Amazon's Mechanical Turk: A New Source of Inexpensive, Yet High-Quality, Data?

Experimental Effects of Substance Use Legality (Sober, Alcohol, Marijuana, Cocaine) and Sexual Crime (Indecent Exposure, Rape) on Attributions of Perpetrator Responsibility, Blame, and Punishment

Background: The perceived culpability of a sexual crime perpetrator may be attributed as a function of both the legality of the substance used when committing the crime and the severity of the sex crime. Objectives: The experiment applied attribution theory to examine the simultaneous impact of substance use legality and sexual crime severity on participants' perceptions of responsibility, blame, and punishment toward sexual crime perpetrators. Methods: Participants (N = 461) in this 4 (substance legality) × 2 (sexual crime severity) experimental design were randomly assigned to one of eight conditions to read a police report depicting a sexual offense. The independent variable of substance legality was manipulated as the perpetrator's usage of no substance (sober), alcohol (legal), marijuana (partially legal), or cocaine (illegal) at the time of the crime. The second independent variable of sexual crime severity was manipulated as the offense of indecent exposure (mild offense) or rape (severe offense) committed by the perpetrator. After reading the manipulated vignette, participants rated outcome measures involving the perpetrator's responsibility, blame (guilt attributions, external attributions, and mental element attributions), and punishment (punishment attitudes and punishment severity). Results: Factorial MANCOVA and ANCOVAs were performed. Participants tended to attribute greater responsibility and blame, but not punishment, toward the sober perpetrator compared to the perpetrator intoxicated with alcohol, marijuana, or cocaine. Additionally, participants attributed significantly greater responsibility, blame, and punishment toward the perpetrator of rape compared to indecent exposure. Conclusions: The experiment supported that both substance legality and sexual crime severity uniquely served as contextual factors that played roles in people's judgments about crimes. Findings offer drug policy information regarding how substance intoxication is perceived as a mitigating excuse in criminal justice systems for committing sexual offenses.

Persuading Patients Using Rhetoric to Improve Artificial Intelligence Adoption: Experimental Study

BACKGROUND

Artificial intelligence (AI) can transform health care processes with its increasing ability to translate complex structured and unstructured data into actionable clinical decisions. Although it has been established that AI is much more efficient than a clinician, the adoption rate has been slower in health care. Prior studies have pointed out that the lack of trust in AI, privacy concerns, degrees of customer innovativeness, and perceived novelty value influence AI adoption. With the promotion of AI products to patients, the role of rhetoric in influencing these factors has received scant attention.

OBJECTIVE

The main objective of this study was to examine whether communication strategies (ethos, pathos, and logos) are more successful in overcoming factors that hinder AI product adoption among patients.

METHODS

We conducted experiments in which we manipulated the communication strategy (ethos, pathos, and logos) in promotional ads for an AI product. We collected responses from 150 participants using Amazon Mechanical Turk. Participants were randomly exposed to a specific rhetoric-based advertisement during the experiments.

RESULTS

Our results indicate that using communication strategies to promote an AI product affects users' trust, customer innovativeness, and perceived novelty value, leading to improved product adoption. Pathos-laden promotions improve AI product adoption by nudging users' trust (n=52; β=.532; P<.001) and perceived novelty value of the product (n=52; β=.517; P=.001). Similarly, ethos-laden promotions improve AI product adoption by nudging customer innovativeness (n=50; β=.465; P<.001). In addition, logos-laden promotions improve AI product adoption by alleviating trust issues (n=48; β=.657; P<.001).

CONCLUSIONS

Promoting AI products to patients using rhetoric-based advertisements can help overcome factors that hinder AI adoption by assuaging user concerns about using a new AI agent in their care process.

The Impact of COVID-19 Infodemic on Depression and Sleep Disorders; Focusing On Uncertainty Reduction Strategies and Level of Interpretation Theory

Background

During the COVID-19 pandemic, information diffusion about the COVID-19 has attracted public attention through social media. The World Health Organization declared an infodemic of COVID-19 on February 15, 2020. Misinformation and disinformation, including overwhelming amounts of information about COVID-19 on social media, could promote adverse psychological effects.

