Peer Behavior Research Articles

Influence Motives in Social Signaling: Evidence from COVID-19 Vaccinations in Germany

We investigate whether a desire to influence others’ choices affects our own behavior. To separate such influence motives from social pressure, we study participants’ willingness to register for a COVID-19 vaccination in a field experiment in Germany. We vary whether participants’ registration decisions are shared with a peer, to activate social pressure, and whether peers are informed before their own decision, to isolate influence motives. We find that influence motives double participants’ registration likelihood, an effect driven by individuals with ex ante trust in the vaccine. Despite anticipating to influence their peers, participants cannot alter peer behavior in the experiment. (JEL C93, D12, D82, D91, I12, I18)

What have we learned about sexual harassment among young people? Concluding reflections

AbstractThis article contains concluding reflections for a special issue on sexual harassment among young people. In this concluding article, we reflect on the 14 individual papers in the special issue through three cross‐cutting themes, each with important implications for policy and practice. The themes highlight that (1) attitudes and norms related to sexual harassment are core to its occurrence among young people, (2) the sexual harassment experiences of minority and otherwise hidden youth need to be heard, and (3) innovative approaches and methods advance the current knowledge about sexual harassment among young people. Furthermore, we stress that school policies against sexual harassment need to be reflected in the behaviors of school personnel and peers, and that both students and teachers need to be equipped with the knowledge and skills to combat sexual harassment. It is our hope that this special issue will be valuable for researchers, the formulation of societal and school policies, and for the design of developmentally informed interventions.

Explaining state participation in ten universal WMD treaties: A survival analysis of ratification decisions

ABSTRACT Much of what we know about state participation in universal weapons of mass destruction (WMD) treaties is based on research about the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This article instead analyzes the ratification of all ten current WMD treaties. Using a survival analysis of ratification events (1960–2022), it challenges conventional wisdom. It shows that security threats—a factor stressed by neorealists and research on the NPT—provide only a weak and incomplete explanation. Instead, three types of costs and benefits influence ratification decisions: policy change costs, benefits from the secondary functions of treaties, and benefits from the conformity with the ratification behavior of regional peers. More specifically, the article finds that the possession and pursuit of WMD delays ratification. The country’s support for the liberal hegemonic order, the level of its economic development, and a high regional ratification rate of the respective treaty increase the probability of ratification.

Is the majority always right? Young children's normative interpretations of majority and dissenting peer behavior

AbstractThe present study investigates the social‐cognitive underpinnings of young children's bias to follow the majority. More specifically, we focus on the question of whether children not only copy the behavior of a majority of peers, but whether they also understand this majority behavior as a social norm that everyone needs to follow. Additionally, we investigated whether seeing a unanimous majority or a majority and dissenting peer makes a difference for children's normative understanding. Participants included 180 preschool‐age children (4‐to‐5 years old) who engaged in a conformity paradigm, where they either saw the behavior of a unanimous majority of peers, or additionally the behavior of a single dissenting peer, or only the behavior of two individual peers behaving differently (Control). Afterward, children mostly copied the unanimous majority and protested against others, when they deviated from this majority, thus indeed interpreting the behavior of a unanimous majority as a norm that others need to follow. However, when they had seen a majority as well as a dissenter, children's protest and copying in favor of the majority dropped. Overall, our findings show that preschool children interpret the behavior of a unanimous majority as normative. However, when children additionally see a dissenter's behavior, this normative interpretation is weakened.

Children's shyness and physiological arousal to a peer's social stress.

Previous work has shown that children's shyness is related to personal anxiety during social stress, but we know little about how shyness is related to anxiety during a peer's social stress. Children (Mage =10.22 years, SD=0.81, N=62) were paired with an unfamiliar peer and engaged in a speech task while electrocardiography was recorded. We modeled changes in children's heart rate, a physiological correlate of anxiety, while they observed their peer prepare and deliver a speech. Results revealed that the observing child's shyness related to increases in their heart rate during their peer's preparation period, but modulation of this arousal was sensitive to the presenting peer's anxious behavior while delivering their speech. Specifically, if the presenting child displayed high levels of anxious behavior, the observing child's shyness was related to further increases in heart rate, but if the presenting child displayed low levels of anxious behavior, the observing child's shyness was related to decreases in heart rate from the preparation period. Shy children may experience physiological arousal to a peer's social stress but can regulate this arousal based on social cues from the peer, which may be due to heightened social threat detection and/or empathic anxiety.

