AIDS is one of the most destructive diseases humankind has ever faced and also brings with it profound social, economic and public health consequences, making it one of the most serious health and development challenges in the world today. Zimbabwe, situated in southeastern Africa, is not spared from the pandemic. It continues to be one of the Sub-SaharanAfrican countries mostly heavily impacted by the AIDS epidemic, with almost 1.2 million people infected and over 1.1 million orphans. It ranks, therefore, as fifth highest in the world in the impact HIV and AIDS has had on the country. The most effective response has been to introduce programmes to reduce the number of new infections. Recent research has demonstrated treatment as a preventative measure to be very effective. This approach involves targeting those who are infected so that they are not able to transmit the disease. The decision that has to be made by an infected person, however, is whether to look for traditional treatment, conventional treatment or a combination of the two. Herbal medicine use is becoming very common in many countries, especially in the developing world, where public health safety has become a concern. It has become common to use herbal medicine concomitantly with allopathic or conventional medicine. The present study focused on investigating perceptions leading to the choice of treatment with the traditional alternative medicines (TAM) as (a)/n alternative or compliment to the conventional or allopathic option. This is a qualitative study that explores and describes participant’s perceptions, beliefs, attitudes and feelings around the use of traditional medicine, within the context of the Integrative Behaviour Model (IBM). Data was collected from 20 people living with HIV and AIDS from urban and rural settings of different ethnicities (Shona and Shangani). The data analysis was informed by The Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis with the aid of NVivo (V.10), a computer-assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software. As predicted by the IBM, both perceived individual and environmental factors were found to be key in influencing decision-making on the use of TAM by people living with HIV and AIDS. Although there were a number of incidents in which either individual or environmental factors were perceived as independently influencing the TAM-use decision-making process, there was a lot of mutual influence between the environment and the individual. Such mutual causation was abstracted as reciprocal determinism. The IMB model assumed a unidirectional causation in which the environment could affect the individual factors. While the present study identified and demonstrated these environmental effects on the individual, it also identified and presented a reverse causation in which the individual would also affect the environment with respect to motivation for TAM use. Individual factors were psychological properties that drove the individual to use TAM. Attitude, social influence and personal agency emerged as the three dimensions of individual factors. Attitudes helped in identification of orientations that located objects of thought on dimensions of judgment about the use of TAM. Social influence explained social pressure experienced and expected regarding the use of TAM. The study demonstrated the importance of both the descriptive and injunctive norm with participants indicating that they perceived important others to be using traditional medicine and that they felt perceived expectations from others to do the same and hence the motivation to comply. Personal agency pointed to the participants’ capacities to originate and direct actions for the purposes of TAM use. All these constructs were found to be very important as perceived determinants of the behavioral intentions of people living with HIV and AIDS to use traditional medicines. In experiential attitude, generally the respondents showed more perceived positive evaluations of pleasurable experiences in their use of traditional medicines. However, there were other outcome evaluations that seemed to be ambivalent and which appeared to cause a lot of tension. The comprehension of experiential attitude was found therefore found to be trichotomous rather than dichotomous as per the IBM. The effects of the instrumental attitude were revealed in the ratings of the extent to which the use of traditional medicine was perceived as useful or rewarding, with the study revealing high ratings of usefulness. It becomes clear, therefore, that for people living with HIV and AIDS social influence, perceived attitudes and personal agency are important decision-making factors in their use of traditional and alternative medicine. Efforts towards education, integration and behaviour change programmes should design messages targeting these behavioral determinants. Understanding of these perceived determinants is crucial to influencing policy as well as the adoption of health practices through education, marketing and other modes of health promotion.