Objective

This study used the Psychological Distance and Level of Construal theory (CLT) to predict peoples’ negative psychological symptoms from social media usage. In this study, the CLT intended to show peoples’ psychological proximity to objects and events with respect to the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, this study links the uncertainty reduction strategy (URS) and CLT for COVID-19–related preventive behaviors and affective reactions to assess their effects on mental health problems.

Methods

A path model was tested (N=297) with data from a web-based survey to examine how social media usage behaviors are associated with URS and psychological distance with COVID-19 (based on the CLT), leading to preventive behaviors and affective reactions. Finally, the path model was used to examine how preventive behaviors and affective reactions are associated with mental health problems including anxiety and sleep disorder.

Results

After measuring participants’ social media usage behavior, we found that an increase in general social media usage led to higher use of the URS and lower construal level on COVID-19. The URS is associated with preventive behaviors, but the CLT did not show any association with preventive behaviors; however, it increases affective reactions. Moreover, increased preventive behavior showed negative associations with symptoms of mental health problems; that is, depression and sleep disorder. However, the affective reaction tends to be positively associated with depression and sleep disorder. Owing to the infodemic of COVID-19, the psychological perception of the pandemic negatively influenced users’ mental health problems.

Conclusions

Our results imply that the information from social media usage heightened concerns and had a lower construal level; this does not facilitate taking preventive actions but rather reinforces the negative emotional reaction and mental health problems. Thus, higher URS usage is desirable.

Sex Disparities in Organ Donation: Finding an Equitable Donor Pool

Background

The majority of living organ donors are women, but few are deceased organ donors, which increases risks associated with sex mismatched organs. We sought to identify reasons for sex disparities in organ donation and strategies for equity.

Methods and Results

Using Amazon's Mechanical Turk, we examined US adults' perceptions regarding donation in a mixed‐methods survey study. Results were compared by sex with Fisher's exact test and T‐tests for quantitative results and qualitative descriptive analyses for write‐in responses. Among 667 participants (55% women), the majority of men (64.8%) and women (63.4%) self‐identified as registered donors. Women's willingness to donate their own organs to family members (P=0.03) or strangers (P=0.03) was significantly higher than men. Donors from both sexes were guided by: desire to help, personal experience, and believing organs would be useless to deceased donors. Non‐donors from both sexes were guided by: no reason, medical mistrust, contemplating donation. When considering whether to donate organs of a deceased family member, women were equally guided by a family member's wishes and believing the family member had no further use for organs. Men had similar themes but valued the family member's wishes more. Among non‐donors, both sexes would consider donation if more information was provided.

Conclusions

In a national survey, both sexes had similar reasons for becoming and not becoming an organ donor. However, compared with men, women were more willing to donate their organs to family members and strangers. Improving education and communicating wishes regarding organ donation with direct relatives may increase sex equity in deceased organ donation.

Factors influencing the perceived credibility of children alleging physical abuse

Adults' assessments of the credibility of children's reports are affected by factors including the frequency of abuse, reporting delays and the child's age. The present study examined whether similar factors affect the perceived credibility of children reporting physical abuse, which is more common than sexual abuse. Two hundred and eight mock jurors read a simulated transcript of a child reporting physical abuse to police and made credibility ratings. Within each transcript, abuse frequency (once, repeated), reporting timing (recent, delayed), police question type (open, closed) and child age (6 or 10 years) were manipulated. The child was considered more credible when the abuse was only experienced once and reported shortly after it occurred, and when prompted with open questions. The child's age did not affect credibility judgments. Current findings support recommendations to prioritise open questions with children and provide evidence for extension of the benefits of open questions to children's credibility.

Speaking up at work: personality’s influence on employee voice behavior

Purpose

To boost efficiency and productivity, organizations are increasingly depending upon employees to speak up about workplace concerns and disagreements. This change-oriented bottom-up communication, termed employee voice behavior, brings attention to workplace issues that could otherwise go undetected by management. This study examined the relationships between personality characteristics, job attitudes, and employee voice behavior, and investigated the moderating role of extraversion on the relationships between job attitudes (i.e., job satisfaction and turnover intentions) and voice.

