
The Irrationality of Risk Calculations
David Canter considers how it is that people judge vaccination related risks so bizarrely.
4 weeks agoA space to explore, share and shape the issues facing social and behavioral scientists
David Canter considers how it is that people judge vaccination related risks so bizarrely.
4 weeks agoOur work in recent years has focused on how to prevent people from falling for misinformation in the first place, building on a framework from social psychology known as inoculation theory.
3 months agoThe reports from Britain’s hospitals in the last few days have been truly worrying. No one should doubt the reality […]
3 months agoThe COVID-19 pandemic has caused extraordinary devastation, claiming millions of lives and disrupting the economy and daily life across the […]
3 months agoDavid Canter considers the tragic implications of people not understanding what they are told by politicians and experts.
3 months agoIt is possible that we could abolish death by COVID, argues Robert Dingwall, by continuing the restrictions of 2020 indefinitely – the problem, of course, is that we would simply die from something else.
3 months agoDavid Canter considers why the social sciences failed to influence behavior in order to stop the spread of COVID-19. The virologists had been preparing for a new virus for some years, so were already ahead of the game when they had to start creating a new vaccine. What preparations had social psychologists, sociologists or anthropologists for the inevitable emergence of a new pandemic?
4 months agoAs the toll from the COVID-19 pandemic increased, polling suggests counter-intuitively that resistance to a future vaccine has also risen. Anthropologist Heidi J. Larson identified several likely drivers of this, including scientists themselves.
7 months agoFiguring out how public health professionals can most effectively combat misinformation about the flu vaccine is a critically important question for public health research. Looking at the latest research, what is the best way to communicate this importance.
2 years ago