Teletraffic Analysis of DoS and Malware Cyber Attacks on P2P Networks under Exponential Assumptions

Peer-to-peer (P2P) networks are distributed systems with a communication model in which no central authority governs the behavior of individual peers. These networks currently account for a considerable percentage of all bandwidth worldwide. However, this communication model also has a clear disadvantage: it has a multitude of vulnerabilities and security threats. The nature of the P2P philosophy itself means that there is no centralized server responsible for uploading, storing, and verifying the authenticity of the shared files and packets. A direct consequence of this is that P2P networks are a good choice for hackers for the spread of malicious software or malware in general since there is no mechanism to control what content is shared. In this paper, we present a mathematical model for P2P networks to study the effect of two different attacks on these systems, namely, malware and denial of service. To analyze the behavior of the cyber attacks and identify important weaknesses, we develop different Markov chains that reflect the main dynamics of the system and the attacks. Specifically, our model considers the case in which a certain number of nodes are infected with a cyber worm that is spread throughout the network as the file is shared among peers. This allows observation of the final number of infected peers when an initial number (we evaluate the system for from 1 to 14 initial nodes) of malicious nodes infect the system. For the DoS attack, our model considers the portion of peers that are unable to communicate and the average attack duration to study the performance degradation of such an attack. A two-pronged approach was used to study the impact of the attacks on P2P networks; the first focused only on the P2P network, and the second focused on the attacks and the network.

The role of peer imitation in agricultural index insurance adoption: Findings from lab‐in‐the‐field experiments in Kyrgyzstan

AbstractFrequent climate shocks require farmers in developing countries to increase their resilience. Although index insurance is often discussed as a promising climate adaptation strategy, take‐up rates are still low. This study primarily explores the role of peer behavior as peer imitation in the demand for three marketable and unsubsidized crop index insurance options. Furthermore, the influence of trust and understanding is investigated. We collected data in lab‐in‐the‐field experiments among farmers in Kyrgyzstan, where index insurance is planned for imminent implementation. Applying ordered logit estimations, our results show significant and strong peer imitation effects. Imitation attitudes decrease with own insurance experience and received insurance payouts, but intensify with peer size, insurance trust and practical insurance understanding. While trust robustly increases index insurance adoption, understanding effects only gain significance in the dynamic perspective. These findings underline the importance of community‐based extension treatments and trust toward the uptake of innovative agricultural technologies in the first steps of dissemination.

Momentary links between adolescents' social media use and social experiences and motivations: Individual differences by peer susceptibility.

This longitudinal ecological momentary assessment study examined whether adolescents' use of social media to interact with peers relates to their experiences of social connectedness, social craving, and sensation seeking on an hourly level. Further, we investigated whether these associations differ for adolescents who were nominated by their peers as more or less susceptible to social influences, because highly susceptible youth may be more strongly impacted by social media due to heightened focus on peer behaviors and social feedback. The sample was 212 adolescents in the southeastern United States (Mage = 15 years; range 14 to 17; 56.2% female; 40% White, 28% Latinx, 26% African American, 15% mixed/other race). Controlling for both daily and between-subjects effects, we found a consistent pattern of hourly-level results that were robust to sensitivity analyses. When highly susceptible adolescents used social media to interact with peers in the last hour, they felt less socially connected to others and more strongly craved social connections and novel sensations. Youth who are particularly sensitive to social input from peers may feel less connected to others and crave more connections and exciting stimuli within 1 hr after using social media to interact with peers. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Peer Effect on Environmental Information Disclosure: Evidence from High-polluting Industries in China

Background: Among the research on the influencing factors of environmental information disclosure, scholars rarely identify the factors from the perspective of the enterprise’s external environment, especially peer enterprise behavior. In fact, the disclosure of environmental information by most enterprises in China is still only voluntary, and the form of disclosure is so chaotic that it is easy to be influenced by other enterprises. Objective: This study aimed to determine whether a firm's EID is affected by peer firms and contribute to the existing literature on the influencing factors of EID. Methods: An analytical framework incorporating the herd behavior hypothesis, the legitimate theory, and the stakeholder theory is constructed, and fixed effect estimation, as well as a two-stage least square, is used to test the hypotheses. Results: There is a peer effect on environmental information disclosure of high-polluting firms. It has been observed that the focal firm imitates the disclosure behavior of small peer firms more than the large peer firms. Moreover, a peer effect of environmental disclosure on sensitive and non-sensitive information is also reported, but the peer effect on sensitive information is larger than that on nonsensitive information. Conclusion: First, policymakers need to realize that there is a peer effect involved in EID among highpolluting firms and improve the binding force of environmental regulations. Second, there are “demonstration effects” involved in EID. In the practice of regulations on disclosure, the smaller firms need to be under stricter scrutiny and set as models of EID to improve the efficiency of supervision and regulation. Third, enterprises have a stronger peer effect on the disclosure of sensitive information. Governments should strengthen the supervision of sensitive information disclosure.