Design/methodology/approach

A cross-sectional study design was used, with data collected through an online survey from a sample of 284 individuals working in the US. Hypotheses were tested using correlation, regression and moderation analyzes.

Findings

Job satisfaction and turnover intentions were found to be positively and negatively-related, respectively, to employee voice behavior. Extraversion was found to be predictive of employee voice behavior and moderate the relationships between job attitudes and voice behavior. Interestingly, results suggest that the job attitudes of individuals high in extraversion do not influence their likelihood of speaking up. Rather, voice behaviors of only those with low or moderate levels of extraversion are impacted by their job attitudes.

Originality/value

This study builds upon prior research identifying the importance of extraversion in predicting voice behavior by testing its incremental validity and relative weight, compared to the other Big Five personality characteristics. Furthermore, this research contributes to the theoretical understanding of instances in which employee voice behavior occurs by examining the moderating effect of extraversion on the relationship between job attitudes and employee voice behavior.

Sexism, racism, and nationalism: Factors associated with the 2016 U.S. presidential election results?

After the generally unexpected outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, many explanations were proposed to account for the results. Three narratives that received a considerable amount of media attention were that sexist, racist, and/or nationalist attitudes influenced voting decisions. Some empirical work has supported each of these accounts. However, sexism, racism, and nationalism are interrelated, and most studies about the 2016 election have not examined these three factors in conjunction to determine the unique contribution of each. Thus, we investigated the extent to which each factor (assessed as sexism toward women, Modern Racism, and U.S. nationalism) was uniquely related to evaluations of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, voting intentions, and actual voting behavior. Participants completed online questionnaires before (N = 489) and after (N = 192) the 2016 U.S. election. More positive evaluation of Clinton and intentions to vote for Clinton were associated with lower levels of Modern Racism. More positive evaluation of Trump was associated with greater sexism toward women, Modern Racism, and U.S. nationalism. Intent to vote for Trump was associated with greater sexism toward women and Modern Racism. However, only Modern Racism significantly predicted voting behavior. Greater Modern Racism was associated with greater likelihood of voting for Trump and lower likelihood of voting for Clinton. When considered in conjunction, Modern Racism was the most consistent predictor across the different election outcome variables. Sexism toward women and U.S. nationalism were generally not significantly related to evaluations, intentions to vote, or voting behavior when accounting for Modern Racism. Thus, our data indicate that Modern Racism was correlated with vote choice in the 2016 election.

A Comparison of Metaphor Modality and Appeals in the Context of Skin Cancer Prevention

Health communication experts continually seek out effective strategies to strengthen persuasive campaigns. While there is evidence that verbal metaphors can improve persuasion, little attention has been given to the potential of visual metaphors to enhance health communication effects. To fill this gap, an experiment was conducted to test the effects of metaphor modality (visual vs. verbal) and type of fear appeal used (death-based or appearance-based) on skin protection intentions. Additionally, the moderating role of an individual characteristic (need for cognition), and the mediating role of two processing outcomes (message elaboration and perceived message effectiveness) were examined. Results indicated that there was no significant difference between the main effects of metaphor modality and type of fear appeal, but these message features interacted making the death-based fear appeal the most effective strategy. Need for cognition directly affected perceptions of effectiveness but did not affect skin protection intentions nor message elaboration. Of the two message processing outcomes examined, only perceived message effectiveness mediated the relationship between metaphor modality and skin protection intentions. Theoretical explanations and practical implications are discussed.

Turkers of the World Unite: Multilevel In-Group Bias Among Crowdworkers on Amazon Mechanical Turk

Crowdsourcing has become an indispensable tool in the behavioral sciences. Often, the “crowd” is considered a black box for gathering impersonal but generalizable data. Researchers sometimes seem to forget that crowdworkers are people with social contexts, unique personalities, and lives. To test this possibility, we measure how crowdworkers ( N = 2,337, preregistered) share a monetary endowment in a Dictator Game with another Mechanical Turk (MTurk) worker, a worker from another crowdworking platform, or a randomly selected stranger. Results indicate preferential in-group treatment for MTurk workers in particular and for crowdworkers in general. Cooperation levels from typical anonymous economic games on MTurk are not a good proxy for anonymous interactions and may generalize most readily only to the intragroup context.

