Toward a Comprehensive Worldview Measure

Worldview is an individual difference construct that has been linked to various behavioral and health outcomes. However, very little is known about how worldviews develop and how worldview beliefs, values, and attitudes coalesce into different worldview factors. One obstacle that has impeded research on worldviews is the lack of a robust worldview measure. The creation of a new, more valid worldview measure will aid in answering these important questions. This research project is the first step in the creation of a more comprehensive worldview measure. The primary aims of Study 1 were to compile existing published worldview measures and reduce the combined items to a parsimonious number necessitated by the large-scale factor analyses used in Study 2. Five published worldview measures were identified, and the combined 160-items were administered in random order to 171 participants from a mid-size, public university. The 160 items were reduced through Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) by analyzing (1) communality values, (2) rotated factor loadings, (3) significant cross-loadings, and (4) inter-item correlations, leaving 77 items which formed 8 preliminary factors. Study 2 sought to re-identify and confirm the factors (with an adequate sample size) to ensure that the new measure maintained a meaningful breadth while eliminating any further redundant or extraneous items. Participants (N = 772) were recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). An EFA was run on half of these participants using the same criteria from Study 1 to reduce items. This process resulted in 41 items which formed five factors: Factor 1, benevolence and optimism; Factor 2, secularism; Factor 3, Eastern-based spirituality; Factor 4, hard work; and Factor 5, illusion of free will. The five factors were then analyzed using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to see how the model fit the remaining half of participants. The CFI indicated a good fit of the model to the data. However, the RMSEA fell above the suggested maximum value. Taken together, these indices suggest that the model has room for improvement, but is an overall decent fit. This new, 41-item measure, the Comprehensive Worldview Measure (CWM), has significant potential to further worldview research

Do children always trust confident individuals? Not when it comes to moral deliberations.

Children and adults alike often interpret confident individuals as more credible sources when learning new information. However, confidence is not always interpreted as a sign of credibility. For example, children of about 5 years of age prefer a hesitant-accurate individual over a confident-inaccurate one (Brosseau-Liard, Cassels, & Birch, 2014). Previous research has shown that confident individuals are generally perceived as credible when the issue at hand is factual in nature. For example, one may trust a confident individual over a hesitant individual when they are providing differing information about salmon spawning patterns. However, it is an open question whether the preference for confidence generalizes to non-factual claims, such as moral decisions. That is, one may be skeptical of a confident individual when they make claims about who is most deserving of societal aid, as their confidence may reflect a cursory level of thoughtfulness. To address this gap in the literature, this study examined children’s credibility judgments of informants who differed in their level of confidence in two domains of knowledge (factual and moral). Method. Children 3-8 years (N=96 planned with 82 participants thus far) listened to both a confident and a hesitant speaker make claims about either factual information (e.g., the dragonfly has a fendle inside) or moral decisions (e.g., the otter should get the last piece of fish). Novel (that is, made up) facts with words from a published novel word bank were utilized so as to control for children’s prior knowledge. Each child listened to a total of eight claims (factual or moral): four with a confident speaker and four with a hesitant speaker (in alternating order). After each claim, children rated the speaker’s confidence, likeability, smartness, and agreement with the speaker on a 4-point scale (0=not at all, 3=a lot). Results. Results. Importantly, children clearly discerned between the speakers’ level of confidence as shown by significantly higher confidence ratings for the confident versus hesitant speaker (p\u3c.001). However, children’s preferences for the confident speaker differed by domain (ps\u3c.02). Consistent with previous research, when learning factual information children showed a preference for the confident informant in terms of her likeability, smartness, and agreement. However, when deliberating about moral claims, children became skeptical of the confident informant. Discussion. This research sheds light on the remarkable level of sophistication with which children are able to evaluate informants and the credibility of information they are providing. That is, children’s use of confidence as a credibility cue is conditional, depending upon the domain of knowledge. Specifically, as these findings demonstrate, children not only attend to the tones (confident or hesitant) of individuals but also simultaneously weigh the type of information (factual or moral). This remarkable capacity at such a young age allows children to discern who is a trustworthy source of information across contexts, which has important implications for children’s learning and the transmission of knowledge

Imagining Others’ Minds: The Positive Relation Between Children’s Role Play and Anthropomorphism