The association between peer rejection and behavior problems of migrant adolescents in China: A moderated mediation model of delinquent peer affiliation and parenting

Facing a stressful environment of peer rejection and discrimination, Chinese migrant adolescents are at high risk of developing behavior problems while receiving insufficient family support. In this context, the current study aimed to explore the pathway from peer rejection to adolescent behavior problems via the mediating role of delinquent peer affiliation and with the moderating roles of parental company and parental monitoring taken into consideration. A sample of 2041 migrant adolescents (46.2% female, mean age = 13.595) was drawn from the first and second waves of the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS) for running a moderated mediation model. The results demonstrated that peer rejection positively predicted behavior problems through the mediator of delinquent peer affiliation (indirect effect = 0.007, 95% CI = [0.003, 0.014]). This mediating mechanism was moderated by parental company and by parental monitoring. Our study deepened the theoretical understanding and application of the general strain theory by showing how the interaction of peer stressors and parenting elements affected the behavior of migrant adolescents in a Chinese context. Further studies could pay more attention to the dynamic interplay between the family and peer systems, especially for rejected and marginalized adolescent groups. Limitations and implications for future school-based and family-based practices are also discussed.

Violent Behavior and Social Network Antisocial and Prosocial Behaviors

While the youth’s social network has affected violent behavior, the influences of different kinds of networks and their behaviors have been unclear. Accordingly, the antisocial and prosocial of the peer friend (less than 5 years older or younger) network, elder friend (aged > 40 years) network, and the linking or resourceful network are likely influential based on social learning, social bond, and social capital theories. For a contest of the network behaviors, this study surveyed 2,363 youths (aged 16–24 years) in the Chinese society of Hong Kong. Results reveal that the prosocial behavior of peer and elder networks significantly inversely predicted the youth’s violent behavior, whereas the antisocial behavior of the linking network was significantly positively predictive. These network effects were not significantly different between the migrant and native and between the younger (aged below 20 years) and older (aged 20+ years) youths. The results imply the value of preventing the youth’s violent behavior by raising the youth’s bonding with prosocial friends and preventing the youth’s antisocial linking network with the guidance of the theories.

THE IMPACT OF PARENTS AND PEERS ON THE SAVING BEHAVIOR OF NEPALESE YOUTH

The goal of this study is to look at the relationship between peers’ influence and parents’ influence on the saving behavior of Nepalese youth and the impact of peers’ influence and parents’ influence on the saving behavior of Nepalese youth. The research has used primary sources of data. A well-structured questionnaire was designed to collect data from 250 respondents. The convenience sampling technique was used to select a sample for the study. Moreover, Cronbach’s Alpha was assessed to test reliability. The correlational and casual research designs were used. The findings revealed that there was a positive and significant relationship between peers’ influence and parents’ influence on the saving behavior of Nepalese youth and peers’ influence and parents’ influence have a significant impact on the saving behavior of Nepalese youth. This study is useful for those saving behavior seekers as parents’ influence is a major factor in many facets of life in Nepalese communities. Children are taught to respect their parents and they have the power and obligation. Since parents have such a big impact on young people, they should seize the chance to let their kids watch them practice good saving habits as a way of preparing them for life in the adult world.

THE EFFECT OF FINANCIAL LITERACY, SELF-CONTROL, AND PEERS ON SAVING BEHAVIOR STUDENTS OF STATE VOCATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL IN WEST JAKARTA REGION

This research aims to determine the Effect of Financial Literacy, Self-Control, and Peers on the Saving Behavior of Students of State Vocational High Schools, 11th-grade Accounting and Financial Institutions in Region II, West Jakarta. With an affordable population totalling 251 students, such as Vocational High School 45 Jakarta, Vocational High School 13 Jakarta, and Vocational High School 17 Jakarta. The sample in this study was 152 respondents with a proportional random sampling technique and Isaac and Michael Formula. The method of data collection is by questionnaire. The data analysis techniques are descriptive analysis, test analysis requirements, and hypothesis testing. The results of this study show that there is a positive and significant influence between financial literacy on saving behaviour, self-control on saving behaviour, and peers on saving behaviour. In addition to having a positive and significant effect simultaneously between financial literacy, self-control, and the saving behaviour of peers. In this investigation, the coefficient of determination was calculated to be 29.8%; the remaining percentage was affected by other aspects that did not investigate

Social norms and goal-setting interventions to promote responsible gambling in low-to-moderate online gamblers: protocol for a four-arm randomised controlled feasibility study

IntroductionGambling is increasingly recognised as an important public health issue. Problem gambling is associated with highly negative impacts on physical, psychological and social well-being, not only for those who gamble...

