'Love thy neighbor, mask up' resonates among white evangelicals

Study also carries lessons to encourage vaccinations, authors say

2021-05-13

(Press-News.org) White evangelicals are best persuaded to mask up through messages that stress the Christian doctrine of "love thy neighbor," according to a UCR-authored study published Tuesday. The study yielded a second effective way to persuade white evangelicals - but only if they are Republican. That is, messaging from former President Donald Trump that aligns mask-wearing with patriotism. The lessons learned from the study can be borrowed for pro-vaccine messaging, said study author Jennifer Merolla, a UCR professor of political science. About 45% of white evangelicals do not plan on getting vaccinated against COVID-19, according to a Pew Research Center poll. Health officials have said persuading the 41 million white evangelical adults in the U.S. to get vaccinated is key to acquiring herd immunity. "Our research is relevant to vaccines: messages that align with values can change attitudes in ways useful to mitigating the toll of the COVID-19 pandemic," Merolla said. Since early in the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health officials have advocated for wearing protective face coverings to protect against the airborne particles that can transmit the virus, which has claimed 582,000 lives in the United States. But, as noted in the new journal article, conservative media and Republicans - most significantly Trump - have been alternately ambiguous and hostile toward the practice. "Trump sometimes wears a mask and occasionally advocates for masks," the study authors wrote. "But, he often holds events without masks and ridicules opponents for wearing them. Not surprisingly, pandemic- and mask-skepticism has been pervasive among Trump's base." For the study, the authors targeted 1,500 white evangelicals across the U.S. this past summer via the online surveying platform YouGov to determine which pro-masking messaging would prove most persuasive. The study was engineered to be representative of the white evangelical population: 56% of the study group identified as Republicans, 31% as independent or "other," and 11% as Democrats. The study's expectation: Messages that align with an individual's values are more likely to move attitudes toward positions an individual would not normally support. And so the participants were randomly divided into three groups. Group one was offered a religious message, that wearing a mask is a way to love your neighbor. Group two was provided a Twitter message from Trump encouraging mask use as a form of patriotism. The third group, the control group, received no messaging. The subjects in group one were most likely to be persuaded masks are helpful. The group that received the Trump message also was persuaded - but they were much more likely to be persuaded if they identified as Republicans. When asked whether it's important for people in their communities to wear masks, there was a significant uptick among those exposed to the religious messaging versus the control group. The Trump messaging did little to incite pro-masking beliefs, with only those identifying as Republicans responding. Asked about mask mandates, control group support was low, at 34%. The religious message boosted support to 43%; the Trump-patriotism message increased support to 41% - with the strongest support again demonstrated by Republicans.

INFORMATION:

The article, "Reducing mask resistance among White evangelical Christians with value-consistent messages," was published in the journal PNAS. Co-authors include Stephanie DeMora, a UCR graduate student, and faculty members Brian Newman of Pepperdine University and Elizabeth Zechmeister of Vanderbilt University.

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Abortion opposition related to beliefs about fetal pain perception

2021-05-13

A person's stance on abortion is linked to their, often inaccurate, belief about when a fetus can feel pain, a University of Otago study has found. Lead author Emma Harcourt, PhD candidate in Otago's Centre for Science Communication, says misinformation about abortion and pregnancy is common and potentially harmful. "The current medical consensus is that it is unlikely that fetal pain perception is possible before the 29th or 30th weeks of pregnancy. However, we found that most people believe that the capacity to feel pain develops much earlier and that this was particularly evident in participants with anti-abortion views," she says. The study, published in The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, recruited 374 ...

CDEX listens to the sound of cosmology from a laboratory deep underground

2021-05-13

Numerous compelling evidences from astroparticle physics and cosmology indicate that the major matter component in the Universe is dark matter, accounting for about 85% with the remaining 15% is the ordinary matter. Nevertheless, people still know little about the dark matter, including its mass and other properties. Many models predict dark matter particles could couple to ordinary particle at weak interaction level, so it is possible to capture the signal of dark matter particle in the direct detection experiment. The scientific goals of the China ...

Ankle and foot bone evolution gave prehistoric mammals a leg up

2021-05-13

The evolution of ankle and foot bones into different shapes and sizes helped mammals adapt and thrive after the extinction of the dinosaurs, a study suggests. A surge of evolution following the mass extinction 66 million years ago enabled mammals to diversify and prosper during a period of major global change, researchers say. Analysis of bones that form part of the ankle and the heel of the foot reveal that mammals during this time - the Paleocene Period - were less primitive than previously thought. Palaeontologists from the University of Edinburgh made the discovery by comparing the anatomy of Paleocene mammals with species from the earlier Cretaceous ...

