Browsing by Author "Isler, Ozan"

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Citation Count: 0
Effective health communication depends on the interaction of message source and content: two experiments on adherence to COVID-19 measures in Türkiye
(Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2023) Yılmaz, Onurcan; Aktar, Bengi; Aydas, Berke; Yilmaz, Onurcan; Alper, Sinan; Isler, Ozan
ObjectiveFollowing the COVID-19 outbreak, authorities recommended preventive measures to reduce infection rates. However, adherence to calls varied between individuals and across cultures. To determine the characteristics of effective health communication, we investigated three key features: message source, content, and audience.MethodsUsing a pre-test and two experiments, we tested how message content (emphasizing personal or social benefit), audience (individual differences), message source (scientists or state officials), and their interaction influence adherence to preventive measures. Using fliers advocating preventive measures, Experiment 1 investigated the effects of message content and examined the moderator role of individual differences. Experiment 2 presented the messages using news articles and manipulated sources.ResultsStudy 1 found decreasing adherence over time, with no significant impact from message content or individual differences. Study 2 found messages emphasizing 'protect yourself' and 'protect your country' to increase intentions for adherence to preventive measures. It also revealed an interaction between message source and content whereby messages emphasizing personal benefit were more effective when they came from healthcare professionals than from state officials. However, message source and content did not affect vaccination intentions or donations for vaccine research.ConclusionEffective health communication requires simultaneous consideration of message source and content.
Citation Count: 8
How to activate intuitive and reflective thinking in behavior research? A comprehensive examination of experimental techniques
(Springer, 2022) Yılmaz, Onurcan; Yilmaz, Onurcan
Experiments comparing intuitive and reflective decisions provide insights into the cognitive foundations of human behavior. However, the relative strengths and weaknesses of the frequently used experimental techniques for activating intuition and reflection remain unknown. In a large-scale preregistered online experiment (N = 3667), we compared the effects of eight reflection, six intuition, and two within-subjects manipulations on actual and self-reported measures of cognitive performance. Compared to the overall control, the long debiasing training was the most effective technique for increasing actual reflection scores, and the emotion induction was the most effective technique for increasing actual intuition scores. In contrast, the reason and the intuition recall, the reason induction, and the brief time delay conditions failed to achieve the intended effects. We recommend using the debiasing training, the decision justification, or the monetary incentives technique to activate reflection, and the emotion induction, the cognitive load, or the time pressure technique to activate intuition.
Citation Count: 0
How to activate threat perceptions in behavior research: A simple technique for inducing health and resource scarcity threats
(Springer, 2024) Yılmaz, Onurcan; Yilmaz, Onurcan; Maule, A. John; Gaechter, Simon
Understanding our cognitive and behavioral reactions to large-scale collective problems involving health and resource scarcity threats, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, helps us be better prepared for future collective threats. However, existing studies on these threats tend to be restricted to correlational data, partly due to a lack of reliable experimental techniques for manipulating threat perceptions. In four preregistered experiments (N = 5152), we developed and validated an experimental technique that can separately activate perceptions of personal health threat or resource scarcity threat, either in the specific context of the COVID-19 pandemic or in general. We compared the threat manipulations to a relaxation manipulation designed to deactivate background threat perceptions as well as to a passive control condition. Confirmatory tests showed substantial activation of personal health and resource scarcity threat perceptions. This brief technique can be easily used in online experiments. Distress due to the threat manipulation was rarely reported and easily managed with a debriefing toolkit.
Citation Count: 0
Scarcity improves economic valuations when cognitively salient
(Elsevier, 2023) Yılmaz, Onurcan; Yilmaz, Onurcan; Dulleck, Uwe
In an influential article, Shah et al. (2015) hypothesized that resource scarcity weakens the effect of irrelevant contextual factors on economic valuations. The hypothesis that scarcity frames value qualifies the applicability of standard theories of rational choice and suggests a revised psychological foundation. In support, Shah et al. showed that differences in the willingness to pay for a commodity depending on where it was purchased (a fancy hotel vs. a run-down store) and in the willingness to travel to receive a fixed discount depend-ing on the size of the purchase (a cheap vs. an expensive computer) were smaller among those with low personal incomes. In a large-scale preregistered experiment (N = 3,442), we tested whether scarcity framed value during the COVID-19 pandemic as well. The sam-ple exhibited the canonical context effects overall. Consistent with the hypothesis, these effects tended to be smaller among those facing higher scarcity of personal income. Ex-tending the original findings, economic valuations of low-income earners improved, partic-ularly when scarcity was on the minds of the participants, as those with high financial and other resource scarcity concerns were less susceptible to the context effects. Our findings indicate that scarcity frames value, especially when it is cognitively salient, and emphasize the importance of considering contextual factors when attempting replications.(c) 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V.This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ )
Citation Count: 0
Shared Group Memberships Mitigate Intergroup Bias in Cooperation
(Sage Publications inc, 2023) Yılmaz, Onurcan; Dorrough, Angela; Isler, Ozan; Yilmaz, Onurcan
Research on cooperation between groups tends to consider a single social identity at a time. However, individuals naturally share group membership in one social category (e.g., religious belief) while diverging in membership to others (e.g., political ideology). Here, we test the effects of mixed-group membership on actual cooperative behavior relative to completely sharing (in-group) and completely diverging (out-group) group memberships. In three high-powered, preregistered, and incentivized experiments, we found evidence for our hypotheses that cooperation increases with the number of shared memberships in arbitrary (Experiment 1, N = 292) as well as naturally existing social categories such as political orientation and ethnicity (Experiment 2, N = 501) or political orientation and religious affiliation (Experiment 3, N = 292).
Citation Count: 0
Validation of the moral foundations questionnaire-2 in the Turkish context: exploring its relationship with moral behavior
(Springer, 2024) Doğruyol, Burak; Yılmaz, Onurcan; Bayrak, Fatih; Acem, Ensar; Isler, Ozan; Yilmaz, Onurcan
Despite the considerable attention it has received, Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) remains open to criticisms regarding failure to conceptualize the moral domain. MFT was revised in response to these criticisms, along with its measurement tool, the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ-2). However, the validity of this revised theoretical structure and its explanatory power relative to existing alternatives, such as Morality as Cooperation Theory (MAC), has not yet been independently tested. Here we first validated MFT's revised six-factor structure using the MFQ-2 in a large quasi-representative sample (N = 1099) from a predominantly Muslim country (i.e., T & uuml;rkiye) and then explored the relationship of these six factors with incentivized measures of moral behavior as well as different psychological variables. Our tests revealed excellent fit values for the six-factor structure proposed by the MFQ-2, which explained more of the variance in criterion variables compared to the MAC Questionnaire (MAC-Q). However, MAC-Q performed better in predicting actual moral behavior (e.g., generosity and cooperation) compared with MFQ-2. Taken together, these findings indicate that, at least for the time being, MFQ-2 and the structure of the moral foundations proposed by MFT can be used to conceptualize the moral domain, but its relatively weak relationship to actual moral behavior limits its insights.