The Nocebo Effect.

Adverse nocebo responses can cause harm to patients and interfere with treatment adherence and effects in both clinic practice and clinical trials. Nocebo responses refer to negative outcomes to active medical treatments in clinical trials or practice that cannot be explained by the treatment's pharmacologic effects. Negative expectancies and nocebo effects are less known than placebo responses. Nocebo effects can be triggered by verbal suggestions, prior negative experiences, observation of others experiencing negative outcomes, and other contextual and environmental factors. As research advances over the years, mechanistic knowledge is accumulating on the neurobiological mechanisms of nocebo effects. This review summarizes studies on different facets of nocebo effects and responses and discusses clinical implications, ethical considerations, and future directions.

Computational analysis of 140 years of US political speeches reveals more positive but increasingly polarized framing of immigration.

We classify and analyze 200,000 US congressional speeches and 5,000 presidential communications related to immigration from 1880 to the present. Despite the salience of antiimmigration rhetoric today, we find that political speech about immigration is now much more positive on average than in the past, with the shift largely taking place between World War II and the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1965. However, since the late 1970s, political parties have become increasingly polarized in their expressed attitudes toward immigration, such that Republican speeches today are as negative as the average congressional speech was in the 1920s, an era of strict immigration quotas. Using an approach based on contextual embeddings of text, we find that modern Republicans are significantly more likely to use language that is suggestive of metaphors long associated with immigration, such as "animals" and "cargo," and make greater use of frames like "crime" and "legality." The tone of speeches also differs strongly based on which nationalities are mentioned, with a striking similarity between how Mexican immigrants are framed today and how Chinese immigrants were framed during the era of Chinese exclusion in the late 19th century. Overall, despite more favorable attitudes toward immigrants and the formal elimination of race-based restrictions, nationality is still a major factor in how immigrants are spoken of in Congress.

A framing effect in the judgment of discrimination.

Discrimination is not only an objective fact but also a subjective judgment. While extensive research has studied discrimination as an objective fact, we study the judgment of discrimination and show that it is malleable while holding objective discrimination constant. We focus on a common situation in real life: the constituent groups in a candidate pool are unequal (e.g., fewer female candidates than male candidates for tech jobs), and observers (e.g., the public) see only one side of the decision outcome (e.g., only the hired applicants, not the rejected ones). Ten experiments reveal a framing effect: people judge the decision-maker (e.g., the tech firm) as more discriminatory against the minority in the candidate pool if people see the composition of the accepted candidates than if they see the composition of the rejected candidates, even though the information in the two frames is equivalent (i.e., knowing the information in one frame is sufficient to infer the information in the other). The framing effect occurs regardless of whether the decision-maker is objectively discriminatory, replicates across diverse samples (Americans, Asians, and Europeans) and types of discrimination (e.g., gender, race, political orientation), and has significant behavioral consequences. We theorize and show that the framing effect arises because, when judging discrimination, people overlook information that they could infer but is not explicitly given, and they expect equality in the composition of the constituent groups in their given frame. This research highlights the fallibility of judged discrimination and suggests interventions to reduce biases and increase accuracy.

Same allocation proposed by an individual or a group elicits distinct responses: Evidence from event-related potentials and neural oscillation.

People tend to perceive the same information differently depending on whether it is expressed in an individual or a group frame. It has also been found that the individual (vs. group) frame of expression tends to lead to more charitable giving and greater tolerance of wealth inequality. However, little is known about whether the same resource allocation in social interactions elicits distinct responses depending on proposer type. Using the second-party punishment task, this study examined whether the same allocation from different proposers (individual vs. group) leads to differences in recipient behavior and the neural mechanisms. Behavioral results showed that reaction times were longer in the unfair (vs. fair) condition, and this difference was more pronounced when the proposer was the individual (vs. group). Neural results showed that proposer type (individual vs. group) influenced early automatic processing (indicated by AN1, P2, and central alpha band), middle processing (indicated by MFN and right frontal theta band), and late elaborative processing (indicated by P3 and parietal alpha band) of fairness in resource allocation. These results revealed more attentional resources were captured by the group proposer in the early stage of fairness processing, and more cognitive resources were consumed by processing group-proposed unfair allocations in the late stage, possibly because group proposers are less identifiable than individual proposers. The findings provide behavioral and neural evidence for the effects of "individual/group" framing leading to cognitive differences. They also deliver insights into social governance issues, such as punishing individual and/or group violations.

