This study introduces a new travel pattern \"pandemic-restricted travel\" that exists from COVID-19 based on prospect theory. The purpose of this study is to incorporate the motivation to travel and constraint to normal travel to predict tourists\' intention to continue visiting other alternative destinations due to COVID-19 restrictions. This study first generated the items of motivation to travel and constraints to normal travel from a focus group interview with 15 travel industry professionals in December 2020 in Zhuhai. Then, an online survey collected data from 416 respondents in the Greater Bay Area of China from January to February 2021. The results of exploratory factor analysis using SPSS identified two factors of motivation to travel (leisure and exploration) and two factors of favourable constraints to normal travel (policy restriction and perceived risk). The results of partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) indicated that these four factors positively influence satisfaction but only leisure and exploration factors positively influence the intention of continuous pandemic-restricted travel. Among the four factors, leisure has the strongest impact on both satisfaction and intention of continue travelling. The results also revealed that satisfaction fully mediates the effects of two constraint factors and partially mediates the effects of two motivation factors on the intention of continuous pandemic-restricted travel. Implications for researchers and governments for pandemic-restricted travel during and in the post-COVID-19 era are then discussed.

BACKGROUND: Screen ASSIST is a cessation trial offered to current smokers at the point of lung cancer screening. Because of the unique position of promoting a prevention behavior (smoking cessation) within the context of a detection behavior (lung cancer screening), this study employed prospect theory to design and formatively evaluate a targeted recruitment video prior to trial launch.
OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to identify which message frames were most effective at promoting intent to participate in a smoking cessation study.
METHODS: Participants were recruited from a proprietary opt-in online panel company and randomized to a 2 (benefits of quitting vs risks of continuing to smoke at the time of lung screening; BvR) × 2 (gains of participating vs losses of not participating in a cessation study; GvL) message design experiment (N=314). The primary outcome was self-assessed intent to participate in a smoking cessation study. Message effectiveness and lung cancer risk perception measures were also collected. Analysis of variance examined the main effect of the 2 message factors and a least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) approach identified predictors of intent to participate in a multivariable model. A mediation analysis was conducted to determine the direct and indirect effects of message factors on intent to participate in a cessation study.
RESULTS: A total of 296 participants completed the intervention. There were no significant differences in intent to participate in a smoking cessation study between message frames (P=.12 and P=.61). In the multivariable model, quit importance (P<.001), perceived message relevance (P<.001), and affective risk response (ie, worry about developing lung cancer; P<.001) were significant predictors of intent to participate. The benefits of quitting frame significantly increased affective risk response (Meanbenefits 2.60 vs Meanrisk 2.40; P=.03), which mediated the relationship between message frame and intent to participate (b=0.24; 95% CI 0.01-0.47; P=.03).
CONCLUSIONS: This study provides theoretical and practical guidance on how to design and evaluate proactive recruitment messages for a cessation trial. Based on our findings, we conclude that heavy smokers are more responsive to recruitment messages that frame the benefits of quitting as it increased affective risk response, which predicted greater intention to participate in a smoking cessation study.

Many adults in the U.S. do not receive recommended vaccines, and the research literature remains inconclusive on the best communication strategies for increasing this behavior. This study examined the association of message framing (gained-framed vs. loss-framed vs. control), and healthcare provider (HCP) recommendation (offered vs. recommended) on uptake of adult hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccination in a high risk population using a 3 × 2 block design randomized controlled trial. Fear of shots, fear of vaccines, and perceived message framing were examined in secondary analyses. Of the 1747 participants, 47.7% (n = 833) received 0 doses of HBV vaccine, 27.8% (n = 485) received 1 dose, 10.4% received 2 doses, and 14.1% received all 3 recommended doses. There was not a significant interaction between message framing and HCP recommendation (p = .59). Mean number of doses received by the gain-framed group (m = 0.96) was not significantly different from the loss-framed group (m = 0.97, RR = 0.99, 95% CI = 0.88-1.12). However, those receiving any framing message received significantly more doses (m = 0.96) than those in the control condition (m = 0.81, RR = 1.17, 95%CI = 1.06-1.31). Participants who received a HCP recommendation received significantly more vaccine doses (m = 0.95) than those in the vaccine-offered condition (mean = 0.82, RR = 1.16, 95%CI = 1.05-1.28). These results suggest there is no difference in vaccine uptake between gain-frame and loss-frame messages, but both are better than a control message. These results also support advising HCP to provide a strong recommendation for vaccinations beyond merely offering it to patients. This study has implications for vaccine uptake beyond HBV, and can inform future research on effective vaccine communication research. Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00739752. Registration date: August 20, 2008.

Little is known about why individuals place either a high or a very low value on mitigating risks of disaster-type events, like floods. This study uses panel data methods to explore the psychological factors affecting probability neglect of flood risk relevant to the zero end-point of the probability weighting function in Prospect Theory, and willingness-to-pay for flood insurance. In particular, we focus on explanatory variables of anticipatory and anticipated emotions, as well as the threshold of concern. Moreover, results obtained under real and hypothetical incentives are compared in an experiment with high experimental outcomes. Based on our findings, we suggest several policy recommendations to overcome individual decision processes, which may hinder flood protection efforts.

