The recent experience with the 2009 H1N1 pandemic has drawn attention to the need to better understand the public’s response to emergently released vaccines (ERV). This study applied a mixed methods approach to examine the causal pathways underlying the vaccination behaviour during a public health emergency. The integrated evidence from empirical and theoretical-based findings highlights a number of factors to consider in interventions to improve vaccination rates with an ERV. These factors include: 1) providing clear risk messages around the disease and the ERV, 2) improving accessibility to the vaccine, 3) encouraging primary healthcare providers to provide recommendations for vaccination, 4) implementing strategies to increase seasonal influenza vaccination prior to the next public health emergency, 5) developing strategies to target sub-populations more reluctant to accept an ERV. Developing theory-based interventions that are behaviour-specific may be more likely to result in behaviour change within the public in future emergency vaccination campaigns.

In order to probe how social movement messages foster participant mobilization, this study utilized an experimental design to investigate collective action frames, core messaging tasks that define problems, assign blame, convey a plan of action, and inspire participation. The study compared the effects of climate change messages that contain motivational frames with those that do not, incorporating the influence of resonance, and exposure to competing and counter frames. Results revealed that motivational frames contributed to mobilization, especially intention to act, under conditions of resonance and with exposure to counter frames. Salience primed participants to respond to motivational frames, however for some, motivational frames decreased intention to act. As social movements and climate change continue to profoundly shape our world in myriad ways, we will be better prepared to address those changes with information provided here.

This thesis reports a qualitative study of the use of multimodal technologies in museums— specifically, it examines the relationship between visitor engagement and learning, focusing on the use of multimodal technologies during school trips. The study was conducted in the Natural History Museum and the Churchill Museum, both in London, with participants from several secondary schools. These sites were chosen due to their concern for the added value of learning and public engagement, including their education-orientated investments in technology, museum activities, and architecture. In the course of data collection, visits were made to six schools and both museum sites; the participants included 117 students, 18 teachers, three museum educators, and eight museum curators and media designers. The study used a combination of video data analysis, stimulated recall interviews, document analysis, and engaging students in talk and reflection about their visit both at the museum and afterwards. The qualitative approach and multimodal analysis identify how the students’ social interactions help them construct learning through decontextualised bodily movements, which trigger contextualised discussion. The study demonstrates how multimodal analysis can be used in research to capture a wide scope of information, while maintaining a micro-level of analysis and understanding—here, capturing the detail of students’ interactions and perceptions. The findings suggest that the learning experience in museums is produced through multiple layers of interaction and through the exchange of physical and psychological behaviour among people, resources, and space. Here, the multimodal technologies with which the students engaged essentially acted as initial platforms for sensory stimuli and social interaction, supporting their peer communication and motivating them to further explore both the given topic and their own understanding of their learning methods. It was the students’ further conversation, observation, and participation, however, that created a more meaningful and entertaining learning experience in the museums.

In this thesis we study decentralized dynamics for non-cooperative and cooperative games. The dynamics are behaviorally motivated and assume that very little information is available about other players' preferences, actions, or payoffs. For example, this is the case in markets where exchanges are frequent and the sheer size of the market hinders participants from learning about others' preferences. We consider learning dynamics that are based on trial-and-error and aspiration-based heuristics. Players occasionally try to increase their performance given their current payoffs. If successful they stick to the new action, otherwise they revert to their old action. We also study a dynamic model of social influence based on findings in sociology and psychology that people have a propensity to conform to others' behavior irrespective of the payoff consequences. We analyze the dynamics with a particular focus on two questions: How long does it take to reach equilibrium and what are the stability and welfare properties of the equilibria that the process selects? These questions are at the core of understanding which equilibrium concepts are robust in environments where players have little information about the game and the high rationality assumptions of standard game theory are not very realistic. Methodologically, this thesis builds on game theoretic techniques and prominent solution concepts such as the Nash equilibrium for non-cooperative games and the core for cooperative games, as well as refinement concepts like stochastic stability. The proofs rely on mathematical techniques from random walk theory and integer programming.

Contrary to our intuitive expectations about a positive group influence on human performance behaviour, there is a vast body of literature proving the opposite. All the research is based on findings of Max Ringelmann who more than 120 years ago proved in the oldest social psychological experiment ever known that people cooperating on a common task tend to exert less effort than what would be their potential. This performance decrement is caused by coordination losses which relate to the very principles of a team work as well as motivation losses. Because of the tendency of people to limit their effort in collective settings the newly discovered phenomenon has been called social loafing. A group influence on individual's performance became also a main subject of this diploma thesis. Compared to a majority of research dealing with the same topic the present one employs a completely new type of interactive task which involves an intensive cooperation of all group members. We have used in our experiment an original simulation where players are in a role of top management in one movie production company and their goal is to make a strategic decision based on the information distributed among all the team members that will bring them the biggest profit. Consequently we have directly analysed behaviour of...