Motivated with joy or anxiety: Does approach-avoidance goal framing elicit differential reward-network activation in the brain?

Psychological research on human motivation repeatedly observed that approach goals (i.e., goals to attain success) increase task enjoyment and intrinsic motivation more strongly than avoidance goals (i.e., goals to avoid failure). The present study sought to address how the reward network in the brain-including the striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex-is involved when individuals engage in the same task with a focus on approach or avoidance goals. Participants reported stronger positive emotions when they focused on approach goals, but stronger anxiety and disappointment when they focused on avoidance goals. The fMRI analyses revealed that the reward network in the brain showed similar levels of activity to cues predictive of approach and avoidance goals. In contrast, the two goal states were associated with different patterns of activity in the visual cortex, hippocampus, and cerebellum during success and failure outcomes. Representation similarity analysis further revealed shared and different representations within the striatum and vmPFC between the approach and avoidance goal states, suggesting both the similarity and uniqueness of the mechanisms behind the two goal states. In addition, the distinct patterns of activation in the striatum were associated with distinct subjective experiences participants reported between the approach and the avoidance conditions. These results suggest the importance of examining the pattern of striatal activity in understanding the mechanisms behind different motivational states in humans.

Investigation of fast and efficient lossless compression algorithms for macromolecular crystallography experiments.

Structural biology experiments benefit significantly from state-of-the-art synchrotron data collection. One can acquire macromolecular crystallography (MX) diffraction data on large-area photon-counting pixel-array detectors at framing rates exceeding 1000 frames per second, using 200 Gbps network connectivity, or higher when available. In extreme cases this represents a raw data throughput of about 25 GB s-1, which is nearly impossible to deliver at reasonable cost without compression. Our field has used lossless compression for decades to make such data collection manageable. Many MX beamlines are now fitted with DECTRIS Eiger detectors, all of which are delivered with optimized compression algorithms by default, and they perform well with current framing rates and typical diffraction data. However, better lossless compression algorithms have been developed and are now available to the research community. Here one of the latest and most promising lossless compression algorithms is investigated on a variety of diffraction data like those routinely acquired at state-of-the-art MX beamlines.

Unveiling viewpoints on national food environment policies in the Dutch newspaper discourse: an interpretative media content analysis.

BACKGROUND: National food environment policies can contribute to the reduction of diet-related non-communicable diseases. Yet, their implementation in the Netherlands remains low. It has been hypothesized that the media can play a pivotal role in inducing spikes in policy attention, thereby shaping political action. The aim of this study was to examine the discourse on food policies in Dutch newspaper articles between 2000-2022, by analyzing arguments used by various actors. METHODS: A systematic search in Nexis Uni was used to identify newspaper articles that covered national-level Dutch food environment policies published in seven Dutch national newspapers between 2000-2022. Covered policies were classified into six domains including food composition, labeling, promotion, prices, provision and retail and into the four stages of the policy cycle; policy formulation, decision-making, implementation, and evaluation. A grey literature search was used to identify food policies implemented during 2000-2022. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize coverage of policies over time, policy type and policy stage. An interpretive content analysis was performed on a random subsample of the newspaper articles to determine the actors, viewpoints and arguments of the food policies. RESULTS: We identified 896 relevant newspaper articles. The coverage of food policies in newspapers was initially low but peaked in 2018/2021/2022. Through grey literature search we identified 6 food policies which were implemented or adjusted between 2000-2022. The majority of the newspaper articles reported on food pricing policies and were discussed in the policy formulation stage. Academics (mainly supportive) were the most and food industry (mostly opposing) the least cited actors. Supportive arguments highlighted health consequences, health inequalities and collective responsibility, whereas opposing arguments focused on unwanted governmental interference and ineffectiveness of policies. CONCLUSIONS: Dutch newspaper articles covering food policies represented a variety of actors and arguments, with individual versus collective responsibility for food choices playing a central role in the arguments. These insights may serve as a basis for further research into why certain arguments are used and their effect on policy attention and implementation.

