An official website of the United States government
How do religious affiliation and beliefs shape vaccine attitudes and behaviors? This study examined the associations of attitudes and behaviors relevant to the flu, measles-mumps-rubella (MMR), and human-papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines with religious affiliations, as well as philosophical, spiritual, and moral beliefs. Respondents were 3005 adults from a probability-based, four-wave panel survey in the United States. Longitudinal structural equation modeling examined how religious affiliations and philosophical/moral beliefs shaped attitudes toward vaccines and actual vaccination. Stronger philosophical beliefs predicted more negative attitudes toward each vaccine and stronger moral beliefs more negative attitudes toward the HPV vaccine. Negative vaccine attitudes then predicted weaker intentions to encourage others to vaccinate and lower probability of receiving a vaccine. Theoretical and public health messaging implications are discussed.
more »
« less
Mental Models Matter: Conceptualizations of the Human–Nature Relationship Predict Pro-Environmental Attitudes and Behavioral Intentions
Mental models—internal, dynamic, incomplete representations of the external world that people use to guide cognitive processes such as reasoning, decision making, and language comprehension—have practical implications for predicting attitudes and behaviors across various domains. This study examines how mental models of the human–nature relationship predict pro-environmental behavioral intentions directly and indirectly as mediated through anthropocentric and biocentric environmental attitudes. To address these aims, participants were asked about mental model components of the human–nature relationship (human exceptionalism, beliefs about human impact on nature, and beliefs about nature’s impact on humans), pro-environmental attitudes (biocentric and anthropocentric), and their pro-environmental behavioral intentions (protection and investment). We found that protection intentions were (1) directly predicted by human exceptionalism beliefs (negatively) and perceived human impact on nature (positively) and (2) indirectly predicted by mental model components via biocentric attitudes. Investment intentions were directly predicted by nature’s perceived impact on humans, and were similarly indirectly predicted by mental model components via biocentric attitudes. The results suggest that mental models of the human–nature relationship provide a cognitive foundation for environmental behavioral intentions both directly and through their association with environmental attitudes. These findings have implications for pro-environmental interventions that deal with conceptual and attitudinal change.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 2400411
- PAR ID:
- 10674060
- Publisher / Repository:
- MDPI
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Sustainability
- Volume:
- 17
- Issue:
- 9
- ISSN:
- 2071-1050
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 4242
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
There has been an alarming increase in the prevalence of mental health concerns amongst undergraduate students. Engineering students experiencing mental health distress are less likely to seek professional help than are non-engineering students. Lack of treatment can result in the escalation of mental health symptoms among engineering students. This study, supported by an NSF Research Initiation in Engineering Formation grant, focused on characterizing engineering students’ beliefs about seeking help for a mental health concern. Using the integrated behavioral model as a framework, 33 semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with engineering students from a wide range of majors, years of study, and social identity groups. Interviews were analyzed through deductive coding to identify key beliefs associated with help-seeking as defined by the integrated behavioral model. The beliefs identified include a desire among engineering students to fix their own problems, to avoid admitting imperfection, and fear of being seen by others when seeking help for a mental health concern. These results were used to create an engineering mental health help-seeking instrument containing items related to perceived outcomes/attributes, experiential (i.e., affective) beliefs, barriers/facilitators, and perceived norms associated with help seeking. This instrument is currently being refined through cognitive interviews, and pilot data will be collected to examine evidence of instrument reliability and validity. The finalized instrument will be used to identify those beliefs that are predictive of help-seeking intention and behavior. These beliefs are prime targets for future interventions designed to increase mental health help-seeking in the undergraduate engineering student population.more » « less
-
Abstract BackgroundUndergraduate engineering students experiencing distress are less likely than peers to ask for professional help. A population‐specific instrument to facilitate the identification of factors that influence mental healthcare utilization could guide development and testing of interventions to increase help seeking. PurposeWe used mixed methods guided by the Integrated Behavioral Model (IBM) to develop and evaluate the Undergraduate Engineering Mental Health Help‐Seeking Instrument (UE‐MH‐HSI). MethodFirst, we adapted existing measures of mental health help‐seeking intention and mechanisms (i.e., attitudes, perceived norm: injunctive, perceived norm: descriptive, personal agency: autonomy, personal agency: capacity). Second, we coded qualitative interviews (N = 33) to create population‐specific mental health help‐seeking belief measures (i.e., outcome beliefs, experiential beliefs, beliefs about others' expectations, beliefs about others' behavior, beliefs about barriers and facilitators). Third, we tested the psychometric properties using data from 596 undergraduate engineering students at a historically White, research‐focused institution in southern United States. ResultsPsychometric analyses indicated that (1) help‐seeking mechanism and intention measures demonstrated unidimensionality, internal consistency, construct replicability, and sufficient variability; (2) mechanism measures demonstrated criterion evidence of validity; and (3) most items within the belief measures demonstrated sufficient variability and convergent evidence of validity. ConclusionsThe UE‐MH‐HSI is an evidence‐based tool for investigating mental health help‐seeking factors and their relationship to help‐seeking behavior, well‐being, academic success, and engineering identity formation. Guidelines for use are provided.more » « less
-
Abstract BackgroundEngineering students encounter high levels of stress, which may negatively impact their mental health. Nevertheless, engineering students who experience mental health distress are less likely than their peers to seek professional help, even when controlling for gender and race/ethnicity. PurposeWe examined beliefs that undergraduate engineering students have about barriers and facilitators to seeking professional help for their mental health. We also sought to identify cultural and systemic factors within and beyond engineering that might affect help‐seeking. Together, these beliefs influence students' sense of personal agency around seeking mental health care. MethodWe implemented a pragmatic qualitative design that incorporated the integrated behavioral model to investigate engineering students' (N = 33) professional mental health help‐seeking beliefs. We used thematic analysis to analyze help‐seeking beliefs and perceived barriers and facilitators that students described during interviews. ResultsWe identified four themes: Navigating the system impacts personal agency; sacrifices associated with help‐seeking act as a barrier; engineering culture acts as a barrier to help‐seeking; and student confidence in help‐seeking varies significantly. These themes portray the effect of perceived barriers and facilitators on students' personal agency for accessing mental health care. Our findings have implications for engineering departments and university counseling centers that want to minimize barriers to help‐seeking. ConclusionsEngineering stakeholders must improve access to professional help for engineering students. Implementing changes to normalize help‐seeking behaviors, enhance personal agency, and facilitate engagement with mental health resources will create better conditions for engineers. Further research is necessary to understand how other beliefs (e.g., attitudes, perceived norms) inform the relationships between student mental health, professional help seeking, and engineering culture.more » « less
-
With the prevalence of mental health problems today, designing human-robot interaction for mental health intervention is not only possible, but critical. The current experiment examined how three types of robot disclosure (emotional, technical, and by-proxy) affect robot perception and human disclosure behavior during a stress-sharing activity. Emotional robot disclosure resulted in the lowest robot perceived safety. Post-hoc analysis revealed that increased perceived stress predicted reduced human disclosure, user satisfaction, robot likability, and future robot use. Negative attitudes toward robots also predicted reduced intention for future robot use. This work informs on the possible design of robot disclosure, as well as how individual attributes, such as perceived stress, can impact human robot interaction in a mental health context.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.3390/su17094242
