Collaborative Research: Testing Cognitive and Affective Interventions to Improve Public Understanding and Affective Reactions to Pandemic Risks

合作研究：测试认知和情感干预措施，以提高公众对流行病风险的理解和情感反应

• 批准号: 1529277
• 负责人: Laura Scherer
• 金额: $ 9.18万
• 依托单位: University of Missouri-Columbia
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-08-01 至 2017-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1529277&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Testing; Cognitive; Affective

When thinking about infectious diseases and making decisions about how to protect themselves, people often overreact to infectious diseases with low risk of infection, such as Ebola, and at other times fail to respond to infectious diseases with higher risk of infection, such as the flu. Both types of responses can lead to negative outcomes such as stress and anxiety, less productivity at work, and inefficient use of healthcare resources (either using too much or too little depending on the disease). We think that one reason that people may exhibit these responses to infectious diseases is that there may be a conflict between their beliefs about their risk and their feelings about their risk. This research will examine areas of misinformation and emotional responses to three infectious diseases: Ebola, the flu, and MERS. After identifying key areas of misinformation and excessive or subdued emotional responses to these three diseases, the research team develops and tests a number of communication strategies that best correct misinformation and resolve conflicts between beliefs and feelings of risk to motivate more appropriate responses to infectious diseases. After determining which strategies are better at doing those things than others, the research team creates a website to display "best-practices" in communicating about infectious diseases. This research involves conducting a number of web studies to investigate when and for whom cognitive- and affective-based communication strategies work best at modifying cognitions, affect, and behavioral intentions towards pandemic risks. The research uses the theory of "risk-as-feelings". These studies will advance our understanding of risk-as-feelings in a number of ways. First, the research team examines the frequency of simultaneous contradictory responses (SCRs) - when beliefs and feelings of risk conflict - at least with these three infectious diseases. Second, the research team tests for the existence of simultaneous contradictory affective responses. Third, the team then assesses the relative influence of cognitive and affective sources of information on cognitions, affective reactions, and behavioral intentions, as well as in the possible resolution of SCRs. Fourth, the application of risk-as-feelings to determine optimal communication strategies about these infectious diseases should serve as a test-case for the utility of incorporating risk-as-feelings into public health theories of health behavior and communication. Fifth, due to its foundation in the theory of risk-as-feelings, insights gleaned from the current studies should help shape the way information is communicated about other public health issues beyond these disease. And finally, the research tests whether resolving SCRs is key to inducing appropriate responses to pandemic risks or whether improving knowledge, acknowledging fears, and/or improving feelings of efficacy, is sufficient to improve responses, as would be predicted by standard health behavior theories from public health.

当人们思考传染病并做出如何保护自己的决定时，往往会对感染风险较低的传染病(如埃博拉)反应过度，而在其他时候则对感染风险较高的传染病(如流感)反应迟钝。这两种类型的反应都可能导致负面结果，如压力和焦虑、工作效率下降以及医疗资源的低效使用(根据疾病的不同，使用过多或过少)。我们认为，人们可能对传染病表现出这些反应的原因之一是，他们对风险的信念与对风险的感受之间可能存在冲突。这项研究将考察对埃博拉、流感和MERS这三种传染病的错误信息和情绪反应领域。在确定了对这三种疾病的错误信息和过度或抑制情绪反应的关键领域后，研究小组开发和测试了一些沟通策略，这些策略最好地纠正错误信息，解决信念和风险感觉之间的冲突，以激励对传染病做出更适当的反应。在确定哪些策略在做这些事情上比其他策略更好之后，研究小组创建了一个网站，展示关于传染病的沟通的“最佳实践”。这项研究涉及进行多项网络研究，以调查基于认知和情感的沟通策略在何时以及对谁最有效地改变针对大流行风险的认知、情感和行为意图。这项研究使用了“风险即情感”的理论。这些研究将在多个方面促进我们对风险即感觉的理解。首先，研究小组检查了同时矛盾反应(SCR)的频率-当信念和风险感觉发生冲突时-至少与这三种传染病有关。其次，研究小组测试同时存在矛盾的情感反应。第三，研究小组评估了认知和情感信息来源对认知、情感反应和行为意图的相对影响，以及在可能的SCR解决中的影响。第四，应用风险感受来确定关于这些传染病的最佳传播策略，应该作为将风险感受纳入健康行为和传播的公共卫生理论的效用的测试案例。第五，由于它的基础是风险-感觉理论，从当前研究中收集的见解应该有助于塑造关于这些疾病以外的其他公共卫生问题的信息传播方式。最后，这项研究测试了解决SCR是否是诱导对大流行风险做出适当反应的关键，或者像公共卫生的标准健康行为理论所预测的那样，提高知识、承认恐惧和/或改善效能感是否足以改善反应。