Cooking a pro-veg*n social identity: the influence of vegan cooking workshops on children’s pro-veg*n social identities, attitudes, and dietary intentions

Plant-based dietary choices can help to mitigate climate change. Yet, most people still consume meat. Social identity influences dietary choices. This study tests whether shared identity, pro-veg*n norms, attitudes, and dietary intentions, can be strengthened via a vegan cooking workshop for children. Pupils (N = 155) cooked in small groups (3–6 members). Compared to pre-measures, shared identity, pro-veg*n (vegan and/or vegetarian) norms, attitudes, dietary intentions, and appreciation of vegan food increased after the vegan cooking workshop. Changed perceptions about what is important or not (injunctive norms) at school predicted changes in attitudes; increased dietary intentions were predicted by changed inferences about the behaviours of peers with whom pupils directly cooked. Jointly cooking a vegan meal thus seems an effective intervention to shape shared identity and pro-veg*n norms, and foster attitudes and dietary intentions in line with this formed pro-veg*n social identity. Therefore, cooking workshops may induce social change.

A study to assess the intervention on patients with osteoarthritis

Effectiveness of Nursing Care on Patients with Osteoarthritis .Osteoarthritis (OA) is a condition that results in joint inflammation. It’s caused by the wear and tear of cartilage, the tissue protecting the ends of your bones and joints. OA is the most common form of arthritis and is degenerative, getting worse with age. Without treatment, chronic pain from OA can lead to other complications and can significantly affect your quality of life. Assess the intervention on patients with osteoarthritis (10) was evaluated using a descriptive study methodology. A simple sampling approach was adopted in this investigation. There are three sections to the checklist. Part 1 contains data on demographic characteristics such peer group, faith, employment, learning, salary, and behaviors. Portion 2 consists of a ranking scale to keep track of the patient’s fitness. There were a total of ten variables. The observational checklist to determine the efficiency of nursing intervention of clients with osteoarthritis in part three. There are a total of ten variables. The descriptive numerical study technique to determine t-test,mean, standard deviation, % of the score in this study. Conclusion: From the intervention revealed that 6(60%) is were behind fitness complaint an no one in worthy fitness complaint beginning the assessment of clients with Osteoarthritis after comprehensive nursing care as per protocol showed that majority 7(70%) patients with Osteoarthritis client in worthy health state. A p<0.05 significant development in wellbeing, after the intervention for Osteoarthritis client.

Protection or Peril of Following the Crowd in a Pandemic-Concurrent Flood Evacuation

The decisions of whether and how to evacuate during a climate disaster are influenced by a wide range of factors, including emergency messaging, social influences, and sociodemographics. Further complexity is introduced when multiple hazards occur simultaneously, such as a flood evacuation taking place amid a viral pandemic that requires physical distancing. Such multihazard events can necessitate a nuanced navigation of competing decision-making strategies wherein a desire to follow peers is weighed against contagion risks. To better understand these trade-offs, we distributed an online survey during a COVID-19 pandemic surge in July 2020 to 600 individuals in three midwestern and three southern states in the United States with high risk of flooding. In this paper, we estimate a random parameter discrete choice model in both preference space and willingness-to-pay space. The results of our model show that the directionality and magnitude of the influence of peers’ choices of whether and how to evacuate vary widely across respondents. Overall, the decision of whether to evacuate is positively impacted by peer behavior, while the decision of how to evacuate (i.e., ride-type selection) is negatively impacted by peer influence. Furthermore, an increase in flood threat level lessens the magnitude of peer impacts. In terms of the COVID-19 pandemic impacts, respondents who perceive it to be a major health risk are more reluctant to evacuate, but this effect is mitigated by increased flood threat level. These findings have important implications for the design of tailored emergency messaging strategies and the role of shared rides in multihazard evacuations. Specifically, emphasizing or deemphasizing the severity of each threat in a multihazard scenario may assist in: (1) encouraging a reprioritization of competing risk perceptions; and (2) magnifying or neutralizing the impacts of social influence, thereby (3) nudging evacuation decision-making toward a desired outcome.

Parental, Teacher and Peer Effects on the Social Behaviors of Chinese Adolescents: A Structural Equation Modeling Analysis.

