This thesis reports a series of nine inter-linked experiments examining the influence of different levels of verbal confidence on choice and interpersonal perceptions. Chapter 1 identifies the levels of confidence associated with some everyday expressions of confidence, expressions that are used as ‘confidence cues’ in subsequent experimental chapters. Chapter 2 examines the influence of confidence cues with different types of task, and Chapter 3 relates these influences to individual differences. Chapter 4 considers our perceptions of speakers who express different levels of confidence, then Chapters 5 and 6 examine whether these perceptions, and the subsequent use of their information, change when performance feedback is made available. Chapter 7 examines whether our own confidence level affects the extent to which a speaker’s confidence influences us then Chapter 8 determines if a speaker’s confidence exerts a positive or negative influence, while Chapter 9 investigates how the influence of confidence is influenced by the timing of the advice. The results indicate that confidence is an effective form of influence, providing evidence that a confidence heuristic is used, whereby a speaker’s confidence is taken as a cue to their accuracy, knowledge, and competency. The extent to which the confidence heuristic is used when making choices strongly depends on one’s own level of confidence, whether this was due to the type of task being tackled, the difficulty of the task, or the timing of the advice, with people relying more on the confidence heuristic as their own confidence decreased, although there were some individual differences mediating the extent of this. Increasing levels of speaker confidence lead to speakers being perceived more positively in terms of competency, but too much confidence was found to be detrimental in terms of how much a speaker was liked. Issues raised by this thesis, and directions for further research are considered in the Discussion.

This study explored the current state of alcohol-impaired driving as well as the changes in alcohol-impaired driving over time among Albertans. Based on self-report data from the annual Alberta Surveys 1991, 1992, 1997, and 2009, this study also traced the shift in the impact of standard demographic factors on alcohol-impaired driving in the province. Furthermore, the study examined social influence in alcohol-impaired driving in a representative sample in Alberta. Results indicated that in the past 12 months, 4% of the respondents had driven a vehicle while impaired, and 6.1% of the respondents had been passengers in a vehicle driven by an impaired driver. Chi-square test indicated that male, single, employed, non-religious, and younger respondents were more likely to have driven while impaired. Logistic regression analyses showed that a one-unit increase in social influence was associated with 5.32 times greater odds of engaging in impaired driving (OR = 5.32, 95% CI = 3.069.24, p < .001), controlling for other variables in the model. Findings also showed that self-reported alcohol-impaired driving has decreased substantially over the years (10.6% in 1991, 8.4% in 1992, 7.2% in 1997, and 3.7% in 2009). However, there had been little changes in designated driving. In addition, there had been a shift in age-related impaired driving, i.e., people aged 55-65+ reported impaired driving more in 2009 (4.8%) compared to 1991 (2.0%) and 1992 (2.2%); while individuals aged 18-34 and 35-54 reported impaired driving less in 2009 (4.8% and 2.6%, respectively) compared to 1991 (12.7% and 13.0%, respectively). The policy implications of the findings are discussed.

Thesis (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p.133-142 ). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1996. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 73-82). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1996. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 73-82). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--Baylor University, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 116-119).

Thesis (M.A.)--Baylor University, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 34-38).

Magister Public Health - MPH (Public Health) / Background and rationale: Telehealth is a collection of methods for enhancing health care, public health, and health education delivery and support using telecommunications technologies. Despite the many reported benefits of telehealth, there are challenges to its continued and widespread use in South Africa. It remains unclear what facilitates or hinders the integration of telehealth into routine clinical practice. Study aim and objectives: Drawing on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), this study investigated factors affecting healthcare workers' acceptance and use of telehealth in hospitals in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). Specifically, it described the frequency and nature of telehealth use and the factors associated with technology acceptance; and evaluated the influence of socio-demographic factors (age, experience, profession, qualification) and acceptance factors on use and behavioural intention to use telehealth. Methods: A quantitative survey in seven hospitals (2 tertiary, 3 regional, 2 district) with telehealth facilities falling under the KZN Department of Health, was conducted. 177 medical, nursing, pharmacy and allied staff consented to complete an on-line, closed ended and structured self-administered questionnaire based on the UTAUT model. The responses to the individual likert scale items were assigned a score (1-4), and from this, total scores calculated for each construct. Respondent characteristics were converted into binary variables and associations with total scores on each of the UTAUT acceptance domains were tested using t-test. The associations between behavioural intention and actual use (as binary dependent variables); and the respondent profiles, scores for performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions (independent variables) were assessed in two multivariate logistic regression models.

Businesses nowadays tend to ask their customers to grade a product or a service they have experienced, usually that grading is a number of stars on a scale of 5. When an individual grades a product, that grade goes into a system that calculates the average of all given grades and expose it to the next individual, and so on. Through primary data we estimated what could be a realistic distribution of uninfluenced grades as well as a realistic degree of social influence. This thesis aims to understand the social influence on individual grades and to what extent the order in which graders come may bias the aggregate grade. In addition, we aim to apply mathematical analysis and simulations to examine the social influence of a planted grade on aggregate grade, depending on the strength of social influence and the total number of graders. It was concluded that ordering the same set of individuals in different ways will give different aggregate grades, mostly biased when ordering from largest to smallest and the other way around. In addition, we presented a perception on how large a planted grade can affect the aggregate grade, studying different main factors such as the degree of social influence and total number of graders.

Digitization has been pervasively reshaping the landscape of home-based telecommunication industries. The massive disruptive challenges call for telecom companies to react with efficient strategic managerial policies. Meanwhile, how consumer decision makings and welfare are impacted by such policies often remains complicated and non-transparent to policy makers. My thesis aims at leveraging large-scale empirical data to investigate the impacts of several prevalent firm initiated strategies on both sides of the market, i.e. consumers and firms. The thesis is comprised of three studies focusing on consumer switch, search and purchase behaviors. The first study, centering at consumer switching behaviors, investigates the impact of lock in shortening policies on both firm profits and consumer welfare in home-based telecommunication service market. Using household level data from a large telecommunications service provider, we show that a market level policy that shortens the lock-in period from the status quo can decrease the profits on the firms side more than it increases consumer surplus. This is majorly caused by the substantial acquisition costs associated with user switching and service initiation. As a result if regulators shorten lock-in periods but then firms respond by collaboratively increasing prices to recover their rate of return, the consumers, as the analyses indicate, may be worse off compared to the world in which lock-in periods do not change. Therefore lock-in reduction policy need to be paired with a policy precluding operators from increasing prices too much. The later two studies jointly examine consumer’s search and purchase behaviors in social environment. With a wide scope of services, telecommunication service providers can often leverage their knowledge on consumer’s social environment to reshape consumer choices. We aim to understand how consumers combine different sources of social information, one from friends versus one from the crowd, as a function of how close they are to the point of conversion. We developed a dynamic structural econometric model that jointly describes consumer information search and product purchase while taking into account sequential arrival of information and non-negligible search costs. The model is then instantiated on two connected yet distinct empirical contexts, where consumers shop for movies to watch on home screens. The first empirical context (discussed in the second study in this thesis) lies in an observational setting, where we studied individual level clickstream and transactional data from a Video-on- Demand service platform operated by a large telecommunication service provider. Later in the third study, we created an artificial movie market and leveraged a randomized web experiment to further study the research questions with more solid identification support. We find that, in both contexts, consumers seem to start by browsing products they heard about from friends. The popularity signals become more relevant when consumers getting closer to the point of purchase. The results have important managerial implications to online vendors by suggesting a reasonable strategy of providing the most valuable social information at the right time to enhance consumer shopping experiences.