Comparing their outcomes

Regulating children’s and adolescents’ access to video games appeared on the agenda of media lawmakers from the 1990s on. Approaches in western democracies have largely followed the approach of industry self-regulation, resulting in a diverse set of different types of self-regulation systems. This study applies a comparative perspective on the actual rating practices, asking how far regulation systems differ systematically and how far these differences might lead to different rating decisions. The study analyzes both the set-up of three major western regulation systems (the German USK, the pan-European PEGI and the US ESRB) and the actual rating decisions in each of the three systems relying on secondary data at the aggregate level, individual rating decisions for 182 top-selling titles and a list of favorite video games of 744 adolescents in the US and Germany. Findings illustrate that each system has a distinct focus, according to which it regulates different video game use more strongly than the other systems

Are byline biases an issue of the past? The effect of author’s gender and emotion norm prescriptions on the evaluation of news articles on gender equality

When female journalists write about issues of gender equality, they often become the target of incivility and their work is devaluated. Research has investigated such devaluations based on journalists’ gender under the scope of byline biases, analysing if it matters to readers whether a news piece is authored by a male or female journalist. In this paper, we set out to study if gender byline biases occur when journalists write about gender equality. As gender attributions become particularly salient through the presentation of gendered emotion norms, we also inquire in how it matters for readers’ interest in reading such an article and the attributed credibility of the author when an article prescribes gender-specific emotions. We report findings from two consecutive experimental studies, manipulating gender bylines and emotion norm prescriptions and include reader gender as a quasi-experimental factor. Our findings show that gender byline biases against female authors are depending on content and context characteristics and only become activated when gender cues are clearly visible. At the same time, we found a tendency to judge female authors as more credible for topics on gender equality, which (partly) mitigated negative effects on reading intention for female authors. The prescription of emotion norms did not further strengthen biases against female authors. Our study opens the path for further investigations into the question when gender bylines are activated and underlines the challenges for female journalists’ visibility when they address controversial issues such as gender equality

A crosscultural analysis of elderly people’s morality in interactive media

This study examines elderly people’s innate moral foundations in influencing decisions, and their subsequent enjoyment in an interactive media environment. The Moral Foundation Questionnaire was used to distinguish between the moral intuitions of elderly US and German respondents, who were believed to have divergent yet stable moral codes that would be salient in a novel virtual world. In an experimental design, participants (N=116) were confronted with a computer simulation in which they could decide to violate or uphold each of five moral intuitions. Germans and Americans differed in their moral foundations, yet for both groups higher moral salience led to a decrease in decisions to commit moral violations in a virtual world. Results for enjoyment were mixed

Genetic Contribution to Alcohol Dependence: Investigation of a Heterogeneous German Sample of Individuals with Alcohol Dependence, Chronic Alcoholic Pancreatitis, and Alcohol-Related Cirrhosis

The present study investigated the genetic contribution to alcohol dependence (AD) using genome-wide association data from three German samples. These comprised patients with: (i) AD; (ii) chronic alcoholic pancreatitis (ACP); and (iii) alcohol-related liver cirrhosis (ALC). Single marker, gene-based, and pathway analyses were conducted. A significant association was detected for the ADH1B locus in a gene-based approach (puncorrected = 1.2 × 10−6; pcorrected = 0.020). This was driven by the AD subsample. No association with ADH1B was found in the combined ACP + ALC sample. On first inspection, this seems surprising, since ADH1B is a robustly replicated risk gene for AD and may therefore be expected to be associated also with subgroups of AD patients. The negative finding in the ACP + ALC sample, however, may reflect genetic stratification as well as random fluctuation of allele frequencies in the cases and controls, demonstrating the importance of large samples in which the phenotype is well assessed

Evidence for Increased Genetic Risk Load for Major Depression in Patients Assigned to Electroconvulsive Therapy

