The Effect of Being Vaccinated and National Vaccination Rates on Individuals' Cognitions, Emotions, and Economic Expectations: Evidence from Israel.

BACKGROUND: Israel was the first nation to establish a vaccination program during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, its citizens could look to no other country to help them judge its influence. People's predictions of their safety should depend on whether they were vaccinated, whereas their predictions regarding the COVID-19 pandemic should be based on the degree of progress of the vaccination program. We expected people to understand that the program would improve their safety by reducing the number of infected people around them. METHOD: An original panel survey was conducted covering the pandemic's first year. Respondents reported their vaccination status, emotions, evaluations of their safety, and predictions about the spread of COVID-19 and the Israeli gross domestic product. RESULTS: Estimates of fixed-effects models using the survey data suggest that being vaccinated affected people's cognitions about their own safety and their emotions but not their expectations regarding the situation in Israel as a whole. In contrast, the vaccination rate in Israel affected only the respondents' expectations about the spread of COVID-19, their own income, and Israel's gross domestic product. CONCLUSIONS: Being vaccinated is important for people's personal emotional and cognitive relief during a pandemic. A high vaccination rate improves people's economic expectations, which is important to the recovery of economic activity.

You are not in the army now! A field study on the impact of a Preparation for Civilian Life program on young soldiers.

Recent years have seen the implementation of educational programs aimed at developing future orientation and better employability skills, mostly for people new to or returning to the job market. In a field study, we investigated the impact of a 5-day program on reintegration to civilian life on young Israeli combat soldiers' time preferences, gratitude, patriotism, and perceptions of their combat experience. Questionnaires administered before and after the program revealed a positive effect on future orientation but a negative effect on gratitude and perceptions of the combat experience. Although the positive effect on future orientation is in line with the program design, the negative effects found should be taken into consideration when planning or improving similar educational programs.

Is stronger religious faith associated with a greater willingness to take the COVID-19 vaccine? Evidence from Israel and Japan.

Achieving high vaccination rates is important for overcoming an epidemic. This study investigates the association between religious faith and intentions to become vaccinated against COVID-19 in Israel and Japan. Most of Israel's population is monotheistic, whereas most Japanese are unaffiliated with any religion. Therefore, our findings might be applicable to various countries that differ in their religions and levels of religiosity. We conducted almost identical large-scale surveys four times in Israel and five times in Japan from March to June 2020 to obtain panel data. We found that intentions of getting vaccinated depend on people's level of religiosity in a non-linear way. Those who have strong religious beliefs are less likely to become vaccinated than those who say they are less religious. Two other factors that play a role in this relationship are religious denomination in Israel and identifying with a religion in Japan.

Optimism and precautionary measures during the COVID-19 outbreak in China.

OBJECTIVE: The current study uses the unique setting created by the coronavirus crisis in China during the peak period of the pandemic to examine the behavioral factors affecting the decision of the Chinese people to adopt the precautionary actions recommended by the government. METHODS: Using the social app WeChat, we conducted a cross sectional study of the Chinese people in mid-February 2020. RESULTS: Our results show that higher levels of dispositional optimism and support for the government's actions for managing the epidemic were positively correlated with the compliance level. In addition, women and married participants were more likely to comply with the recommendations. CONCLUSIONS: Optimism and support for government actions should be considered when promoting policies related to health behavior such as social distancing.

Sweet sixteen: changing time preferences in the transition from middle school to high school, for different scenarios.

Teenagers earn, save and spend large amounts of money. Therefore, understanding teenagers' time preference and how it affects their economic behavior is very important. The current study investigates time preferences of high school and middle school students, and the effect of different intertemporal choice scenarios on teenagers' subjective discount rate. One scenario used a standard intertemporal choice question while the other was a wage scenario. We found higher future orientation (lower subjective discount rate) among high school students than among middle school students when using a standard scenario but found no difference between groups in the wage scenario. For both groups, we found the subjective discount rates increased when the teenagers are asked to delay receipt of wages they earned by working (wage scenario). Other variables, like participation in sports and an allowance given by parents, were found to affect teenagers' time preferences.