The hidden cost of digital aggression: How engaging in cyberbullying facilitates moral disengagement among children through changes in normative beliefs about aggression

The aim is to examine how vaccine misinformation shapes perceived social norms and assess their mediating role in vaccination intentions during pandemics, an underexplored mechanism in misinformation’s influence on vaccine decisions. In a pre-registered online experiment, UK residents (n = 332) were randomly assigned to either a misinformation or control condition in a hypothetical pandemic scenario. I measured changes in vaccination intentions, first-order normative beliefs (perceptions of others’ vaccination intentions) and second-order normative beliefs (perceptions of others’ beliefs about vaccine safety) before and after exposure. Causal mediation analysis using inverse odds ratio weighting assessed the indirect effects of misinformation through changes in normative beliefs. The pre–post comparison revealed that vaccine intentions declined 2.5% more in the misinformation condition compared to the control group (p = 0.024, d = 0.24). In the misinformation group, average vaccine intentions dropped from 62.4% to 59.3%, while the control group showed minimal change from 60.8% to 60.2%. Changes in first-order normative beliefs mediated 39.52% of misinformation’s total effect on vaccination intentions. The findings reveal that vaccine misinformation operates through dual pathways: directly affecting individual beliefs while simultaneously distorting perceptions of social consensus about vaccination.

"The universal Prevention Program of Substance Use among University Students (PUNAV) is based on the strategy of correcting normative beliefs (NBs) regarding alcohol use. The current research shown that NBs are a significant factor in relation to alcohol consumption. This study has explored whether a change of NBs is associated with a decrease of alcohol use among university students. The data used in this study were collected before the implementation of PUNAV in September 2018 (N=137, Mage = 21.9, 77% women) and 18 months later after the implementation of the program in March 2020 (N=54, 77% women). Participants provided information on alcohol consumption, alcohol dependence, alcohol harmful use and descriptive NBs regarding alcohol consumption. The level of NBs at T2 was subtracted from level of NB at T1 (T1 – T2) to identify changes in NBs over time. Using SPSS 21, a linear regression model which controlled for the level of the outcome variables at T1 and observed changes in NBs were used to predict the outcome variables measured at T2. Alcohol consumption and NBs after PUNAV decreased alcohol consumption but increased the dependence and alcohol harmful consequences. The regression model, which controlled for alcohol use at T1, showed that a significant change in NBs was negatively associated with alcohol consumption at T2. The findings have in general shown that the observed changes in NBs (corrected NBs) were more likely to decrease alcohol consumption among university students."

Children witness violence at home, at school, in their neighborhood, and in the media. Children may also experience violence, as a victim, at home, at school, and in their neighborhood. A longitudinal study tested whether children who are exposed to a heavy dose of violence come to regard it as normal behavior and subsequently behave more aggressively themselves. Participants were 777 children (8 to 12 years old) who completed questionnaires twice (6 months apart) about exposure to violence (witnessed and experienced), their own aggression, the aggression of peers, and normative beliefs about aggression. The results showed that witnessing violence predicted increases in aggression 6 months later through changes in normative beliefs. Likewise, experiencing aggression as a victim predicted increases in aggression 6 months later through changes in normative beliefs. These findings show that when children think violence is commonplace in many contexts, they are more likely to aggress against others.

Social norms marketing has become a widely used technique for promoting pro-social behaviors, however, little is known about the cognitive changes produced by these interventions. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the extent and durability of changes in normative beliefs following a one-shot social norms communication. Participants were surveyed immediately following the intervention, one week later, and one month later. Results showed that (1) normative beliefs spilled over to behaviors and referents not specified in the original message; (2) communication and self-knowledge both contributed to participants’ normative belief estimates; and (3) the change in normative beliefs over the one-month period was consistent with Miller and Prentice’s (1996) theory of normative belief construction. Possible explanations for the spillover effect are discussed.

Impact of a school-based peer sexual health intervention on normative beliefs, risk perceptions, and sexual behavior of Zambian adolescents

Two studies investigated the role of beliefs about the acceptability of aggression ("normative beliefs") against Jews in determining who would join an extremist group. In Study 1, students in a university in Pakistan (N=144) completed self-report attitude measures, and were subsequently approached by a confederate who asked whether they wanted to join an extremist anti-Semitic organization. Normative beliefs about aggression against Jews were very strong predictors of whether participants agreed to join. In Study 2, participants (N=92) were experimentally assigned to either a brief educational intervention, designed to improve inter-group relations, or to a control group. They also filled in self-report attitude measures pre and post intervention. Participants in the intervention group were much less likely to agree to join the extremist group, and this effect of the intervention on joining was mediated by changes in normative beliefs about aggression against Jews. The results have implications for theories of inter-group aggression and interventions to prevent people from being recruited into extremist groups.

