Make it or break it: On-time vaccination intent at the time of Covid-19.

On-time effective vaccination is critical to curbing a pandemic, but this is often hampered by citizens' hesitancy to get quickly vaccinated. This research concentrates on the hypothesis that, besides traditional factors in the literature, vaccination success would hinge on two dimensions: a) addressing a broader set of risk perception factors than health-related issues only, and b) securing sufficient social and institutional trust at the time of vaccination campaign launch. We test this hypothesis regarding Covid-19 vaccination preferences in six European countries and at the early stage of the pandemic by April 2020. We find that addressing the two roadblock dimensions could further boost Covid-19 vaccination coverage by 22%. The study also offers three extra innovations. The first is that the traditional segmentation logic between vaccine "acceptors", "hesitants" and "refusers" is further justified by the fact that segments have different attitudes: refusers care less about health issues than they are worried about family tensions and finance (dimension 1 of our hypothesis). In contrast, hesitants are the battlefield for more transparency by media and government actions (dimension 2 of our hypothesis). The second added value is that we extend our hypothesis testing with a supervised non-parametric machine learning technique (Random Forests). Again, consistent with our hypothesis, this method picks up higher-order interaction between risk and trust variables that strongly predict on-time vaccination intent. We finally explicitly adjust survey responses to account for possible reporting bias. Among others, vaccine-reluctant citizens may under-report their limited will to get vaccinated.

Vaccination or NPI? A conjoint analysis of German citizens' preferences in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This research uses discrete choice-based conjoint analysis that elicits the preference structure of German citizens when it comes to their timely intention to vaccinate. The focus is on the trade-offs between pharmaceuticals (vaccine) and "non-pharmaceutical interventions" (NPIs) such as lock-downs and social distancing measures, as well as the value of voluntary versus mandatory compliance to the citizens. Our results highlight three critical insights: (a) value of waiting: at 70% effective vaccine, 1/3 of citizens still would prefer to be vaccinated in the next 6 months rather than immediately; (b) costs of NPI constraints: an effective vaccine may come as a solution to compensate for the costs induced by invasive NPI imposed for an extended period; (c) freedom of choice: voluntary compliance is preferred by citizens over imposed measures whether it relates to vaccination choice, lock-down measures, or work location choice during the pandemic. Backing up those findings in monetary value, a quick shot of a 100% effective vaccination is estimated to be worth in the range of 11,400€. Still, the value of the shot quickly falls to no value when effectiveness drops below 50. At the same time, the cost of imposing protective rules lies in the range of 1500-2500€, depending on the rule analyzed. In comparison, the burden of extra complete lock-down and social distancing is about 775€ per citizen per month. As most current vaccines are being proven to have high efficacy, a strategy that selects the most effective vaccine candidates while emphasizing how the vaccine may stop the pain of lasting lock-downs will be appropriate to nudge the population towards vaccination. Control measures that are too restrictive may be welfare-deteriorating, but enough NPI measures must be recommended as long as vaccination adoption is not sufficiently large.

Warsaw set of emotional facial expression pictures: a validation study of facial display photographs.

Emotional facial expressions play a critical role in theories of emotion and figure prominently in research on almost every aspect of emotion. This article provides a background for a new database of basic emotional expressions. The goal in creating this set was to provide high quality photographs of genuine facial expressions. Thus, after proper training, participants were inclined to express "felt" emotions. The novel approach taken in this study was also used to establish whether a given expression was perceived as intended by untrained judges. The judgment task for perceivers was designed to be sensitive to subtle changes in meaning caused by the way an emotional display was evoked and expressed. Consequently, this allowed us to measure the purity and intensity of emotional displays, which are parameters that validation methods used by other researchers do not capture. The final set is comprised of those pictures that received the highest recognition marks (e.g., accuracy with intended display) from independent judges, totaling 210 high quality photographs of 30 individuals. Descriptions of the accuracy, intensity, and purity of displayed emotion as well as FACS AU's codes are provided for each picture. Given the unique methodology applied to gathering and validating this set of pictures, it may be a useful tool for research using face stimuli. The Warsaw Set of Emotional Facial Expression Pictures (WSEFEP) is freely accessible to the scientific community for non-commercial use by request at http://www.emotional-face.org.

A small frog that makes a big difference: brain wave testing of TV advertisements.

It is important for the marketing industry to better understand the role of the unconscious and emotions in advertising communication and shopping behavior. Yet, traditional consumer research is not enough for such a purpose. Conventional paper-and-pencil or verbal declarations favor conscious pragmatism and functionality as the principles underlying consumer decisions and motives. These approaches should be combined with an emerging discipline (consumer neuroscience or neuromarketing) to examine the brain and its functioning in the context of consumer choices. It has been widely acknowledged that patterns of brain activity are closely related to consumers cognition and behavior. Thus, the analysis of consumers neurophysiology may increase the understanding of how consumers process incoming information and how they use their memory and react emotionally (See "Three Types of Brain Wave Research on TV Advertisements"): Moreover, as the majority of consumer mental processes occur below the level of conscious awareness, observations of the brain reactions enable researchers to reach the very core (which is consciously inaccessible) foundations of consumer decisions, emotions, motivations, and preferences.