This study proposes a social and emotional disclosure model for understanding the mechanism that explains sharing intimate information on social media (Twitter). Previous research has indicated that some aspects of social, emotional, and attitudinal information processing are involved in disclosure of intimate information. However, these factors have been considered in isolation. This study proposes and tests a theoretically grounded model that brings all of these factors together by combining individual and group social media behaviors and online information processing in the realm of online social movements. The core explanatory model considers the impact of peer response, emotional evaluation, personal relevance, issue orientation, and motivation to post online on intimate information disclosure online. A path analysis building on four Poisson multiple regressions conducted on 28,629 #MeToo tweets evaluates the relationships proposed in the explanatory model. Results indicate that emotional evaluation and motivation to post online have direct, positive impacts on online disclosure. Other factors such as peer response, issue orientation, and personal relevance have negative direct relationships with online disclosure. Motivation to post online mediates the effects of emotional evaluation, issue orientation, and personal relevance on online disclosure while issue orientation mediates the effect of personal relevance on motivation to post online. This study offers findings that have use for practitioners interested in hashtag virality and to social media users interested in social influence and online information sharing.

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O presente estudo investiga qual o efeito que a divulgação de empresas solidárias apoiadoras e da remuneração de dirigentes de Organizações Sem Fins Lucrativos (OSFL) possui na decisão sobre o volume de contribuição e na propensão de doar futuramente por parte do doador individual. O estudo é consubstanciado em pesquisas desenvolvidas por Balsam e Harris (2014) e de Galle e Walker (2013) que encontraram evidências de que doadores reduzem as contribuições subsequente à divulgação, por parte da OSFL, de alta remuneração do dirigente; e, em pesquisa desenvolvida no Brasil por IDIS e Gallup (2016), que relatam a falta de confiança como um dos principais motivos para que doadores deixem de contribuir para as OSFL. Este estudo pressupõe que, divulgar empresas solidárias apoiadoras da OSFL gera compliance, um dos principais elementos de influência social citado por Cialdini e Trost (1998) sobre o doador, levando-o a perceber a OSFL como monitorada e, com maior confiança de que a organização cumpre a missão social para a qual se destina, reduzindo o efeito adverso ocasionado da divulgação pela própria OSFL de valores elevados de remuneração do dirigente. O procedimento metodológico para coleta de dados ocorreu por meio de um experimento, com 140 participantes estudantes de pós-graduação lato sensu em Ciências Contábeis da Universidade Federal do Paraná. Encontraram-se evidências de que o disclosure voluntário pela OSFL de empresa solidária apoiadora possui efeito positivo significativo na propensão de contribuição futura do doador individual, assim como o disclosure da remuneração do dirigente e da empresa solidária apoiadora, de forma interativa, conduz à maior probabilidade de doação futura pelo doador individual. Esperava-se que a divulgação da empresa solidária apoiadora apenas, ou essa em conjunto com a informação de menor remuneração do dirigente gerassem maiores volumes de contribuições pelo doador, contudo, não foram obtidas evidências empíricas que suportem as referidas hipóteses. Os achados também não confirmaram a hipótese de que, divulgados maiores valores da remuneração do dirigente seriam reduzidos o volume de contribuição e a propensão de doação futura. Os resultados implicam que a divulgação da empresa solidária apoiadora pela OSFL suscita uma resposta por parte do doador em relação à probabilidade de doar futuramente em consonância à comunicação explícita da organização, neste caso a solicitação de doação, possivelmente ocorrendo o compliance como forma de influência social de direcionamento pela figura de autoridade legítima exercida pela empresa solidária apoiadora. Isto ocorre inclusive quando a divulgação é realizada em conjunto com a remuneração do dirigente, indicando a relevância do disclosure voluntário por parte das OSFL na captação de recursos. Desta forma, este estudo amplia os conhecimentos sobre o disclosure voluntário em OSFL, principalmente relacionado à divulgação da empresa solidária apoiadora como fonte de autoridade legítima e do efeito de compliance sobre o doador individual. / This study investigates the effect of disclosure of Influential Institutional Partners and senior management\'s compensation on individuals\' decisions to donate for non-profit organizations (NPOs). Prior research (Balsam & Harris, 2014; Galle & Walker, 2013) indicate that donors reduce donations after the disclosure of senior manager\'s high compensation by the NPOs, and in the Brazilian setting (IDIS & Gallup, 2016), lack of trust is one of the main reported reasons for donors to stop contributions for NPOs. Based on the literature on social influence, this study argues that the Influential Institutional Partner\'s disclosure increases the donors\' compliance with the NPOs (Cialdini & Trost, 1998). This behaviour should lead donors to conclude that the NPO is an entity under monitoring, and drive higher trust that the organization reaches the social mission for which it is intended, reducing the adverse effect caused by the disclosure of senior management\'s high compensation. The experimental is conducted with 140 graduate accounting students at the Federal University of Parana (UFPR). The results indicate that NPOs voluntary disclosure has a significant positive effect on the individual donors\' propensity of future donations, as does, interactively, the disclosure of senior management\' compensation and of the Influential Institutional Partners. However, no empirical evidence was found supporting the main or interactive effects of disclosure of Influential Institutional Partners and senior management\'s compensation on donors contribution\'s amount. Findings also did not confirm that disclosure of senior management\'s higher compensation result in lower propensity of future donations by individual donors. The results imply that the Influential Institutional Partner\'s disclosure by NPOs drives a response from donors with respect to the probability of making future donations in accordance with explicit communications by the organization, leading to the compliance as a form of social influence, exerted by the legitimate authority figure represented by the Influential Institutional Partner. This also happen when the disclosure is made in conjunction with senior management\'s compensation, indicating the relevance of the NPO\'s voluntary disclosure in fundraising. This study broadens the knowledge on voluntary disclosure by NPOs, in particular about the Influential Institutional Partner\' disclosure as a source of legitimate authority, and the effect of compliance on individual donors.