In this study, we conceptualize and provide novel empirical evidence on norm-setting effects of family policies by investigating how priming with parental leave policy–related information may alter normative beliefs regarding the gender division of parental leave in Germany. We implemented a survey experiment in two waves of the representative German GESIS Panel in 2019 and 2020. Respondents received one of three short evidence-based information primers about (1) long-term income risks of maternal employment interruptions, (2) nonsignificant paternal wage penalties, or (3) increasing rates of paternal leave usage in Germany, or were allocated to the control group that received no further information before rating the division of parental leave in fictitious couples. We apply ordinary least squares regression models with lagged dependent variables to a sample of 5,362 vignette evaluations nested in 1,548 respondents. Remarkably, we find that the effects of all three priming conditions vary significantly depending on whether respondents are asked to judge situations for couples where women earn more or less than their partners. Our findings mostly point to stronger effects of priming with information on income risks compared with paternal leave usage trends and to more pronounced changes in normative beliefs among childless respondents.

CONSIDER New Mexico: Effects of naloxone training among pharmacists and pharmacy technicians

We examine the hypothesis that children's exposure to ethnic-political conflict and violence over the course of a year stimulates their increased aggression toward their own in-group peers in subsequent years. In addition, we examine what social cognitive and emotional processes mediate these effects and how these effects are moderated by gender, age, and ethnic group. To accomplish these aims, we collected three waves of data from 901 Israeli and 600 Palestinian youths (three age cohorts: 8, 11, and 14 years old) and their parents at 1-year intervals. Exposure to ethnic-political violence was correlated with aggression at in-group peers among all age cohorts. Using a cross-lagged structural equation model from Year 1 to Year 3, we found that the relation between exposure and aggression is more plausibly due to exposure to ethnic-political violence stimulating later aggression at peers than vice versa, and this effect was not moderated significantly by gender, age cohort, or ethnic group. Using three-wave structural equation models, we then showed that this effect was significantly mediated by changes in normative beliefs about aggression, aggressive script rehearsal, and emotional distress produced by the exposure. Again the best fitting model did not allow for moderation by gender, age cohort, or ethnic group. The findings are consistent with recent theorizing that exposure to violence leads to changes both in emotional processes promoting aggression and in the acquisition through observational learning of social cognitions promoting aggression.

Optimising the implementation and roll-out of evidence-based programs to prevent risky health behaviours such as the use of psychoactive substances (herein referred to as substance use) depends greatly on existing prevention systems that are in place to support and sustain them over time. The field of substance-use prevention is at a pivotal point. The evolution of prevention science has demonstrated that interventions grounded in theories of human behaviour and learning are effective in not only achieving their short-term objectives such as changes in normative beliefs and intentions to use substances but also having a significant effect on substance-use outcomes and in some cases on other associated behaviours. Prevention science is concerned with how programmes or interventions can be developed, implemented, assessed and improved in terms of content and effectiveness; their internal validity, i.e. design, logic model and structure; their timing within the human life cycle; and their adequacy, relevance and feasibility for the target communities. These interventions are designed to impact human behaviour directly using manualised interventions that target individuals and groups through improving micro-level environments such as the relationship between parents and children or school teachers and students to increase prosocial attitudes and behaviours among youth, and through creating macro-level environments so as to provide social controls over harmful behaviours such as increasing taxes and thus prices of cigarettes or enforcing laws that limit access to tobacco or alcohol products such as altering where these products can be sold or imposing age restrictions on purchase and consumption.

We examine the modern spread of liberal democracy, a phenomenon that was accompanied by unprecedented levels of economic development. We outline two differing accounts of the relationship between the two: one in which democratization is driven primarily by changes in normative beliefs, and another in which changes in payoffs to political actors produce democracy as a political equilibrium. The relationship between democracy and development is examined with updated panel data, covering a period from the early nineteenth century through the first decade of the twenty-first century. The analysis demonstrates a positive impact of economic development on subsequent democratic transitions, but no apparent effect of democracy on subsequent economic growth. We conclude by discussing the current literature and potential directions for research, including recent efforts to ascertain the preferences of political elites towards democracy more precisely.