Promoting healthy behavior is a challenge for public health officials, especially in the context of asking patients to participate in preventive cancer screenings. Small financial incentives are sometimes used, but there is a little scientific basis to support a compelling description of the best-practice implementation of such incentives. We present a simple behavioral strategy based on mental accounting from prospect theory that maximizes the impact of incentives with no additional cost. We show how the partition of one incentive into two smaller incentives of equivalent total amount produces substantial behavioral changes, demonstrated in the context of colorectal cancer screening. In a randomized controlled trial, eligible patients aged 50-74 (n = 1652 patients) were allocated to receive either one €10 incentive (upon completion of screening) or two €5 incentives (at the beginning and at the end of screening). We show that cancer screening rates were dramatically increased by partitioning the financial incentive (61.1%), compared with a single installment at the end (41.4%). These results support the hedonic editing hypothesis from prospect theory, and underline the importance of implementing theoretically grounded healthcare interventions. Our results suggest that, when patient incentives are feasible, healthcare procedures should be framed as multistage events with smaller incentives offered at multiple points in time.

This paper addresses the key assumption in behavioral and transportation planning literature that, when people use a transit system more frequently, they become less dependent on and less sensitive to transit maps in their decision-making. Therefore, according to this assumption, map changes are much less impactful to travel decisions of frequent riders than to that of first-time or new passengers. This assumption-though never empirically validated-has been the major hurdle for transit maps to becoming a planning tool to change passengers\' behavior. This paper examines this assumption using the Washington DC metro map as a case study by conducting a route choice experiment between 30 Origin-Destination (O-D) pairs on seven metro map designs. The experiment targets two types of passengers: frequent metro riders through advertisements on a free daily newspaper available at DC metro stations, and general residents in the Washington metropolitan area through Amazon Mechanical Turk, an online crowdsourcing platform. A total of 255 and 371 participants made 2024 and 2960 route choices in the respective experiments. The results show that frequent passengers are in fact more sensitive to subtle changes in map design than general residents who are less likely to be familiar with the metro map and therefore unaffected by map changes presented in the alternative designs. The work disproves the aforementioned assumption and further validates metro maps as an effective planning tool in transit systems.

Numerous studies in behavioral economics have demonstrated that individuals are more sensitive to the prospect of a loss than a gain (i.e., loss aversion). Although loss aversion has been well described in \"healthy\" populations, little research exists in individuals with substance use disorders. This gap is notable considering the prominent role that choice and decision-making play in drug use. The purpose of this pilot study was to evaluate loss aversion in active cocaine users.
Current cocaine users (N=38; 42% female) participated in this within-subjects laboratory pilot study. Subjects completed a battery of tasks designed to assess loss aversion for drug and non-drug commodities under varying risk conditions. Standardized loss aversion coefficients (λ) were compared to theoretically and empirically relevant normative values (i.e., λ=2).
Compared to normative loss aversion coefficient values, a precise and consistent decrease in loss aversion was observed in cocaine users (sample λ≈1). These values were observed across drug and non-drug commodities as well as under certain and risky conditions.
These data represent the first systematic study of loss aversion in cocaine-using populations and provide evidence for equal sensitivity to losses and gains or loss equivalence. Futures studies should evaluate the specificity of these effects to a history of cocaine use as well as the impact of manipulations of loss aversion on drug use to determine how this phenomenon may contribute to intervention development efforts.

Why does decision making differ among individuals? People sometimes make seemingly inconsistent decisions with lower expected (monetary) utility even when objective information of probabilities and reward are provided. It is noteworthy, however, that a certain proportion of people do not provide anomalous responses, choosing the alternatives with higher expected utility, thus appearing to be more \"rational.\" We investigated the genetic and environmental influences on these types of individual differences in decision making using a classical Allais problem task. Participants were 1,199 Japanese adult twins aged 20-47. Univariate genetic analysis revealed that approximately a third of the Allais problem response variance was explained by genetic factors and the rest by environmental factors unique to individuals and measurement error. The environmental factor shared between families did not contribute to the variance. Subsequent multivariate genetic analysis clarified that decision making using the expected utility theory was associated with general intelligence and that the association was largely mediated by the same genetic factor. We approach the mechanism underlying two types of \"rational\" decision making from the perspective of genetic correlations with cognitive abilities.

This study compared spontaneous cognitive responses to a positively vs. negatively framed health message. Deakin University students (n = 51) read one of two versions of a message concerning a type of heart disease. In the negative condition, the message focused on the prospect of experiencing heart disease; in the positive condition, it focused on the prospect of avoiding heart disease. Participants completed a thought-listing task, reporting any thought that occurred to them while they were reading the message. Consistent with hypotheses derived from Prospect Theory, the negative condition prompted more extensive processing and more defensive processing. Participants in the negative condition were also more likely to consider taking protective action. Findings are discussed in the context of the health-framing literature.