concessions toward the other side. © 2013 The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues.

Jewish Americans' opinions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict influence both the Israeli and the U.S. governments. Consequently, the Jewish American diaspora can act to promote or inhibit the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. Several different sociopsychological beliefs have been postulated to lead individuals to support the perpetuation of conflict. Among these beliefs are a sense of collective victimhood, dehumanization and delegitimization of the other side, a zero-sum view on the conflict, and a monolithic narrative about the conflict. In this exploratory study we examined the role of these beliefs in predicting Jewish Americans' rejection or support of compromise solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A survey study of 176 Jewish Americans shows that a monolithic view on the conflict, dehumanizing and delegitimizing of the other side, and a zero-sum view on the conflict played an important role in predicting opposition to compromise solutions for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Beliefs about collective victimhood did not predict support for compromise solutions. Findings are discussed in terms of the centrality of narrative misrecognition in preventing agreement to concessions toward the other side. © 2013 The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues.

Jewish Americans' opinions on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict influence both the Israeli and the U.S. governments. Consequently, the Jewish American diaspora can act to promote or inhibit the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. Several different sociopsychological beliefs have been postulated to lead individuals to support the perpetuation of conflict. Among these beliefs are a sense of collective victimhood, dehumanization and delegitimization of the other side, a zero‐sum view on the conflict, and a monolithic narrative about the conflict. In this exploratory study we examined the role of these beliefs in predicting Jewish Americans' rejection or support of compromise solutions to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. A survey study of 176 Jewish Americans shows that a monolithic view on the conflict, dehumanizing and delegitimizing of the other side, and a zero‐sum view on the conflict played an important role in predicting opposition to compromise solutions for the Palestinian–Israeli conflict. Beliefs about collective victimhood did not predict support for compromise solutions. Findings are discussed in terms of the centrality of narrative misrecognition in preventing agreement to concessions toward the other side.

D.W. was supported by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie (MSCA) grant agreement no. 665501 and the Flemish Science Foundation (FWO) grant FWO.KAN.2019.0023.01. E.C. was supported by FWO grants FWO18/PDO/049 and 12U0322N. C.G.-G. was supported by MSCA grant no. 835767 and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation grant IJC2019-040208-I. M.B. was supported by the Einstein Foundation Berlin (Einstein Strategic Professorship). References ; Most people believe in free will, which is foundational for our sense of agency and responsibility. Past research demonstrated that such beliefs are dynamic, and can be manipulated experimentally. Much less is known about free will attitudes (FWAs; do you value free will?), whether they are equally dynamic, and about their relation to free will beliefs (FWBs). If FWAs were strongly positive, people might be reluctant to revise their beliefs even in the face of strong evidence to do so. In this registered report, we developed a novel measure of FWAs and directly related FWBs and attitudes for the first time. We found FWBs and attitudes to be positively related, although to a lesser degree than determinism or dualism beliefs/attitudes. Nevertheless, an experimental manipulation technique aimed at reducing FWBs (Crick text) showed remarkably specific effects on FWBs only, and no effects on FWAs. Overall, these results provide valuable new insights into laypeople's views on free will by including a novel measure of FWAs. They also provide evidence for the validity of a common experimental technique that has been rightfully criticized in the literature lately. ; European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie (MSCA) 665501 ; FWO FWO.KAN.2019.0023.01 FWO18/PDO/049 12U0322N MSCA 835767 ; Spanish Government IJC2019-040208-I ; Einstein Foundation Berlin (Einstein Strategic Professorship)

In real-life elections, voters do not have full information over the policy platforms proposed by political parties. Instead, they form (imprecise) beliefs. I propose a new model of partisan competition to represent the interaction of these beliefs with platform selection. Both parties gain more from appealing to the voters with more precise beliefs over their platform. Minority candidates viewed with less precision overall gain relatively more from outliers. Therefore, the Median Voter Theorem is recovered if and only if voters' policy preferences are uncorrelated with the precision of their beliefs about each candidate, and preferences are distributed symmetrically. Otherwise, even election-motivated parties diverge away from each other. As the population becomes polarized in how they form beliefs about politics, they will become polarized on political grounds as well, providing a new explanation for recent political polarization in the United States which, under reasonable assumptions, is more in line with the stylized facts than models with perfect observability. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Purpose. An understanding of each racial/ethnic group's beliefs about cancer prevention is important for designing/implementing interventions to reduce cancer-health disparities. The Health Belief Model was used to examine racial/ethnic differences in beliefs about cancer and cancer prevention. Design. The data were from the 2007 Health Information National Trends Survey, a biennial, cross-sectional survey using a random-digit-dial telephone frame and a mailing address frame. Setting. A weighted, nationally representative sample of American adults. Subjects. The sample consisted of 7452 individuals. Measures. Model construct variables (perceived susceptibility; perceived severity; perceived benefits; perceived barriers; cues to action; self-efficacy) and race/ethnicity were assessed. Analysis. The Rao-Scott χ2 test and multivariate logistic regression assessed racial/ethnic differences. Results. The constructs self-efficacy, perceived benefits, and perceived susceptibility were significantly associated with race/ethnicity. The remaining three constructs were not statistically significant. Multivariate analysis revealed Hispanics were less likely to believe they could lower their chances of getting cancer than did African-Americans and whites. Hispanics, Asians, and African-Americans were more likely to believe they had a lower chance of getting cancer in the future than did whites. Conclusion. Culturally relevant health education/promotion interventions need to be developed and tailored to (1) empower Hispanics regarding their ability to prevent cancer and (2) educate racial/ethnic minorities about their susceptibility and risk perception for cancer.

