The impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on explicit and implicit attitudes towards black sanitary mask wearers

Pre-COVID-19 epidemic studies found that wearing a sanitary mask negatively impacted perceived facial attractiveness. In particular, people demonstrated more negative explicit or implicit attitudes toward wearers of sanitary masks when the masks were black rather than white. The present study examined whether changes in social behavior in response to the COVID-19 epidemic, including the prevalent use of sanitary masks, might alter explicit and/or implicit attitudes toward wearers of black sanitary masks. We measured explicit (Study 1) and implicit attitudes (Study 3) and fecial attractiveness (Study 2) of males wearing black or white sanitary masks. The results revealed that attitudes toward wearers of black sanitary masks were more positive than those measured pre-epidemic. Regardless of mask color, explicit attractiveness rating scores for low-attractiveness faces tended to increase after the epidemic. However, no such improvement was observed for high-and middle-attractiveness faces. There was also no change in implicit attitudes measured by the implicit association test. These results suggest that the COVID-19 epidemic has reduced explicit negative attitudes toward wearers of black sanitary masks. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

School and home as study spaces: Attitudes of teachers, parents, and students to e-learning during the COVID-19 period: The case of Israel

During the period of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the boundaries between the home and the school as study spaces were blurred. School studies entered the home, with the parents present and observing their children's e-lessons and the teachers' teaching methods. The purpose of the current study was to explore the explicit and implicit attitudes of the lesson partners: teachers, parents, and students, to e-learning. The study explores whether and to what degree the attitudes of teachers, students, and parents to e-teaching are compatible, and what are the implications for the future. The study shows that although in recent years the relationships between parents and the school and between teachers and students have waned, with regard to the separation of authorities between the home and school, the period of the COVID-19 crisis clarified the need to enhance the relationship and cooperation between the home and the school as two meaningful study spaces for independent learners. The research findings raise the paradox that not only does technology not increase the distance rather it has the potential to strengthen the relationships between parents, teachers, and the school. The study points to the need to prepare holistic guidance sessions and professional development courses. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

A cross-lagged model of habits, implicit attitudes, autonomous motivation, and physical activity during COVID-19.

Although the relationship between autonomous motivation and impulsive processes has been acknowledged in the context of physical activity, the directionality of this relationship is not clearly understood. The COVID-19 pandemic provides a unique opportunity to investigate such relationships due to the fact that contextual changes brought about by government restrictions (e.g., stay at home orders, indoor gymnasium closures) may have influenced people's physical activity habits and motivation. The purpose of this study was to therefore investigate the bi-directional relationships between physical activity and previously established correlates: autonomous motivation, implicit attitudes, and habit. A sample of university students completed measures that assessed autonomous motivation, implicit attitude, habit and behaviors towards meeting physical activity guidelines each week during the coronavirus period at two time points, two weeks apart in a cross-lagged panel design. Path analysis found a significant reciprocal relationship between habits and autonomous motivation. There were no significant reciprocal relationships between autonomous motivation and implicit attitude, or with any study constructs and behavior. Current findings provide important preliminary formative evidence of associations between autonomous motivation and impulsive behavioral correlates, indicating a bi-directional relationship between autonomous motivation and physical activity habits.

Understanding parental vaccine refusal: Implicit and explicit associations about vaccines as potential building blocks of vaccine beliefs and behavior.

OBJECTIVE: A movement of parents refusing vaccines for their children has contributed to increasingly large outbreaks of diseases that are preventable by vaccines. Research has identified multiple factors that relate to parents' vaccination behaviors (i.e., whether not they vaccinate their children), including their beliefs about vaccines' safety and utility and their trust in those who recommend vaccines. Here we examine the role of more fundamental psychological processes that may contribute to multiple vaccine-related beliefs and behaviors: cognitive associations. METHODS: Using a large sample of U.S. parents (pre-COVID-19), we investigated parents' associations between vaccines and helpfulness/harmfulness, as well as between the self and vaccines (vaccine identity), and their relation to parents' beliefs about vaccine safety and utility, trust in authorities' vaccine recommendations, and prior vaccination refusal for their children. To capture a more complete understanding of people's associations, we examined both explicit associations (measured via self-report) and implicit associations (measured by the Implicit Association Test). RESULTS: Both implicit and explicit associations correlated with beliefs, trust, and vaccination refusal. Results from structural equation models indicated that explicit vaccine-identity and vaccine-helpfulness associations and implicit vaccine helpfulness associations were indirectly related to vaccination refusal via their relation with vaccine beliefs. CONCLUSIONS: Collectively, study findings suggest that vaccine associations-especially those related to helpfulness/harmfulness-may serve as psychological building blocks for parental vaccine beliefs and behaviors.

How Implicit Attitudes toward Vaccination Affect Vaccine Hesitancy and Behaviour: Developing and Validating the V-IRAP.