This Dead or That Dead: Framing Effects in the Evaluation of Health States.

OBJECTIVES: Current approaches to health state valuation rely on credible classification of states as either "better than dead" or "worse than dead" (WTD). We investigate how such evaluations of health states are affected by the framing in pairwise comparison tasks. METHODS: We conducted an online survey with 361 participants to compare the propensity to evaluate a state as WTD under 6 frames: (A) using a regular time trade-off (TTO) choice task, (B) using a lead-time TTO choice task, (C) excluding the immediacy of death, (D) avoiding reference to the process of dying, (E) focusing on longevity, and (F) focusing on improvements in quality of life. Each participant evaluated 9 EQ-5D-5L health states using 3 frames. The frames were compared using several statistical approaches to confirm robustness to indirect comparisons or respondent heterogeneity and inattentiveness. RESULTS: The odds of a state being evaluated as WTD, compared with frame A, increase 2.7-fold and 1.5-fold in frame B and E, respectively, and decrease >5-fold in frame F. Frames C and D do not differ significantly from frame A. CONCLUSIONS: Different framings for questions about whether a state is WTD or better than dead, even if theoretically equivalent, yield substantially different results. Notably, whether a state is evaluated as WTD differs greatly between the regular TTO and lead-time TTO choice tasks and when either final outcomes or improvements over time are considered.

Audience segmentation approach to conservation messaging for transforming the exotic pet trade.

Advancing transformative change for sustainability requires population-wide behavior change. Yet, many behavioral interventions tackling environmental problems only examine average effects on the aggregate, overlooking the heterogeneous effects in a population. We developed and preregistered a novel audience segmentation approach to test the diverse impact of conservation messaging on reducing demand for exotic pets (private action - i.e., desire to own exotic pets or visit wildlife entertainment places) and fostering citizen engagement for system-wide change (civic action - e.g., signing a petition or participating in a protest against the exotic pet trade). Through an online survey with US participants (n = 2953), we identified 4 population segments (early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards), representing varying levels of commitment to wildlife conservation and then randomly assigned each segment to one of 3 messaging conditions. Messages highlighting negative consequences of the exotic pet trade and the power of collective action for system change effectively promoted private action among all segments except early adopters (ηp 2 = 0.005). Among civic actions, only the collective action message motivated early adopters and the early majority to sign petitions (φC = 0.193 and φC = 0.097, respectively). Furthermore, the 4 segments showed distinct reasoning for action and inaction on wildlife conservation, with certain relational values, such as care, serving as both motivations and barriers to action. These findings highlight the need for targeted behavioral interventions across diverse populations.

Estrategia de segmentación del público en los mensajes de conservación para transformar el mercado de mascotas exóticas Resumen El progreso en el cambio transformativo para la sustentabilidad requiere de cambios conductuales a nivel poblacional. Sin embargo, muchas intervenciones conductuales que abordan los problemas ambientales sólo analizan los efectos promedio sobre el agregado, lo que ignora los efectos heterogéneos sobre la población. Desarrollamos y preinscribimos una estrategia novedosa de segmentación del público para evaluar los diversos impactos de los mensajes de conservación sobre la reducción de la demanda de mascotas exóticas (acción privada [es decir, el deseo de poseer mascotas exóticas o visitar sitios de entretenimiento con fauna] y promover la participación ciudadana para un cambio sistémico [por ejemplo, firmar una petición o participar en una protesta contra el mercado de mascotas exóticas]). Realizamos una encuesta en línea con participantes estadunidenses (n = 2953) para identificar cuatro segmentos de la población (adoptadores tempranos, mayoría temprana, mayoría tardía y rezagados), los cuales representan diferentes niveles de compromiso con la conservación de fauna, y después le asignamos aleatoriamente a cada segmento una de las siguientes condiciones de mensaje: las consecuencias negativas del mercado de mascotas exóticas, el poder de la acción colectiva para el cambio sistémico e información neutral como control. Los mensajes que resaltaban las consecuencias negativas del mercado de mascotas exóticas y el poder de la acción colectiva promovieron de forma eficiente la acción privada en todos los segmentos excepto los adoptadores tempranos (ηp 2 = 0.005). Entre las acciones cívicas, sólo el mensaje de acción colectiva motivó a los adoptadores tempranos y a la mayoría temprana a firmar peticiones (φC = 0.193 y φC = 0.097, respectivamente). Además, los cuatro segmentos mostraron un razonamiento distinto para la acción e inacción para la conservación de fauna, con ciertos valores de relación, como el cuidado, fungiendo como motivación o barreras para la acción. Estos resultados enfatizan la necesidad de tener intervenciones conductuales focalizadas entre las diferentes poblaciones.