The main goal of this research was to construct a scale to assess health beliefs about COVID-19, in the light of the Health Beliefs Model (Rosenstock, 1966). The study included 420 subjects, mean age M = 31.65 years (SD = 12.72). Two-thirds (76%) of the respondents were female. The respondents filled in a set of questionnaires via the Internet. At the very beginning, the purpose and goal of the research were explained and the consent for participation in the research was obtained. The survey was anonymous, while the data were collected from April to September, 2020. The COVID-19 Health Belief Scale showed satisfactory psychometric characteristics. Factor analysis has shown that four main components can be distinguished, which correspond to the types of beliefs included in the Health Beliefs Model (Rosenstock, 1966). Thus, four subscales were obtained: Perceived susceptibility to COVID-19 (four items), Perceived severity of COVID-19 (four items), Perceived benefit of preventive behaviour (four items), and Observed barriers to preventive behaviour (three items). This scale structure corresponds to other similar scales (HBMS, Champion, 1984; AHBS, Zagumny & Brady, 1998), based on the Health Beliefs Model (Rosenstock, 1966). The obtained average values of scores on the observed susceptibility to COVID-19 show that our respondents do not consider themselves either extremely susceptible or protected from contracting this disease. On the other hand, it is obvious that our respondents do not consider COVID-19 to be a serious enough disease, despite daily warnings that the disease is unpredictable and its consequences are serious, long - term, and even more frequent than of other viral diseases. The observed barriers to preventive behaviour are relatively low, as are the scores on the subscale. The observed benefits of preventive behaviour range from the highest possible scores. When we summarize these results, we can conclude that our respondents apply preventive measures, because they are convinced that they are useful in preventing infection, and that obstacles to their implementation have not been observed to a significant extent. However, it remains unclear why this disease is not considered serious enough. One possibility is that the information placed in the media was initially ambiguous, ranging from describing COVID-19 as a common respiratory infection to a serious illness with severe consequences. We can look for another explanation within our sample. Namely, the age of our average respondent was 31, and as many as two thirds of the respondents were women. Initial information about COVID-19, placed through the media, was that this disease seriously affects older people and, for the most part, males. Women perceived significantly more benefits from preventive behaviour, and men significantly more barriers. Respondents' burden of a chronic disease proved to be significant for two subscales: Perceived susceptibility to COVID-19 and Observed barriers to the implementation of preventive behaviour. People suffering from a chronic disease believe that they are more susceptible to the COVID-19 infection, i.e. that they are more susceptible to this disease compared to those who do not have chronic diseases. However, people burdened with a chronic disease notice several obstacles to the implementation of preventive measures at the same time. When it comes to the higher observed susceptibility to COVID-19 in married people compared to those who are not, we can assume several factors that lead to this: reduced possibility of isolation, double possibility of infection, greater social interaction due to different needs, and the like. This research has its limitations. Most importantly, we could not thoroughly examine the validity of the instrument, due to the lack of similar scales. Another important limitation is that the sample was mostly made up of women. The third important limitation concerns the average age of the respondents; this study covered only a small number of the elderly, who are most at risk during this pandemic. Nevertheless, we believe that the timeliness and novelty of the constructed scale are sufficient to indicate the need to use it, at least as a first step in the development of some future scales with a similar purpose. Recommendations for future research are such that they should respond to the stated limitations of this research; to be directed towards a thorough validation, towards different types of samples, but also towards studying both the predictors of these health beliefs and the value of these beliefs for predicting some forms of health behaviour, quality of life, adherence to medical instructions, etc.

The implicit association test (IAT) is designed to reduce socially desirable responses and capture implicit associations between two social categories. Prior work has used and expanded on the IAT to capture implicit status beliefs, but tests of the specific images and words used to denote status and gender are lacking. Here, the authors (1) identify specific images to best elicit implicit stereotypical gender differentiation, (2) identify specific words to best distinguish relative status, and (3) assess the test-retest reliability of a full and a brief gender status IAT. First, the authors find that images presented in grayscale, rather than images presented in color, best elicit implicit gender categorization. The authors also identify five male and five female images that best elicit implicit stereotypical gender categorization. Second, the findings show that status words and evaluation words load on unique factors (highlighting that the status words are not merely capturing evaluations), and the authors identify five specific words that best distinguish implicit relative status. Third, the authors find that the standard long-form IAT has a more acceptable test-retest reliability than the brief IAT. The authors conclude with suggestions on how to further refine the measure and how it might be applied in research.