El presente artículo aborda la controversia que se origina a partir del uso de la publicidad subliminal, pues aparentemente ejercería cierta influencia en el comportamiento del consumidor. Siendo así, la publicidad subliminal podría contravenir principios éticos y morales. Por ello, esta investigación presentará y analizará estudios relevantes sobre el posible dilema ético que surgiría del uso de la publicidad subliminal y la influencia que podría generar en la decisión de compra de los consumidores. Como punto de partida, se precisarán los conceptos de ética y publicidad subliminal que ayudarán a reconocer y entender cuándo se presenta un dilema ético por el uso de este tipo de publicidad, cuyo cuestionamiento será el tema central de este trabajo. Además, se explicará el concepto de la deontología profesional de los medios publicitarios con el objetivo de exponer una posible relación entre el ejercicio profesional y origen del dilema ético. Asimismo, se analizará la influencia de los factores sociales, culturales, políticos y legales en la publicidad subliminal. / This article deals with the controversy caused by the use of subliminal advertising, which seems to have some influence on consumer behavior. If so, subliminal advertising could transgress ethical and moral principles. This research intends to introduce and analize pertinent research on the ethical dilemma that would arise from using subliminal advertising and its influence on consumers’ decisions. First, the meaning of ethics and subliminal advertising will be conveyed accurately, this will be helpful for recognizing and understanding the presence of an ethical dilemma due to this kind of advertising, that is to say the core of this research. In addition, deontology-based advertising ethical value will be explained in order to show a possible link between professional practice and the nature of the ethical dilemma. Also, the influence of social, cultural, political and legal aspects on subliminal advertising will be addressed. / Trabajo de Suficiencia Profesional

Att snusa är något som kan leda till ett beroende och kan innebära en ökad risk för att få sjukdomar. Studien syftar till att dels undersöka snusares attityder och förklaringar till fortsatt användning av snus, dels förklaringar till att börja snusa. Sammanlagt åtta intervjuer genomfördes och analyserades med tematisering. I intervjuerna var det framträdande att gemenskap var anledningen till att börja snusa. Respondenterna utryckte flera faktorer till snusandet idag som ett bättre välmående, vanor eller att personen är beroende.  En slutsats är att en persons snusande verkar bero på attityden och inställningen till snus. Deltagarna framhåller att avgörande för om en person börjar snusa är de egna egenskaperna men också det sociala inflytande som andra har på personen. Studien bidrar med kunskaper om hur föräldrar, skolan och politiker kan jobba preventivt, det bidrar också till lärdomar i olika tobaksavvänjande miljöer.

It is a common problem in psychology subject pools for past study participants to inform future participants of key experimental details (also known as crosstalk). Previous research (Edlund, Sagarin, Skowronski, Johnson, & Kutter, 2009) demonstrated that a combined classroom and laboratory treatment could significantly reduce crosstalk. The present investigation tested a laboratory-only treatment for the prevention of crosstalk at five universities, along with institutional-level moderators of crosstalk. Results indicated the presence of crosstalk at all universities and that the laboratory-based treatment was effective in reducing crosstalk. Importantly, crosstalk rates were higher (but successfully neutralized) in research pools with higher research credit requirements. Therefore, this research provides valuable guidance regarding crosstalk prevalence and its minimization by researchers.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / How is charitable giving influenced by other donors’ charitable giving? Do people give more in the presence of other donors who are similar to themselves? Most research suggests that individuals are positively influenced by others who are similar across a variety of behaviors. In the charitable giving contexts, people are more likely to donate (or donate more) to the same cause if others who are similar donate. Yet, prior research has paid little attention to potential non-linear effects of similarity on charitable giving. Is there a certain amount of similarity that is too much? My dissertation investigates this research question through two different methodological approaches, a systematic literature review and an experimental study. The findings suggest the curvilinear effects of similarity on charitable giving (i.e. self-other oversimilarity hypothesis); that is, individuals are more likely to donate (and donate more) in the presence of other generous donors who are moderately similar to themselves. Yet, individuals are less likely to donate (and donate) less in the presence of other generous donors who are in high similarity to themselves. In other words, too much similarity between donors may actually backfire in charitable giving contexts when others give generously. This dissertation consists of a brief overview of similarity (Chapter 1), a systematic literature review (Chapter 2), an experimental study (Chapter 3) and a research proposal (Chapter 4). Chapter 1 in this dissertation identifies the importance of similarity in social relationships. Chapter 2 investigates the effects of similarity on charitable giving and identifies the literature gap. Chapter 3 attempts to fill the gap via developing and testing self-other oversimilarity hypothesis. It further offers practical implications for nonprofit fundraising practices on how to apply similarity between donors to motivate more funding. In order to provide additional empirical evidence that may contribute to theory and practice, and to address certain limitations of the current experimental study, Chapter 4 proposes a new research project to further test self-other oversimilarity hypothesis in the presence of a stingy donor.