To risk or not: The impact of socioeconomic status on preschoolers' risky decision-making for gains and losses.

Disparities in socioeconomic status (SES) may affect individuals' risk preferences, which have important developmental consequences across the lifespan. Yet, previous research has shown inconsistent associations between SES and risky decision-making, and little is known about how this link develops from a young age. The current research is among the first to examine how SES influences preschoolers' risky decisions in both gain and loss frames. Across two studies, children aged 5 to 6 years (total N = 309, 154 boys) were asked to choose between certain and risky options. The risky option was more advantageous, equal to, or less advantageous than the certain option. Study 1 revealed that in the loss frame, high-SES children (n = 84, 44 boys) chose more risky options and were more sensitive to the expected value compared to low-SES children (n = 78, 42 boys), especially when the risk was more advantageous. However, this SES difference was not significant in the gain frame. Supporting the potential causal link between SES and risky decision-making, Study 2 further found that experimentally increasing low-SES children's (n = 68, 30 boys) status by providing additional resources increased their risk-seeking behavior in the loss frame. Overall, our findings suggest an interaction between environmental cues (gain vs. loss) and early life circumstances (SES) in shaping children's risk preferences. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: This research is among the first to examine how school backgrounds and experimentally manipulated SES influence preschoolers' risk preferences in gain and loss frames. Children were more risk-seeking for losses than for gains; this framing effect was stronger in higher-SES than lower-SES children. Lower-SES children exhibited fewer risk-seeking behaviors and decreased sensitivity to the expected value of options for losses, but not for gains. A temporary boost in SES increased children's risk-seeking behavior, but not sensitivity to expected values.

Supporting effective shared decision-making in surgical context: Why framing of choices matters for high-risk patients and clinicians.

AIM: In the context of high-risk surgery, shared decision-making (SDM) is important. However, the effectiveness of SDM can be hindered by misalignment between patients and clinicians in their expectations of postoperative outcomes. This study investigated the extent and the effects of this misalignment, as well as its amenability to interventions that encourage perspective-taking. METHOD: Lay participants with a Charlson Comorbidity Index of ≥4 (representing patients) and surgeons and anaesthetists (representing doctors) were recruited. During an online experiment, subjects in both groups forecast their expectations regarding short-term (0, 1 and 3 months after treatment) and long-term (6, 9 and 12 months after treatment) outcomes of different treatment options for one of three hypothetical clinical scenarios - ischaemic heart disease, colorectal cancer or osteoarthritis of the hip - and then chose between surgical or non-surgical treatment. Subjects in both groups were asked to consider the scenarios from their own perspective (Estimation task), and then to adopt the perspective of subjects in the other study group (Perspective task). The decisions of all participants (surgery vs. non-surgical alternative) were analysed using binomial generalized linear mixed models. RESULTS: In total, 55 lay participants and 54 doctors completed the online experiment. Systematic misalignment in expectations between high-risk patients and doctors was observed, with patients expecting better surgical outcomes than clinicians. Patients forecast a significantly higher likelihood of engaging in normal activities in the long term (ß = -1.09, standard error [SE] = 0.20, t = -5.38, p < 0.001), a lower likelihood of experiencing complications in the long term (ß = 0.92, SE = 0.21, t = 4.45, p < 0.001) and a lower likelihood of experiencing depression in both the short term and the long term (ß = 1.01, SE = 0.19, t = 5.38, p < 0.001), than did doctors. Compared with doctors, patients forecast higher estimates of experiencing complications in the short term when a non-surgical alternative was selected (ß = -0.91, SE = 0.26, t = -3.50, p = 0.003). Despite this misalignment, in both groups surgical treatment was strongly preferred (estimation task: 88.7% of doctors and 80% of patients; perspective task: 82.2% of doctors and 90.1% of patients). CONCLUSION: When high-risk surgery is discussed, a non-surgical option may be viewed as 'doing nothing', hence reducing the sense of agency and control. This biases the decision-making process, regardless of the expectations that doctors and patients might have about the outcomes of surgery. Therefore, to improve SDM and to increase the agency and control of patients regarding decisions about their care, we advocate framing the non-surgical treatment options in a way that emphasizes action, agency and change.

