Suchergebnisse

OBJECTIVE: Social distancing has been one of the primary interventions used to slow the spread of COVID-19 during the ongoing pandemic. Although state-wide stay-at-home orders in the United States received a large degree of media and political attention, relatively little peer-reviewed research has examined the impacts of such orders social distancing behaviors. METHOD: This study used daily GPS-derived movement from 2,858 counties in the United States from March 1 to May 7, 2020 to test the degree to which changes in state-level stay-at-home orders were associated with movement outside the home. RESULTS: From early March to early April, people in counties with state-level stay-at-home orders decreased their movement significantly more than counties without state-level stay-at-home orders; 3.1% more people stayed within 1 mile of home and 1.6% fewer vehicle miles were driven per day. From early April to early May, people in counties within states that ended their stay-at-home orders increased their movement significantly more than counties in states whose stay-at-home orders remained in place; 1.2% fewer people remained within 1 mile of home and 6.2% more vehicle miles were driven per day. The magnitude of changes associated with state-level stay-at-home orders were many times smaller than the total changes in movement across all counties over the same periods. CONCLUSIONS: Stay-at-home orders were associated with greater social distancing, but accounted for only part of this behavioral change. Research on behavior change would be useful to determine additional interventions that could support social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The purpose of this research is to study the impact of playing modern military shooter (MMS) video games, and how they influence the perceptions of players. This is specifically in terms of how patriotic they consider themselves to be and what they think of American foreign policy. The literature review explores the media framing theory as it relates to video games, as well as the connection between video games and the military as both a recruiting and training method. The methodology sections describes how the participants were involved in the study through a survey inquiring about their political views, how patriotic they believed themselves to be, and the amount of time per week spent playing MMS video games. The data that was gathered from this survey was then processed through an ANOVA test to find the results. The researchers created three hypotheses: 1) as the hours of play increase within MMS games, so will an individual's perception of American patriotism, 2) conservative gamers will identify more with pro-American points of view in MMS games than liberal gamers, 3) a gamer's age will determine how they perceive American patriotism and imperialism in MMS games. Finally, the researchers discuss the data and its implications, what limitations inhibited the study, and what future research projects can improve on.

AbstractTo design effective provaccination messaging, it is important to know "where people are coming from"—the personal experiences and long-standing values, motives, lifestyles, preferences, emotional tendencies, and information-processing capacities of people who end up resistant or hesitant toward vaccination. We used prospective data from a 5-decade cohort study, spanning childhood to midlife, to construct comprehensive early-life psychological histories of groups who differed in their vaccine intentions in months just before COVID vaccines became available in their country. Vaccine-resistant and vaccine-hesitant participants had histories of adverse childhood experiences that foster mistrust, longstanding mental-health problems that foster misinterpretation of messaging, and early-emerging personality traits including tendencies toward extreme negative emotions, shutting down mentally under stress, nonconformism, and fatalism about health. Many vaccine-resistant and -hesitant participants had cognitive difficulties in comprehending health information. Findings held after control for socioeconomic origins. Vaccine intentions are not short-term isolated misunderstandings. They are part of a person's style of interpreting information and making decisions that is laid down before secondary school age. Findings suggest ways to tailor vaccine messaging for hesitant and resistant groups. To prepare for future pandemics, education about viruses and vaccines before or during secondary schooling could reduce citizens' level of uncertainty during a pandemic, and provide people with pre-existing knowledge frameworks that prevent extreme emotional distress reactions and enhance receptivity to health messages. Enhanced medical technology and economic resilience are important for pandemic preparedness, but a prepared public who understands the need to mask, social distance, and vaccinate will also be important.