Mark Hurlstone

Objective: We tested whether targeting the illusion of causality and/or misperceptions about health risks had the potential to reduce consumer demand for an ineffective health remedy (multivitamin supplements). Design: We adopted a 2 (contingency information: no/yes) × 2 (fear appeal: no/yes) factorial design, with willingness-to-pay as the dependent variable. The contingency information specified, in table format, the number of people reporting a benefit vs. no benefit from both multivitamins and placebo, plus a causal explanation for lack of efficacy over placebo. The fear appeal involved a summary of clinical-trial results that indicated multivitamins can cause health harms. The control condition received only irrelevant information. Main outcome measure: Experimental auctions measured people’s willingness- to-pay for multivitamins. Experiment 1 (N = 260) elicited hypothetical willingness-to-pay online. Experiment 2 (N = 207) elicited incentivised willingness-to-pay in the laboratory. Results: Compared to a control group, we found independent effects of contingency information (-22%) and the fear appeal (-32%) on willingness-to- pay. The combination of both interventions had the greatest impact (-50%) on willingness-to-pay. Conclusion: We found evidence that consumer choices are influenced by both perceptions of efficacy and risk. The combination of both elements can provide additive effects that appear superior to either approach alone.

We sought to determine if Parkinson’s disease (PD) with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is associated with a greater SERIAL‐ORDER (mental manipulation) than ANY‐ORDER (auditory span, storage) deficit in working memory (WM). We investigated WM combining neuropsychological measures with the study of brain functional connectivity. A cohort of 160 patients with idiopathic PD, classified as PD‐MCI (n = 87) or PD with normal cognition (PD‐NC; n = 73), and 70 matched healthy controls were studied. Verbal WM was assessed with the Backward Digit Span Task (BDT; Lamar et al., 2007, Neuropsychologia, 45, 245), measuring SERIAL‐ORDER and ANY‐ORDER recall. Resting‐state MRI data were collected for 15 PD‐MCI, 15 PD‐NC and 30 controls. Hypothesis‐driven seed‐based functional connectivity of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) was compared between the three groups and correlated with BDT performance. We found the main effect of the test (impairment in SERIAL ORDER > ANY ORDER) and group ((NC = PD‐NC) > PD‐MCI) in BDT performance that was even more pronounced in SERIAL ORDER when controlling for ANY ORDER variability but not vice versa. Furthermore, PD‐MCI compared to other groups were characterized by the functional disconnection between the bilateral DLPFC and the cerebellum. In functional correlations, DLPFC connectivity was positively related to both SERIAL‐ and ANY‐ORDER performance. In conclusion, PD‐MCI patients evidenced greater SERIAL‐ORDER (manipulation and cognitive control) than ANY‐ORDER (storage) working memory impairment than PD‐NC and controls with a disrupted DLPFC resting‐state connectivity that was also related to the verbal WM performance.

Objective: Fraudulent health claims—false or misleading claims used to promote health remedies that are untested, ineffective, and often harmful—cause extensive and persistent harm to consumers. To address this problem, novel interventions are needed that address the underlying cognitive mechanisms that render consumers susceptible to fraudulent health claims. However, there is currently no single framework of relevant psychological insights to design interventions for this purpose. The current review aims to address this gap. Method: An integrative theoretical review was conducted across several major areas of relevant research including criminology, experimental psychology, and behavioural economics. Results: The current review presents a novel taxonomy that aims to serve as an agenda for future research to systematically design and compare interventions based on empirical evidence. Specifically, this taxonomy identifies (i) the psychological drivers that make consumers susceptible to fraudulent health claims, (ii) the psychological barriers that may prevent successful application of interventions, and (iii) proposes evidence-informed treatments to overcome those barriers. Conclusion: The resulting framework integrates behavioural insights from several hitherto distinct disciplines and structures promising interventions according to five underlying psychological drivers: Visceral influence, Affect, Nescience, Misinformation, and Norms (VANMaN). The taxonomy presents an integrative and accessible theoretical framework for designing evidence-informed interventions to protect consumers from fraudulent health claims. This review has broad implications for numerous topical issues including the design and evaluation of anti-fraud campaigns, efforts to address the growing problem of health-related misinformation, and for countering the polarization of politically sensitive health issues.

Climate change will have dangerous impacts on future generations. Accordingly, people in the present have an obligation to make sacrifices for the benefit of future others. However, research on temporal and social discounting shows that people are short-sighted and selfish—they prefer immediate over delayed benefits, and they prefer benefits for themselves over others. Discounting over long-term time horizons is known as intergenerational discounting, and is a major obstacle to climate action. Here, we examine whether persuasive messages that activate the legacy motive—the desire to build a positive legacy—can increase the willingness of current actors to make sacrifices for future generations. Using a climate change public goods game, we find that when the benefits of cooperation accrue to decision makers in the present, high levels of cooperation are sustained, whereas when the benefits accrue to future generations, intergenerational discounting makes cooperation elusive. Crucially, when the legacy motive is activated—by promoting death awareness, feelings of power asymmetry, and intergenerational reciprocity—intergenerational discounting is attenuated, and cooperation is restored. Our results suggest climate action can be fostered by framing climate change as an intergenerational dilemma, and by crafting persuasive messages that activate people’s drive to leave a positive legacy.

Inaction on climate change is often linked to the idea that climate change is perceived as a distant problem. In this thesis I have developed a model describing why some people feel distant from climate change, why some people feel close, and how perceptions of distance might be shifted. I have presented an analysis of how psychological distance from climate change might be overcome, through building connections between climate change and objects of care, with the use of increasingly informal, intimate methods of communication, and an expansion of social involvement from the general public.