Connectome-based individualized prediction of reciprocity propensity and sensitivity to framing: a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging study.

BACKGROUND: The social representation theory states that individual differences in reciprocity decisions are composed of a stable central core (i.e., reciprocity propensity, RP) and a contextual-dependent periphery (i.e., sensitivity to the framing effect; SFE, the effect by how the decision is presented). However, the neural underpinnings that explain RP and SFE are still unknown. METHOD: Here, we employed prediction and lesion models to decode resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) of RP and SFE for reciprocity decisions of healthy volunteers who underwent RS functional magnetic resonance imaging and completed one-shot trust (give frame) and distrust (take frame) games as trustees. RESULTS: Regarding the central core, reciprocity rates were positively associated between the give and take frame. Neuroimaging results showed that inter-network RSFC between the default-mode network (DMN; associated with mentalizing) and cingulo-opercular network (associated with cognitive control) contributed to the prediction of reciprocity under both frames. Regarding the periphery, behavioral results demonstrated a significant framing effect-people reciprocated more in the give than in the take frame. Our neuroimaging results revealed that intra-network RSFC of DMN (associated with mentalizing) contributed dominantly to the prediction of SFE. CONCLUSION: Our findings provide evidence for distinct neural mechanisms of RP and SFE in reciprocity decisions.

I want to be safe: understanding the main drivers behind vaccination choice throughout the pandemic.

BACKGROUND: Despite being a major advancement in modern medicine, vaccines face widespread hesitancy and refusal, posing challenges to immunization campaigns. The COVID-19 pandemic accentuated vaccine hesitancy, emphasizing the pivotal role of beliefs in efficacy and safety on vaccine acceptance rates. This study explores the influence of efficacy and safety perceptions on vaccine uptake in Italy during the pandemic. METHODS: We administered a 70-item questionnaire to a representative sample of 600 Italian speakers. Participants were tasked with assessing the perceived effectiveness and safety of each vaccine dose, along with providing reasons influencing their vaccination choices. Additionally, we conducted an experimental manipulation, exploring the effects of four framing messages that emphasized safety and/or efficacy on participants' willingness to receive a hypothetical fourth vaccine dose. Furthermore, participants were asked about their level of trust in the scientific community and public authorities, as well as their use of different information channels for obtaining COVID-19-related information. RESULTS: Our study reveals a dynamic shift in vaccine efficacy and safety perceptions throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, potentially influencing vaccination compliance. Initially perceived as more effective than safe, this assessment reversed by the time of the third dose. Beliefs regarding safety, rather than efficacy, played a significant role in anticipating future vaccinations (e.g., the booster dose). Safety-focused messages positively affected vaccination intent, while efficacy-focused messages showed limited impact. We also observed a changing trend in reasons for vaccination, with a decline in infection-related reasons and an increase in social related ones. Furthermore, trust dynamics evolved differently for public authorities and the scientific community. CONCLUSIONS: Vaccine perception is a dynamic process shaped by evolving factors like efficacy and safety perceptions, trust levels, and individual motivations. Our study sheds light on the complex dynamics that underlie the perception of vaccine safety and efficacy, and their impact on willingness to vaccinate. We discuss these results in light of bounded rationality, loss aversion and classic utility theory.

