Inertia in cognitive processes: the case of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Developments in factor analysis (Spearman in Am J Psychol 15:201-292, 1904); Thurstone in Multiple factor analysis, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1947), multidimensional scaling (Torgerson in Theory and methods of scaling, Wiley Hoboken, New Jersey, 1958; Young and Householder in Psychometrika, 3:19-22, 1938), the Galileo model (Woelfel and Fink in The measurement of communication processes: galileo theory and method, Academic Press Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1980), and, more recently, in computer science, artificial intelligence, computational linguistics, network analysis and other disciplines (Woelfel in Qual Quant 54:263-278, 2020) have shown that human cognitive and cultural beliefs and attitudes can be modeled as movement through a high-dimensional non-Euclidean space. This article demonstrates the theoretical and methodological contribution that multidimensional scaling makes to understand attitude change associated with the COVID-19 vaccine.

Dialysis Patients' Social Networks and Living Donation Offers.

Rationale & Objective: Most living kidney donors are members of a hemodialysis patient's social network. Network members are divided into core members, those strongly connected to the patient and other members; and peripheral members, those weakly connected to the patient and other members. We identify how many hemodialysis patients' network members offered to become kidney donors, whether these offers were from core or peripheral network members, and whose offers the patients accepted. Study Design: A cross-sectional interviewer-administered hemodialysis patient social network survey. Setting & Participants: Prevalent hemodialysis patients in 2 facilities. Predictors: Network size and constraint, a donation from a peripheral network member. Outcomes: Number of living donor offers, accepting an offer. Analytical Approach: We performed egocentric network analyses for all participants. Poisson regression models evaluated associations between network measures and number of offers. Logistic regression models determined the associations between network factors and accepting a donation offer. Results: The mean age of the 106 participants was 60 years. Forty-five percent were female, and 75% self-identified as Black. Fifty-two percent of participants received at least one living donor offer (range 1-6); 42% of the offers were from peripheral members. Participants with larger networks received more offers (incident rate ratio [IRR], 1.26; 95% CI, 1.12-1.42; P = 0.001), including networks with more peripheral members (constraint, IRR, 0.97; 95% CI, 0.96-0.98; P < 0.001). Participants who received a peripheral member offer had 3.6 times greater odds of accepting an offer (OR, 3.56; 95% CI, 1.15-10.8; P = 0.02) than those who did not receive a peripheral member offer. Limitations: A small sample of only hemodialysis patients. Conclusions: Most participants received at least one living donor offer, often from peripheral network members. Future living donor interventions should focus on both core and peripheral network members.

How Americans Make Sense of Two Novel Pandemics.

Using Galileo theory and method of multidimensional scaling (MDS), we compared the psychological distances between concepts related to two pandemic viruses, Zika and COVID-19. Surveys (Zika, N = 410; COVID-19, N = 291) were used to investigate the role of media use and interpersonal communication on the relationship between 10 concepts in multidimensional spaces. We asked these four research questions: Do the two spaces represent the two pandemics similarly? What is the relationship of me and of people to each pandemic? What is the effect of virus-related media use and interpersonal talk on the pandemic space? What are optimal messages for moving me closer to Zika and to COVID-19? Media use influenced the distances for both pandemics: With greater media use, the concepts were closer in the Zika space and further apart in the COVID-19 space. Interpersonal communication was associated with few differences in the spaces. Based on the psychological distances between concepts, optimal messages were identified: For Zika, a message with two concepts, people and women, is predicted to be most effective to move Zika to the concept me, whereas for COVID-19, a message with people is predicted to be most effective to move COVID-19 to me.

Does Whom Patients Sit Next to during Hemodialysis Affect Whether They Request a Living Donation?

Background: The seating arrangement of in-center hemodialysis is conducive to patients forming a relationship and a social network. We examined how seating in the in-center hemodialysis clinic affected patients forming relationships, whether patients formed relationships with others who have similar transplant behaviors (homophily), and whether these relationships influenced patients (social contagion) to request a living donation from family and friends outside of the clinic. Methods: In this 30-month, prospective cohort study, we observed the relationships of 46 patients on hemodialysis in a hemodialysis clinic. Repeated participant surveys assessed in-center transplant discussions and living-donor requests. A separable temporal exponential random graph model estimated how seating, demographics, in-center transplant discussions, and living-donor requests affected relationship formation via sociality and homophily. We examined whether donation requests spread via social contagion using a susceptibility-infected model. Results: For every seat apart, the odds of participants forming a relationship decreased (OR, 0.74; 95% CI, 0.61 to 0.90; P=0.002). Those who requested a living donation tended to form relationships more than those who did not (sociality, OR, 1.6; 95% CI, 1.02 to 2.6; P=0.04). Participants who discussed transplantation in the center were more likely to form a relationship with another participant who discussed transplantation than with someone who did not discuss transplantation (homophily, OR, 1.9; 95% CI, 1.03 to 3.5; P=0.04). Five of the 36 susceptible participants made a request after forming a relationship with another patient. Conclusions: Participants formed relationships with those they sat next to and had similar transplant behaviors. The observed increase in in-center transplant discussions and living-donation requests by the members of the hemodialysis-clinic social network was not because of social contagion. Instead, participants who requested a living donation were more social, formed more relationships within the clinic, and discussed transplantation with each other as a function of health-behavior homophily.

