Social learning under acute stress.

Individual decisions are often made simultaneously under social influence and acute stress, yet despite its importance, it has been largely unknown how stress influences the weight which people place on others' decisions. To answer this I ran a laboratory experiment where 140 subjects were exposed to an acute stressor or a control procedure, immediately before and after which we tested their behavior in a simple Bayesian-updating task. Using three measures (cortisol, heart-rate and mood questionnaire) I show that subjects in the treatment group were under considerable levels of stress. Although stress was expected to increase the weight they put on information coming from the observation of others, I see no effect of stress on subjects' behavior, either after private or public signals, or on the precision of the updating behavior. This holds across different specifications and after the addition of various personal controls, including the Big-Five personality traits and the psychological measure of conformity.

Patient Responses on Quality of Care and Satisfaction with Staff After Integrated HIV Care in South African Primary Health Care Clinics.

HIV care integrated into primary health care (PHC) encourages reorganized service delivery but could increase workload. In 2012-2013, we surveyed 910 patients and caregivers at two time points after integration in four clinics in Free State, South Africa. Likert surveys measured quality of care (QoC) and satisfaction with staff (SwS). QoC scores were lower for females, those older than 56 years, those visiting clinics every 3 months, and child health participants. Regression estimates showed QoC scores higher for ages 36-45 versus 18-25 years, and lower for those attending clinics for more than 10 years versus 6-12 months. Overall, SwS scores were lower for child health attendees and higher for tuberculosis attendees compared to chronic disease care attendees. Research is needed to understand determinants of disparities in QoC and SwS, especially for child health, diabetes, and hypertension attendees, to ensure high-quality care experiences for all patients attending PHC clinics with integrated HIV care.