Children’s role playing, whether personifying toys or imagining invisible friends, involves imagining others’ minds and internal states. Similarly, anthropomorphism – the attribution of internal states to non-human others (e.g., animals, inanimate nature, or technologies) – also involves imagining others’ minds and internal states. We propose that the imaginative process of simulating and projecting internal states is common to both role play and anthropomorphism. The current study investigated the relation between children’s role play and anthropomorphism. Ninety children (5, 7, and 9 years) were administered Individual Differences in Anthropomorphism Questionnaire – Child Form (IDAQ-CF), comprised of the technology-inanimate nature and animal subscales, and the Role Play Scale, which assessed (a) impersonation of animals, people, and/or machines and (b) imaginary companions (ICs), including invisible friends and personified toys. Results indicated that the imaginative act of impersonating an animal, person, and/or machine was positively related to anthropomorphism, and specifically anthropomorphism of inanimate nature and technology. Second, anthropomorphism of animals was highest amongst children with invisible ICs, followed by those with toy ICs and those who impersonated. Finally, children who frequently engaged with an invisible ICs more readily anthropomorphized in general and technology and inanimate nature in particular relative to all other children. Results are discussed in terms of the differing degrees of imagination involved in anthropomorphism of animals versus technology and inanimate nature

How culturally unique are pandemic effects? Evaluating cultural similarities and differences in effects of age, biological sex, and political beliefs on COVID impacts

Despite being bio-epidemiological phenomena, the causes and effects of pandemics are culturally influenced in ways that go beyond national boundaries. However, they are often studied in isolated pockets, and this fact makes it difficult to parse the unique influence of specific cultural psychologies. To help fill in this gap, the present study applies existing cultural theories via linear mixed modeling to test the influence of unique cultural factors in a multi-national sample (that moves beyond Western nations) on the effects of age, biological sex, and political beliefs on pandemic outcomes that include adverse financial impacts, adverse resource impacts, adverse psychological impacts, and the health impacts of COVID. Our study spanned 19 nations (participant N = 14,133) and involved translations into 9 languages. Linear mixed models revealed similarities across cultures, with both young persons and women reporting worse outcomes from COVID across the multi-national sample. However, these effects were generally qualified by culture-specific variance, and overall more evidence emerged for effects unique to each culture than effects similar across cultures. Follow-up analyses suggested this cultural variability was consistent with models of pre-existing inequalities and socioecological stressors exacerbating the effects of the pandemic. Collectively, this evidence highlights the importance of developing culturally flexible models for understanding the cross-cultural nature of pandemic psychology beyond typical WEIRD approaches

Worldviews: Discerning and Measuring the Dimensions that Make Up Our Most Fundamental Beliefs

This research sought to develop a comprehensive worldview measure. A worldview is a set of core beliefs, values, and attitudes about the nature of the universe and humanity, one’s place in the universe and in their social context, and how one should live their life. Humans are predisposed to have a worldview, as it is a result of human nature and necessary for human functioning, particularly interacting with others and finding meaning and purpose in one’s life (Kearney, 1984; Nilsson, 2014). Worldviews have immense potential for contributions to the field of psychology. For example, worldviews provide possible explanations of human behavior and valuable insights into tensions between societal groups. While worldviews show great theoretical and empirical promise, critical gaps remain in our knowledge. One reason for the scarcity of research on worldview development is the lack of a robust worldview measure. The current research sought to fill this gap by developing a comprehensive worldview measure. To do so, two studies were conducted. The first study derived a workable number of items (questions) from five existing worldview measures, and the second study used those items to produce a comprehensive worldview measure. In Study 1, five existing worldview measures (160 items) were administered to 171 undergraduate students. Items were analyzed using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), a statistical procedure used to identify a smaller set of underlying variables (i.e., factors) from a larger set of variables (in this case, the 160 questionnaire items). Using standard criteria for item reduction (e.g., redundant or uncorrelated items), the items were reduced to 77. The item reduction was necessary given that the statistical techniques required in Study 2 necessitate 5-10 participants per item. Study 2 sought to identify the underlying factors (or groupings of the items) in order to ensure the new measure maintained a meaningful breadth while eliminating any further redundant or extraneous items. Participants (N = 772) were recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk), an online platform where individuals are paid (in this case $.50) to complete small tasks. MTurk was chosen for two reasons: (1) large sample size (at least 770 participants) necessary for the analyses and (2) greater demographic variability to increase generalizability of the results. An EFA was run on half of these participants using the same criteria from Study 1 to reduce items. This process resulted in 41 items which formed five factors: Factor 1, benevolence and optimism; Factor 2, secularism; Factor 3, Eastern-based spirituality; Factor 4, hard work and respect for authority; and Factor 5, illusion of free will. The five factors were then analyzed using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to see how the six-factor model fit the remaining half of participants. According to the high standards of the CFA, this model appears to be a decent fit to the data. This new measure also shows strong preliminary evidence for reliability and validity. Overall, this new, comprehensive measure will serve as a strong tool to further worldview research