Does Sex, Race, and the Size of a Kidney Transplant Candidate's Social Network Affect the Number of Living Donor Requests? A Multicenter Social Network Analysis of Patients on the Kidney Transplant Waitlist.

BACKGROUND: A kidney transplant candidate's social network serves as a pool of potential living donors. Sex and racial differences in network size, network strength, and living donor requests may contribute to disparities in living donor kidney transplantation. METHODS: In this multicenter cross-sectional study, we performed an egocentric network analysis via a telephone survey of 132 waitlisted candidates (53% female and 69% Black) to identify demographic and network factors associated with requesting living kidney donations. RESULTS: Female participants made requests to more network members than male participants: incidence rate ratio (IRR) 1.95, 95% confidence interval (CI) [1.24-3.06], P < 0.01. Black participants tended to make more requests than whites (IRR 1.65, 95% CI [0.99-2.73], P = 0.05). The number of requests increased with the size of the network (IRR 1.09, 95% CI [1.02-1.16], P = 0.01); however, network size did not differ by sex or race. Network members who provided greater instrumental support to the candidates were most likely to receive a request: odds ratio 1.39, 95% CI [1.08-1.78], P = 0.01. CONCLUSIONS: Transplant candidates' networks vary in size and in the number of requests made to the members. Previously observed racial and sex disparities in living donor kidney transplantation do not appear to be related to network size or to living donation requests, but rather to the network members themselves. Future living donor interventions should focus on the network members and be tailored to their relationship with the candidate.

Precise Persuasion: Investigating Incentive Appeals for the Promotion of Antibiotic Stewardship with Message-induced Transitions.

Two different lines of research-interpersonal resistance and public campaign design-lead us to consider the use of incentive appeals to motivate behavior change, with a call for greater attention to and use of positive incentives. This study tests the potential to promote antibiotic stewardship through microbiome benefits. In addition, multiple analyses were used: A causal analysis allowed us to identify what moved (e.g., which beliefs and intentions), a latent transition analysis allowed us to reveal who moved (targets, nontargets, or both), and a Markov model allowed us to estimate the stable state of these moves or, in other words, where and how the repetition of the messages would ultimately lead in terms of transitions from state to state. An experiment (N = 298), grounded in the context of antibiotic stewardship, showed that incentive appeals moved people with problematic patterns of past behavior (categorized as Persuaders, Stockers, and Dissenters) to positive patterns of behavioral intentions (categorized as Stewards). The causal analysis, latent class analysis, and equilibrium values for the separate transition matrices showed the relative benefit for a message that highlighted the health and wellness benefits of the microbiome. Implications for persuasion theory and practice are discussed.

Understanding the Effects of Stigma Messages: Danger Appraisal and Message Judgments.

Media coverage of health issues has been criticized for creating health stigmas. The model of stigma communication (MSC, Smith, 2007) provides insights into why this is so, but it has two problems: Some of its mediators have not been supported, and it does not do a good job of predicting the transmission of stigma messages (i.e., social transmission). We present a revised model of stigma message effects in which exposure to stigma messages leads to stigma beliefs and stigmatization as a result of a person-oriented danger appraisal. In addition, message judgments-shock value and common ground-are introduced as mediators of the relationship between danger appraisal and social transmission. Participants (N = 200) were randomly assigned to read a health story written either with or without the intrinsic features of stigma messages. The revised model of stigma-message effects was supported: Reading a health news story written with (vs. without) the intrinsic features of stigma messages resulted in greater danger appraisal, which directly predicted stigma-related outcomes and indirectly predicted social transmission through message judgments. Social transmission varied by message judgment: Shocking messages were shared in ways that facilitate diffusion, but common ground messages were shared with influential others, suggesting different means by which stigma as a collective norm may emerge from interactions among community members.