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is the treatment of choice for severe and treatment-resistant depression; disorder severity and unfavorable treatment outcomes are shown to be influenced by an increased genetic burden for major depression (MD). Here, we tested whether ECT assignment and response/nonresponse are associated with an increased genetic burden for major depression (MD) using polygenic risk score (PRS), which summarize the contribution of diseaserelated common risk variants. Fifty-one psychiatric inpatients suffering from a major depressive episode underwent ECT. MD-PRS were calculated for these inpatients and a separate population-based sample (n = 3,547 healthy; n = 426 self-reported depression) based on summary statistics from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium MDD-working group (Cases: n = 59,851; Controls: n = 113,154). MD-PRS explained a significant proportion of disease status between ECT patients and healthy controls (p = .022, R2 = 1.173%); patients showed higher MD-PRS. MD-PRS in population-based depression self-reporters were intermediate between ECT patients and controls (n.s.). Significant associations between MD-PRS and ECT response (50% reduction in Hamilton depression rating scale scores) were not observed. Our findings indicate that ECT cohorts show an increased genetic burden for MD and are consistent with the hypothesis that treatment-resistant MD patients represent a subgroup with an increased genetic risk for MD. Larger samples are needed to better substantiate these findings

Trading Data for Health: How Social Comparison Orientation and Privacy Attitudes Impact on mHealth App Use

mHealth apps are growing in popularity among smartphone users. Such apps often contain social features that enable users to compare their behavior with others but to function, mHealth apps require users to share health information which is considered a threat to individuals’ privacy. Building on social comparison theory and research on privacy decision-making, we investigate the effects of users’ social comparison orientation and privacy attitudes as well as the potential mediating effect of health information disclosure on users’ intention to use a dietary app. Relying on a PLS-based structural-equation model in a sample of N = 528 participants, our study supports claims of a positive effect of social comparison orientation on intention to use a mHealth app. Further, the negative effect of privacy attitude and the positive mediation of information disclosure were supported as well. The study also demonstrated that findings were stable when the context of information disclosure is changed

Same result, different effect The credibility attribution to public opinion research results Gleiches Ergebnis, andere Wirkung Die Glaubwürdigkeit von Ergebnissen der Markt- und Meinungsforschung

Results of opinion polls are used frequently in the press and media users rely on them in order to form an opinion or to make a decision. Sometimes, the reliability of polls can be questioned. This study examines the relative impact of source and type of medium on the credibility of published public opinion poll results. We conducted a two-factorial experimental online survey study (N = 150 German internet users). Manipulated factors were source (well-known vs. unknown polling institute) and type of medium (quality press vs. tabloid press). While we find significant effects for type of medium, effects for source cannot be confirmed. Independent from the source of the result, the same result being published by quality press is considered more credible than when published by tabloid press

Development and Validation of an Algorithm Literacy Scale for Internet Users

In light of the widespread use of big data analytics, internet users are increasingly confronted with algorithmic decision-making. Developing algorithm literacy is thus crucial to empower users to successfully navigate digital environments. In this paper, we present the development and validation of an algorithm literacy scale that consists of two interrelated dimensions: 1) awareness of algorithms use and 2) knowledge about algorithms. To validate the scale, we use item response theory and report findings from two studies. In study 1, we tested 46 items among N = 331 participants, resulting in a 32-item pool. These items were tested in a second study among N = 1,041 German internet users. The final scale consists of each 11 items measuring algorithm awareness and knowledge. Both subscales correlated positively with participants’ subjective coding skills and proved to be an appropriate predictor for participants’ handling of algorithmic curation in three test-scenarios

Processing privacy information and decision-making for smartphone apps among young German smartphone users

<p>While privacy behaviour is generally equated with self-disclosure, other forms of behaviour that potentially infringe an individual’s privacy, such as downloading an app, are being neglected by research. We seek to fill this gap by modelling app decision-making within a dual-process model of the attitude–behaviour relationship and the role of privacy attitudes in two kinds of information processing: (1) spontaneous, heuristic processes that rely on automated attitude activation and (2) elaborate, cognitive processes that rely on behavioural intentions to guide behaviour. We used a quasi-experimental design to investigate app decision-making processes for <i>N</i> = 89 participants in <i>N</i> = 254 decision-making cases. Participants were asked to provide information on their actions after downloading three apps on their smartphones over a 2-week period. We could identify two distinct types of information processing and found support for attitude activation and, to a lesser degree, intentions as requirements for the influence of privacy attitudes on app decision-making.</p