Vaccination is one of the most important ways of fighting infectious diseases, such as COVID-19. However, vaccine hesitancy and refusal can reduce adherence to vaccination campaigns, and therefore undermine their effectiveness. Although the scientific community has made great efforts to understand the psychological causes of vaccine hesitancy, studies on vaccine intention have usually relied on traditional detection techniques, such as questionnaires. Probing these constructs explicitly could be problematic due to defense mechanisms or social desirability. Thus, a measure capable of detecting implicit attitudes towards vaccination is needed. To achieve this aim, we designed and validated a new test called the Vaccine-IRAP, or V-IRAP, which is a modified version of the original Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure, or IRAP, task. The V-IRAP allows the unspoken reasons behind vaccine hesitancy to be investigated, and is able to distinguish between positive and negative beliefs on vaccination. The test was assessed in a sample of 151 participants. The V-IRAP showed good internal reliability and convergent validity, with meaningful correlational patterns with explicit measures. Moreover, it revealed incremental validity over such explicit measures. Lastly, the V-IRAP was able to shed light on the implicit attitudes involved in vaccine refusal, revealing negative attitudes relative to vaccine-related risks in non-vaccinated participants. Overall, these results support V-IRAP as a sensitive and reliable tool that could be used in future studies on implicit attitudes toward vaccination.

COVID-19 emergency: the influence of implicit attitudes, information sources, and individual characteristics on psychological distress, intentions to get vaccinated, and compliance with restrictive rules

BACKGROUND To limit the spread of the COVID-19 emergency, a massive vaccination program was implemented and restrictive measures were imposed on the population. However, the propensity to adhere to the vaccination program has struggled to take off. Moreover, complying with the restrictive rules and maintaining social distancing have been highly distressing for many individuals. PARTICIPANTS AND PROCEDURE Italian participants (N = 140, females = 65%, mean age = 29.50, SD = 10.80) were presented with an online survey consisting of multiple-choice questions and two single-category implicit association tests (SC-IATs). One SC-IAT evaluated the tendency of participants to automatically associate personal protective equipment (PPE) and vaccines with safety or danger;the other evaluated their tendency to automatically associate social situations with good or bad. Multiple-choice questions explored individual, social, and environmental factors that were expected to contribute to vaccine propensity, compliance with restrictive rules, and feelings of distress. RESULTS Using scientific information sources was related to implicitly associating PPE and vaccines with safety, which in turn was associated with the propensity to get the vaccine. Moreover, being female, young, unsatisfied with social relationships, having suffered health and economic consequences due to the pandemic, and having negative implicit attitudes toward social situations contributed to increasing feelings of distress. CONCLUSIONS Communication may contribute to individuals' behavior and preferences and it can also be associated with implicit attitudes, becoming consequently one of the main leverages to reduce vaccine hesitancy. Recovery programs should prioritize the development of interventions aimed at fostering psychological well-being through the enhancement of social contacts.

Beyond the norms: Understanding and teaching gender in elementary classrooms

Using a three-article format, this study investigates the potential of integrating social studies instruction with critical literacy practices to challenge and/or expand elementary students' perception of gender. Given that stereotypical gender norms and roles uphold systemic inequity and injustice, challenging these perceptions in elementary classrooms is essential. This dissertation examines how an online instructional unit in social studies and critical literacy practices shapes student thinking about gender norms and roles and women's history and rights and challenges their own implicit beliefs. To investigate the impact of integrating social studies and critical literacy practices, I designed and field tested a unit intended to help students think critically about gender. Although this study was originally designed for in-person learning, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I taught this unit online to 18 students from across the United States and Canada. This unit included social studies through a focus on history, civics, and justice, and utilized critical literacy practices such as interactive read-alouds, text-pairing, and restorying. Data sources were student pre- and post- interviews, observations of the lessons, and parent surveys. Each study draws from the implementation of this unit in different ways, which I describe below. The first article focuses on student perceptions of gender norms and roles both before and after participation in the unit plan. This study examines both students' implicit and explicit beliefs about gender, especially gender stereotypes. After engaging in the unit, students demonstrated shifts in their explicit thinking about gender. Specifically, students were more able to identify gender stereotypes in both texts and reality, describe consequences of stereotypes, and participate in a student-led activism project intended to challenge stereotypes in others. Students also became more likely to share ways in which they personally challenged gender stereotypes through their interests and/or appearances. Students also demonstrated shifts in their implicit thinking during writing activities by creating more complex characters who were less limited by stereotypical gender norms and roles.The second article investigates the extent to which the unit impacted student perceptions regarding women's history and women's rights. The findings of this study demonstrate that students' initial perceptions of women's contributions tended to be limited to stereotypical roles centered on caretaking. They also demonstrated a general belief that gender-based inequity has existed only in the past. After participating in the intervention, students were far more likely to describe women in counterstereotypical roles related to careers and activism, and to recognize contemporary, on-going gender inequity. Overall, students were more able to identify and critically discuss systems of gender-based oppression and inequity. The third article is practitioner-focused and investigates how teachers can pair critical literacy practices to understand and investigate their own implicit gender stereotypes. Specifically, this article provides a description of a lesson that introduces implicit stereotypes through an interactive read-alouds, the allows students to examine and challenge their own thinking through a restorying activity. Results of this study indicate that pairing critical literacy practices can help students better understand implicit stereotypes, reflect on their own implicit stereotypes, and write narratives that challenge implicit stereotypes. This article describes practical ways for teachers to implement paired critical literacy practices in their own classrooms and offers steps for expanding the described lesson to help students investigate implicit thinking about further marginalized identities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)