Public health framing of firearm violence on local television news in Philadelphia, PA, USA: a quantitative content analysis.

BACKGROUND: Firearm violence is an intensifying public health problem in the United States. News reports shape the way the public and policy makers understand and respond to health threats, including firearm violence. To better understand how firearm violence is communicated to the public, we aimed to determine the extent to which firearm violence is framed as a public health problem on television news and to measure harmful news content as identified by firearm-injured people. METHODS: This is a quantitative content analysis of Philadelphia local television news stories about firearm violence using a database of 7,497 clips. We compiled a stratified sample of clips aired on two randomly selected days/month from January-June 2021 from the database (n = 192 clips). We created a codebook to measure public health frame elements and to assign a harmful content score for each story and then coded the clips. Characteristics of stories containing episodic frames that focus on single shooting events were compared to clips with thematic frames that include broader social context for violence. RESULTS: Most clips employed episodic frames (79.2%), presented law enforcement officials as primary narrators (50.5%), and included police imagery (79.2%). A total of 433 firearm-injured people were mentioned, with a mean of 2.8 individuals shot included in each story. Most of the firearm-injured people featured in the clips (67.4%) had no personal information presented apart from age and/or gender. The majority of clips (84.4%) contained at least one harmful content element. The mean harmful content score/clip was 2.6. Public health frame elements, including epidemiologic context, root causes, public health narrators and visuals, and solutions were missing from most clips. Thematic stories contained significantly more public health frame elements and less harmful content compared to episodic stories. CONCLUSIONS: Local television news produces limited public health coverage of firearm violence, and harmful content is common. This reporting likely compounds trauma experienced by firearm-injured people and could impede support for effective public health responses to firearm violence. Journalists should work to minimize harmful news content and adopt a public health approach to reporting on firearm violence.

The role of framing, agency and uncertainty in a focus-divide dilemma.

How to prioritise multiple objectives is a common dilemma of daily life. A simple and effective decision rule is to focus resources when the tasks are difficult, and divide when tasks are easy. Nonetheless, in experimental paradigms of this dilemma, participants make highly variable and suboptimal strategic decisions when asked to allocate resources to two competing goals that vary in difficulty. We developed a new version in which participants had to choose where to park a fire truck between houses of varying distances apart. Unlike in the previous versions of the dilemma, participants approached the optimal strategy in this task. Three key differences between the fire truck version and previous versions of the task were investigated: (1) Framing (whether the objectives are familiar or abstract), by comparing a group who placed cartoon trucks between houses to a group performing the same task with abstract shapes; (2) Agency (how much of the task is under the participants' direct control), by comparing groups who controlled the movement of the truck to those who did not; (3) Uncertainty, by adding variability to the driving speed of the truck to make success or failure on a given trial more difficult to predict. Framing and agency did not influence strategic decisions. When adding variability to outcomes, however, decisions shifted away from optimal. The results suggest choices become more variable when the outcome is less certain, consistent with exploration of response alternatives triggered by an inability to predict success.

Vaccinating for My Family or for My Community? The Effect of Message Framing on Parental Intention to Vaccinate during the COVID Pandemic.

BACKGROUND: Social media is one of the major platforms for disseminating essential health messages. The present study examined the effect of message framing (self-interest motive, prosocial motive) on an online platform for parental intention to vaccinate against COVID-19. It also examined how the effect may vary across participants' levels of parental identity centrality/salience and community orientation before the vaccine was officially available. METHODS: Six hundred and sixty-three Hong Kong Chinese parents were recruited, and a total of 278 valid responses were retained in the analyses. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the three conditions: self-interest motive, prosocial motive, and control. Participants in the self-interest motive condition and the prosocial motive condition read a condition-specific message about the COVID-19 vaccine. Then, they reported their levels of intention to vaccinate against COVID-19, including parent-vaccination, child-vaccination, and medical information-seeking. RESULTS: A significant group effect on child-vaccination was found. Participants in the self-interest motive condition reported a higher intention to vaccinate their children against COVID-19 compared with the other two conditions. Results of moderation analyses indicated that communal orientation moderated the effect of a self-interest-motive-emphasized message on parental intention to vaccinate against COVID-19. The effect of a self-interest-motive-emphasized message appeared to be stronger on parent-vaccination, child-vaccination, and medical information-seeking among parents who reported lower levels of communal orientation. CONCLUSION: These findings provided some initial evidence of the effectiveness of message-framing in promoting parents' intention to vaccinate their children on online platforms.