New study reveals where memories of familiar places are stored in the brain

2021-05-13

As we move through the world, what we see is seamlessly integrated with our memory of the broader spatial environment. How does the brain accomplish this feat? A new study from Dartmouth College reveals that three regions of the brain in the posterior cerebral cortex, which the researchers call "place-memory areas," form a link between the brain's perceptual and memory systems. The findings are published in Nature Communications. "As we navigate our surroundings, information enters the visual cortex and somehow ends up as knowledge of where we are - the question is where this transformation into spatial ...

Ion-selective smart porous membranes

2021-05-13

A research group has developed an ion-selective smart porous membrane that can respond to outer stimuli, potentially paving the way for new applications in molecular separation and sensing applications. Porous thin films have attracted the attention of scientists because of their potential use in sensors, energy harvesting, and ion/molecular separation. Nanostructure properties, such as pore size, thickness, and film density, affect molecular selectivity and molecular permeability. Surface properties also have a significant impact on molecular selectivity. Thus it is important to be able to control both the 3D nanostructures and surface properties of ultrathin porous films. Previous research shed light on smart porous membranes, which are covered with molecules that can respond ...

Eating more fruit and vegetables linked to less stress - study

2021-05-13

Eating a diet rich in fruit and vegetables is associated with less stress, according to new research from Edith Cowan University (ECU). The study examined the link between fruit and vegetable intake and stress levels of more than 8,600 Australians aged between 25 and 91 participating in the Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle (AusDiab) Study from Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute. The findings revealed people who ate at least 470 grams of fruit and vegetables daily had 10 per cent lower stress levels than those who consumed less than 230 grams. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends ...

Snakes alive? We're totally fine with them -- just not at our house

2021-05-13

Arizona! The sunsets. The saguaros. The snakes. All of them are part of life in the sunny Southwest, but keeping cool when the latter is holed up in a golf bag, air compressor or swimming pool pump house is a big ask for a lot of people. Not as big as you'd think, however. The first study to analyze snake removals in a social-ecological context was recently published by an Arizona State University conservation biologist working with a local rattlesnake removal company. "I think one of the surprises was that people don't hate snakes," said researcher Heather Bateman of the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts. "A lot of them responded that the snakes are important to the desert ecosystem and the snake belongs ...

Freeform imaging systems: Fermat's principle unlocks 'first time right' design

2021-05-13

Optical imaging systems have been playing an essential role in scientific discovery and societal progress for several centuries. For more than 150 years scientists and engineers have used aberration theory to describe and quantify the deviation of light rays from ideal focusing in an imaging system. Until recently most of these imaging systems included spherical and aspherical refractive lenses or reflective mirrors or a combination of both. With the introduction of new ultra-precision manufacturing methods, it has become possible to fabricate lenses and mirrors that lack the common translational or ...

Non-linear optics meets X-rays

2021-05-13

The relevance for radiology applications is probably the most known advantage of X-ray beams (keV energies) with respect to visible radiation (eV energies) and can be traced back to their superior penetration depth. On a more fundamental ground, however, the relevance of this photon energy range relies on the capability of probing inner shell electrons (as they have comparable binding energies) and mapping molecular structures on the atomic-scale (as typical interatomic spacings are comparable to X-ray wavelengths). Building on such capabilities, large efforts have been devoted by the scientific community to develop X-ray sub-picosecond sources able to access matter properties with a time resolution sufficient to access elemental molecular motions. Free electron lasers (FEL), nowadays available ...

Scientists show how to attack the 'fortress' surrounding pancreatic cancer tumors

2021-05-13

UNSW medical researchers have found a way to starve pancreatic cancer cells and 'disable' the cells that block treatment from working effectively. Their findings in mice and human lab models - which have been 10 years in the making and are about to be put to the test in a human clinical trial - are published today in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. "Pancreatic cancer has seen minimal improvement in survival for the last four decades - and without immediate action, it is predicted to be the world's second biggest ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

American Academy of Pediatrics promotes shared reading starting in infancy as a positive parenting practice with lifelong benefits

Unexpected human behaviour revealed in prisoner's dilemma study: Choosing cooperation even after defection

Distant relatedness in biobanks harnessed to identify undiagnosed genetic disease

UCLA at ASTRO: Predicting response to chemoradiotherapy in rectal cancer, 2-year outcomes of MRI-guided radiotherapy for prostate cancer, impact of symptom self-reporting during chemoradiation and mor