Social Psychological Measurements of COVID-19: Coronavirus Perceived Threat, Government Response, Impacts, and Experiences Questionnaires

Major journals have sounded the call for social psychologists to do research on the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19). Such research is only as good as the measurements used. Across three studies (total n = 984), we developed a battery of social psychology-relevant questionnaires to measure COVID-19 phenomena: (1) Perceived Coronavirus Threat Questionnaire, (2) Governmental Response to Coronavirus Questionnaire, (3) Coronavirus Impacts Questionnaire, and (4) Coronavirus Experience Questionnaire. Exploratory (Study 1) and Confirmatory (Studies 2 and 3) Factor Analyses revealed excellent factor structures for the one-factor Perceived Coronavirus Threat, the six-factor Governmental Response Questionnaires, and the three-factor Coronavirus Impacts Questionnaire. The three-factor Coronavirus Experience Questionnaire yielded poorer psychometric properties overall. Given that brevity is often desired for online studies, we further recommend psychometrically sound short versions of each questionnaire. Taken in total, this work offers social psychology researchers a battery of questionnaires to measure Coronavirus-related phenomena for the duration of the pandemic in U.S. participants

Why are Conservatives Less Concerned about the Coronavirus (COVID-19) than Liberals? Comparing Political, Experiential, and Partisan Messaging Explanations

Given research revealing conservatives are more sensitive to disease threat, it is curious that U.S. conservatives are less concerned than liberals with the COVID-19 pandemic. Across three studies, we evaluated three potential reasons why conservatives are less concerned: (1) Motivated Political (conservatives hold COVID-specific political beliefs that motivate them to reduce concern), (2) Experiential (conservatives are less directly affected by the outbreak than liberals), and (3) Conservative Messaging (differential exposure to/trust in partisan conservative messaging). All three studies consistently showed evidence that political (and not experiential or partisan messaging) reasons more strongly mediate conservatives’ lack of concern for COVID-19. Additional analyses further suggested that while they did not serve as strong mediators, experiential factors provided a boundary condition for the conservatism-perceived threat relationship. These data offer a model of the ideology-disease outbreak interface that can be applied to both the ongoing pandemic and future disease outbreaks

Context Matters in Children’s Reasoning about Confident and Hesitant Individuals

Children often treat confident individuals as credible sources of information. Yet, confidence may differentially signify credibility depending upon the domain of knowledge. When dealing with factual information, confident responses indicate greater credibility. However, when deliberating about moral issues, hesitancy may reflect a deeper level of thoughtfulness, and therefore credibility. This study investigated children’s judgments of and reasoning about individuals who differed in the level of confidence (confident, hesitant) in two domains of knowledge (factual, moral).In a between-subjects design, children 3-8 years (N=96) listened to confident and hesitant models make either novel factual (e.g., which animal has an omentum inside?) or moral claims (e.g., which animal should get the last piece of fish?). Across eight trials (4 confident, 4 hesitant), children rated the models on a 4-point scale (0=not at all, 3=a lot) in terms of confidence level, likeability, smartness, and agreement with answer. We further questioned participants regarding the reasoning underlying their judgments on the smartness and agreement with answer questions.Preliminary analyses indicate children preferred the confident individual when learning factual information, but not when deliberating about moral claims. The reasoning data is the focus of the current work. An official coder is currently coding the full data set. An independent coder is re-coding 30% (randomly selected) of the data to establish reliability of the coding scheme. We will analyze the types of reasoning children use based on model’s level of confidence (confident, hesitant) and the domain of knowledge (factual, moral).This research will shed light on children’s ability to evaluate an informant’s credibility depending upon the context, and the reasoning underlying those judgments. This research will advance knowledge in how and why children use confidence cues about individuals’ credibility when determining who is a trustworthy source of new information