Understanding consumer attitude toward the name framings of cultured meat: Evidence from China.

The naming and labeling of products can affect consumer attitudes and subsequent behavior, particularly in the case of new food products in the market. The present study explores the effects of name framing on consumer attitudes towards cultured meat (CM), which is currently in the early stages of development. With a sample of 1532 Chinese consumers, we integrated several pathways to explain the name-framing effect by examining three different terms ("cultured," "artificial," and "cell-based") for CM. Results indicate that "cultured meat" and "cell-based meat" are more appealing than "artificial meat." Name framings of CM affect consumers' perception of benefits more than that of risks. Our comprehensive model identified evoked affect (perceived disgust) and naturalness as two crucial predictors of attitudes. These two predictors also act as substantial mediators of perceived benefits, and they activate the mediation of perceived risks (an insignificant mediator in cognitive processing). In addition, perceived naturalness mediates the name-framing effect mainly through perceived disgust. Our findings have implications for future strategies for communicating about novel foods (like CM) to the public.

The ethics of expert communication.

Despite its public visibility and impact on policy, the activity of expert communication rarely receives more than a passing mention in codes of scientific integrity. This paper makes the case for an ethics of expert communication, introducing a framework where expert communication is represented as an intrinsically ethical activity of a deliberative agent. Ethical expert communication cannot be ensured by complying with various requirements, such as restricting communications to one's area of expertise or disclosing conflicts of interest. Expert communication involves morally laden trade-offs that must be weighed by a deliberative agent. A basic normative framework is introduced, and concrete provisions are proposed for codes of scientific integrity.

Differences in Antenatal Care Policies in England, Finland, and the Netherlands: A Framing analysis.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: The World Health Organization (WHO) states that good quality antenatal care should strive for both mother and child achieving their best possible health. On a policy level, in Europe these goals are reached with varying approaches. This research offers a fresh look on the underlying assumptions embedded in the ANC policies in three European countries. METHODS: A framing analysis was conducted to publicly available ANC policies on uncomplicated pregnancies in Finland, England, and the Netherlands. Analysis was guided by van Hulst and Yanowa and included the following phases: a) Sense-making, b) Selecting, naming, and categorizing and c) Storytelling. MAIN FINDINGS: Findings of this study demonstrate how ANC is organized with distinct frames. The Finnish ANC policies emphasized equity in care and instead of focusing on women, the ANC focused on the family. In England the pregnant woman was central, and it is seen as her responsibility to understand the ANC protocols. The ANC in the Netherlands focused on the pregnant woman's pregnancy experience and freedom. CONCLUSION: The three studied countries had individual priorities and values guiding ANC provision. Despite each country being in line with the WHO ANC recommendations, areas requiring improvement should not be overlooked.

Psychological ownership interventions increase interest in claiming government benefits.

Each year, eligible individuals forgo billions of dollars in financial assistance in the form of government benefits. To address this participation gap, we identify psychological ownership of government benefits as a factor that significantly influences individuals' interest in applying for government benefits. Psychological ownership refers to how much an individual feels that a target is their own. We propose that the more individuals feel that government benefits are their own, the less likely they are to perceive applying for them as an aversive ask for help, and thus, the more likely they are to pursue them. Three large-scale field experiments among low-income individuals demonstrate that higher psychological ownership framing of government benefits significantly increases participants' pursuit of benefits and outperforms other common psychological interventions. An additional experiment shows that this effect occurs because greater psychological ownership reduces people's general aversion to asking for assistance. Relative to control messages, these psychological ownership interventions increased interest in claiming government benefits by 20% to 128%. These results suggest that psychological ownership framing is an effective tool in the portfolio of potential behavioral science interventions and a simple way to stimulate interest in claiming benefits.