Diese Dissertation umfasst drei voneinander unabhängige Artikel. In diesen werden neue Prozess-modelle vorgestellt, die von der entscheidungspsychologischen Forschung inspiriert wurden. Im ersten Artikel werden Entscheidungsprozesse mit mehreren Entscheidungsmerkmalen als gesteuerte Suchprozesse modelliert. Zunächst wird ein theoretischer Rahmen vorgestellt, in dem ökonomische Modelle Entscheidungen mit Suche mit Modellen des subjektiven Nutzens aus dem Bereich der psychologischen Forschung integriert wird. In den so modellierten Entscheidungsprozessen wird angenommen, dass Individuen ihre Entscheidungsalternativen nach deren abnehmenden Nutzen ordnen und dann so lange durchsuchen, bis die erwarteten Suchkosten höher als die entsprechenden Gewinne sind. Anschliessend wird die Güte dreier Entscheidungsmodelle an zwölf realen Datensätzen überprüft. Im zweiten Artikel werden die Ergebnisse zweier Experimente vorgestellt, in denen untersucht wurde, wie Personen ihre Urteile verändern, wenn sie den Urteilen und dem der Konfidenzniveau anderer Personen ausgesetzt sind. Ein Baummodell wird eingeführt, welches abbildet, wie Urteile aufgrund solcher Informationen revidiert werden. Dieses Modell basiert auf den Ergebnissen der beiden Experimente: Indem soziale Informationen berücksichtigt werden, kann es zeigen, wie Urteile in einer Gruppe interagierender Personen zusammenlaufen oder polarisieren. Im dritten Artikel wird kollektives Verhalten in Märkten für kulturelle Produkte untersucht. Personen ordnen die Optionen entsprechend ihrer Popularität an und entscheiden sich dann für diejenige, die einen Nutzen hat, der über einer bestimmten ausreichend guten Schwelle liegt. Nach jeder individuellen Entscheidung wird die Rangfolge revidiert. Innerhalb dieses einfachen Rahmens wird demonstriert, dass solche Märkte durch eine sogenannte rich get richer-Dynamik charakterisiert sind. Diese führt zu Ungleichheiten in den Marktanteilen und ungewissen finanziellen Erlösen. / This dissertation comprises of three independent essays which introduce novel psychologically inspired process models and examine their implications for individual, collective or market behavior. The first essay studies multi-attribute choice as a guided process of search. It puts forward a theoretical framework which integrates work on search and stopping with partial information from economics with psychological subjective utility models from the field of judgment and decision making. The alternatives are searched in order of decreasing estimated utility, until the expected cost of search exceeds the relevant benefits; The essay presents the results of a performance comparison of three well-studied multi-attribute choice models.The second essay reports the results of two experiments designed to understand how people revise their judgments of factual questions after being exposed to the opinion and confidence levels of others. It introduces a tree model of judgment revision which is directly derived from the empirical observations. The model demonstrates how opinions in a group of interacting people can converge or polarize over repeated interactions. The third essay, studies collective behavior in markets for search products. The decision makers consider the alternatives in order of decreasing popularity and choose the first alternative with utility higher than a certain satisficing threshold. The popularity order is updated after each individual choice. The presented framework illustrates that such markets are characterized by rich-get-richer dynamics which lead to inequality in the market-share distribution and unpredictability in regard to the final outcome.

Cette recherche contribue à la compréhension du comportement d'achat de la famille française d’origine maghrébine. Elle étudie l’influence des paramètres socioculturels dans la prise de décision d’achat familiale. Notre hypothèse principale de travail repose sur l'existence d'une relation entre les pratiques culturelles, cultuelles et la prise de décision d’achat de ce type de famille. Pour explorer cette relation, des variables endogènes et exogènes qui jouent un rôle ont été isolé, dans la probabilité du choix d’un bien précis. Pour cela nous avons mené une étude de terrain sur un échantillon de 120 couples. L’analyse des résultats nous a permet de répondre aux principales interrogations et d’instaurer un modèle décisionnel. / This research contributes to understanding the purchasing behavior of the French family of North African origin. She studies the influence of socio-cultural parameters in the decision to purchase family. Our main working hypothesis is based on the existence of a relationship between cultural, religious practices and the decision to purchase that type of family. To explore the relationship of endogenous and exogenous variables that play a role have been isolated in the probability of choosing a specific property. To do this we conducted a field study on a sample of 120 couples. The analysis of results allows us to answer the main question and create a decision model.