Adolescent behavior is closely related to academic and long-term personal development, and adolescents are vulnerable to the influences from people around them. This study aimed to analyze the factors and mechanisms that influence the behavior of adolescents. It examines the impact of family, teachers, and peers on adolescent prosocial behavior and misconduct. Data were obtained from the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS) follow-up data (2014-2015 school year) and 7835 middle school student participants were used for analysis. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to explore the influence and mechanisms of family, teachers, and peers on the development of adolescent social behavior. The findings showed that parental relationships, parental discipline, teacher supervision, and positive peer behavior were positively associated with adolescent prosocial behaviors and reduced the incidence of delinquent behaviors, while frequent home-school contact was associated with misconduct (all p < 0.01). These results remained significant after controlling for gender, residence, only-child status, family financial situation, and paternal education. Significant others in an adolescent's life play multiple essential roles in forming and developing adolescent behavior and in directly influencing them. To guide the prosocial behaviors of middle school students and reduce delinquent behavior, we should build harmonious parent-child, peer, and teacher-student relationships, teach according to their aptitudes, pay attention to particular groups and strengthen psychological health education to develop their self-esteem and self-confidence.

Neurodiverse undergraduate psychology students' experiences of presentations in education and employment

PurposeAudio-visual presentations – delivered either in real-life or virtually – feature heavily in educational assessments and employer recruitment. This study explored neurodivergent undergraduate students' experiences of presentations. The aim was to understand how neurodivergent students describe experiences of presentations in educational and workplace contexts and how neurodivergent students experienced training, support activities and learning technologies associated with presentations.Design/methodology/approachAn exploratory qualitative phenomenological approach was taken, from students' perspectives. Overall, 12 neurodivergent undergraduate students (Mage = 21.89 years, SDage = 2.57; nine women, two men, one non-binary) discussed their experiences of presentations within educational and/or professional contexts via semi-structured remote interviews. The sample included individuals with diagnoses of anxiety, depression, dyslexia, borderline personality disorder, dyscalculia, dyspraxia, and panic disorder.FindingsThematic Analysis of interview transcript data revealed four main themes (with sub-themes in parentheses): Control (preparedness; delivery); Audience Perceptions and Behaviours (expectations of “normality”; shared knowledge; audience “expertise”); Intervention Efficacy (early access; individuality; learning technologies) and Value of Presentation Skills (reciprocity between education – workplace; self-efficacy; self-esteem; learner development).Research limitations/implicationsThe dataset was extracted from a relatively small sample from a single university and indeed a single academic discipline. Furthermore, the dataset was collected during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic – although this gives us a valuable snapshot of students' experiences and perceptions during this time, whether the author can extrapolate these findings in future is unclear.Practical implicationsThe findings help understand how we better support students. Better ways to support learners can be developed in developing presentation and audience skills. This research shows that alternative assessment provisions must be based on individuals and their own specific needs and skills, rather than their divergence label. This research can inform the development of digital learning technologies.Social implicationsThis research can inform how educators, coaches, trainers, and facilitators “train” audiences to be more inclusive and less prejudicial/biased. We can understand how to better construct social spaces for presentations, in the classroom and the world of work.Originality/valueThis report presents a valid and valuable methodological approach, conducted and reported transparently. This research was conducted during a crucial, unprecedented and precarious time period for learners and education professionals. Implications are considered with respect to the design of teaching, learning and assessment activities; facilitator, learner, and peer behaviours; the role of digital learning technologies; and employment/employability.

Circuit-Free General-Purpose Multi-Party Computation via Co-Utile Unlinkable Outsourcing

Multiparty computation (MPC) consists in several parties engaging in joint computation in such a way that each party's input and output remain private to that party. Whereas MPC protocols for specific computations have existed since the 1980s, only recently general-purpose compilers have been developed to allow MPC on arbitrary functions. Yet, using today's MPC compilers requires substantial programming effort and skill on the user's side, among other things because nearly all compilers translate the code of the computation into a Boolean or arithmetic circuit. In particular, the circuit representation requires unrolling loops and recursive calls, which forces programmers to (often manually) define loop bounds and hardly use recursion. We present an approach allowing MPC on an arbitrary computation expressed as ordinary code with all functionalities that does not need to be translated into a circuit. Our notion of input and output privacy is predicated on unlinkability. Our method leverages co-utile computation outsourcing using anonymous channels via decentralized reputation, makes a minimalistic use of cryptography and does not require participants to be honest-but-curious: it works as long as participants are rational (self-interested), which may include rationally malicious peers (who become attackers if this is advantageous to them). We present example applications, including e-voting. Our empirical work shows that reputation captures well the behavior of peers and ensures that parties with high reputation obtain correct results.