Leadership in Workplace Meetings: The Intersection of Leadership Styles and Follower Gender

Meetings are ubiquitous across organizations, yet researchers have paid scant attention to the role of meeting leaders in affecting meeting outcomes. Because meetings are important discursive sites, the style of a meeting leader may influence subordinate views of the meeting and leader. Using a sample of working adults, we first demonstrated that meeting attendees who perceived their leader as participative viewed the leader as more warm and competent than meeting attendees who had a directive leader. We explain this finding through the framework of social exchange theory. In Study 2, we conducted an experiment to further probe the relation between meeting leader style and subordinate perceptions of the leader. Again, participants viewed participative leaders as more warm and competent than directive leaders. Interestingly, working adults preferred participative leaders over directive leaders across every type of work meeting. We further found that participant gender interacted with leader style, such that men rated directive leaders are warmer than did women, but men and women did not differ in their assessments of participative leaders.

Adding Insult to Injury: Sex, Sexual Orientation, and Juror Decision-Making in a Case of Intimate Partner Violence

Societal definitions of intimate partner violence (IPV) are highly gendered and heteronormative, resulting in dissonance regarding cases of same-sex IPV. This study explored perceptions of IPV when the context of the case is inconsistent with societal norms regarding sex and sexuality. Mock jurors read a vignette describing a case of alleged IPV in which the sex and sexual orientation of the defendant were manipulated. Participants (N = 415) rendered a verdict and provided ratings of the defendant, victim, and case. Results suggest participants were more confident in a guilty verdict when the defendant was male, compared to female. Further, male defendants were perceived as more morally responsible, but only when the victim was female. Perceptions regarding the crime suggest violence perpetrated by a man against a woman is viewed more adversely than any other condition. Data are discussed in terms of implications for legal decision-makers and public policy.

A Comparison of Three Online Recruitment Strategies for Engaging Parents

Family scientists can face the challenge of effectively and efficiently recruiting normative samples of parents and families. Utilizing the Internet to recruit parents is a strategic way to find participants where they already are, enabling researchers to overcome many of the barriers to in-person recruitment. The present study was designed to compare three online recruitment strategies for recruiting parents: e-mail Listservs, Facebook, and Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Analyses revealed differences in the effectiveness and efficiency of data collection. In particular, MTurk resulted in the most demographically diverse sample, in a short period of time, with little cost. Listservs reached a large number of participants and resulted in a comparatively homogeneous sample. Facebook was not successful in recruiting a general sample of parents. Findings provide information that can help family researchers and practitioners be intentional about recruitment strategies and study design.

Incentivizing high quality crowdwork

We study the causal effects of financial incentives on the quality of crowdwork. We focus on performance-based payments (PBPs), bonus payments awarded to workers for producing high quality work. We design and run randomized behavioral experiments on the popular crowdsourcing platform Amazon Mechanical Turk with the goal of understanding when, where , and why PBPs help, identifying properties of the payment, payment structure, and the task itself that make them most effective. We provide examples of tasks for which PBPs do improve quality. For such tasks, the effectiveness of PBPs is not too sensitive to the threshold for quality required to receive the bonus, while the magnitude of the bonus must be large enough to make the reward salient. We also present examples of tasks for which PBPs do not improve quality. Our results suggest that for PBPs to improve quality, the task must be effort-responsive : the task must allow workers to produce higher quality work by exerting more effort. We also give a simple method to determine if a task is effort-responsive a priori. Furthermore, our experiments suggest that all payments on Mechanical Turk are, to some degree, implicitly performance-based in that workers believe their work may be rejected if their performance is sufficiently poor. In the full version of this paper, we propose a new model of worker behavior that extends the standard principal-agent model from economics to include a worker's subjective beliefs about his likelihood of being paid, and show that the predictions of this model are in line with our experimental findings. This model may be useful as a foundation for theoretical studies of incentives in crowdsourcing markets.