California's Smoke-Free Workplace Act--CA Labor Code Sec. 6404.5(a)--was extended to bars in 1998. This article analyzes changes in normative beliefs and behaviors related to bar smoking in the decade following the adoption of the Act. In a series of studies evaluating the smoke-free workplace law in bars, researchers conducted extensive observations and interviews with bar staff and patrons, health officials, and law enforcement personnel in three California counties. Smoking outside became a normal pause in the social environment and created a new type of bar socializing for outside smokers. Although some bar owners and staff reported initially resenting the responsibility to uphold the law, once norms regarding cigarettes and smoking began changing, bar workers experienced less conflict in upholding the law. Non-smoking behavior within bars also became the normative behavior for bar patrons. California's Smoke-Free Workplace Act has both reflected and encouraged normative beliefs and behaviors related to smoking in bars. The findings indicate that such shifts are possible even in contexts where smoking behaviors and attitudes supporting smoking were deeply entrenched. Recommendations include attending to the synergistic effect of education and policy in effective tobacco control programs.

Behavior change by persuasive communications in a social dilemma, in which a university tried to persuade students to park their motorcycles in a designated lot in order to resolve noise problems, was studied by a questionnaire. Hayashi's quantification theory III was applied to variables such as subjective norms, beliefs in the effectiveness of one's cooperation, the perception of campus traffic conditions and attitudes toward one's parking behavior. Factor scores obtained were subjected to a cluster analysis, which, within 105 defectors, yielded three subgroups. Contrary to prediction, subgroups were not different in their cooperation ratio examined 10 months later, but tended to be different in their readiness for acceptance of persuasion and in their intention to cooperate in a social dilemma other than parking. Two mechanisms underlying cooperation were revealed: internalization of prosocial norm, and compliance in which cooperation was unaccompanied by correspondent changes in normative beliefs. The Fishbein model was applicable only to change through internalization. A linear assumption in the Fishbein model between evaluative attitude and behavior should be reexamined in its application to a social dilemma.

Previous research has revealed that increased obesity prevalence in the US has occurred in concert with an increase in those in overweight and obese BMI categories perceiving their weight as "about right" since the 1980s. Using biological normalcy as a framework, we assess whether individual weight perception is related to the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) when controlling for body fat percentage (BF%). Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1999-2006) included weight perception, BF%, covariates, and variables to calculate Framingham Risk Score (CVD risk) among 9489 US Americans aged 20-79 years. Logistic regression revealed that those perceiving themselves to be "overweight" had a significantly higher cardiovascular risk score compared to those considering their weight to be "about right" (OR = 1.54; 95% CI = 1.12-2.11, P = .008) after controlling for BF%, age, gender, ethnicity, poverty-index-ratio, education, family history of myocardial infarction, smoking status, and physical activity. Perceiving one's own weight as "overweight" was significantly associated with increased 10-year risk of a cardiovascular event when compared to those perceiving their weight to be "about right," regardless of body composition. This suggests that recent changes in normative beliefs in response to increased obesity prevalence over the past several decades could play a role in the distribution of CVD risk in the US, whereby perceiving oneself as "about right" rather than "overweight" may result from decreases in internalization of fat stigma.

Psychological aggression is a widespread form of abuse in dating relationships, especially in collectivist societies with ties to patriarchal beliefs. Despite the prevalence of psychological aggression, it has seldom been studied in connection with known antecedents of interpersonal violence, including dominance, attitudes supportive of violence, and violence socialization processes during childhood. The present study sought to test relationships among these variables in young men and women. A total of 500 Mexican undergraduate students in northern Mexico reported on their experiences with psychological aggression, the dominance of a dating partner, and violent socialization during childhood, as well as on their approval of violence within and outside the family. The results indicate that the dominance of a dating partner is directly linked to male and female intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration. Violent socialization and proviolent attitudes appear to be related to female dominance. Female and male psychological aggression victimization was predicted by the participant's own perpetration. In general, a dyadic approach appears to be useful for explaining psychological aggression perpetration and victimization in a collectivist society, in light of recent changes in normative beliefs held by young educated Mexicans. Implications for future research and public policy are discussed.