The jury method is a unique social setting in the Criminal Justice system that provides opportunity for social influence to occur. Questions about the formation of jurors’ individual and collective decisions have stimulated a great deal of interest and research. This study is a review of the juror decision-making process and the various sources of influence that can affect it. Mock jurors were asked to review a mock criminal trial as well as the testimony of 2 witnesses. Upon reviewing the case, a predeliberation verdict (guilty or not guilty) and the degree of certainty of that decision was made. Once deliberation had occurred and ended, the jurors were asked to make a postdeliberation verdict. This study was conducted to see if conformity would take place during a mock jury deliberation, and how influential the actual deliberation was on the jurors. The results demonstrated that not only did jury deliberation influence individual juror’s verdicts, but it made their verdict confidence stronger as well.

In the current climate in which it seems like popular media determines normality, it is not surprising to find that reality television, especially programs geared towards elective cosmetic surgery, are correlated with the decision making processes associated with actually pursuing cosmetic surgery. Research suggests that attitudes towards cosmetic surgery have changed dramatically due to the public's exposure to reality makeover shows; these shows have increased the popularity of such procedures and have highlighted and implied that cosmetic surgery is associated with little pain and risk. In this study, I sought to determine if attitudes toward cosmetic surgery vary as a function of ethnicity and gender, as well as examine the influence of the media on openness to pursuing cosmetic surgery. Examining how others view those who pursue elective cosmetic surgery and the variables associated with those who obtain cosmetic surgery will shed light on the processes associated with the decision to pursue the procedures.

This thesis concerns the task of how to develop dialogue systems specialized in social influence and problems around deploying such systems. Dialogue systems have become widely adopted in our daily life. Most dialogue systems are primarily focused on information-seeking tasks or social companionship. However, they cannot apply strategies in complex and critical social influence tasks, such as healthy habit promotion, emotional support, etc. In this work, we formally define social influence dialogue systems to be systems that influence users’ behaviors, feelings, thoughts, or opinions through natural conversations. We also present methods to make such systems intelligible, privacy-preserving, and thus deployable in real life. Finally, we acknowledge potential ethical issues around social influence systems and propose solutions to mitigate them in Chapter 6. Social influence dialogues span various domains, such as persuasion, negotiation, and recommendation. We first propose a donation persuasion task, PERSUASIONFORGOOD, and ground our study on this persuasion task for social good. We then build a persuasive dialogue system, by refining the dialogue model for intelligibility and imitating human experts for persuasiveness, and a negotiation agent that can play the game of Diplomacy by decoupling the planning engine and the dialogue generation module to improve controllability of social influence systems. To deploy such a system in the wild, our work examines how humans perceive the AI agent’s identity, and how their perceptions impact the social influence outcome. Moreover, dialogue models are trained on conversations, where people could share personal information. This creates privacy concerns for deployment as the models may memorize private information. To protect user privacy in the training data, our work develops privacy-preserving learning algorithms to ensure deployed models are safe under privacy attacks. Finally, deployed dialogue agents have the potential to integrate human feedback to continuously improve themselves. So we propose JUICER, a framework to make use of both binary and free-form textual human feedback to augment the training data and keep improving dialogue model performance after deployment. Building social influence dialogue systems enables us to research future expert-level AI systems that are accessible via natural languages, accountable with domain knowledge, and privacy-preserving with privacy guarantees.

We examined how social norms and confrontations by targets of prejudice influence opinions of gay rights. During an experimental discussion participants were assigned to a 2 (Target: gay target present vs. Christian non-target present) x 2 (Social Support: no group support vs. support from 3 confederates) design. Dependent variables included participants’ public votes on gay rights policies, private post-discussion attitudes, and post-discussion reactions toward the discussion. Results showed that participants exposed to a group showed greater public endorsement of gay-rights than those interacting with the target alone. Gay targets facilitated greater public advocacy for gay rights than Christian targets, despite reporting more negative reactions post-discussion. Overall, participants became more pro-gay rights after the discussion, regardless of condition. These results support the role of social norms in reducing prejudice but also suggest that, contrary to the self-interest rule, targets of prejudice may garner greater support by standing up for their rights.

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