Master thesis | Crisis and Security Management (MSc)
open access
This master thesis aims to contribute to the existing research body on the mechanisms concerning the adherence to prevention measures and conspiracy thinking. COVID-19 in the Netherlands was used...Show moreThis master thesis aims to contribute to the existing research body on the mechanisms concerning the adherence to prevention measures and conspiracy thinking. COVID-19 in the Netherlands was used as a case study and data was gathered via an online survey. The study looked at COVID-19 conspiracy thinkers in the Netherlands, their individual COVID-19 beliefs, level of conspiracy mentality, and their adherence level to normative (government- recommended) prevention measures. Adherence to COVID-19 specific conspiracy beliefs was generally low in the study population, however there was a large variation of adherence in the sample. The adherence to a conspiracy mentality in the Netherlands could be considered generally low. The participants self-reported adhering to the normative prevention measures across the board as ‘most of the time’. Participants believing in COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs were less likely to adhere to normative prevention measures. A similarly strong relationship was found between the adherence to normative prevention measures and having a conspiracy mentality. Risk perception was found to play a significant role in these relationships. All three aspects of risk perception had a positive impact individually. When considering all aspects together however it was found that personal risk perception and perceived risk of contamination of the general population were the only two aspects of risk perception that still had a positive influence on adherence levels, whilst perceived risk of death simply did not.Show less
Medicine side effects are generally overestimated. This is possibly caused by the tendency to describe any risk at 50%, referred to as the “50% blips”. These 50% blips have been associated with...Show moreMedicine side effects are generally overestimated. This is possibly caused by the tendency to describe any risk at 50%, referred to as the “50% blips”. These 50% blips have been associated with participants indicating to not knowing the answer and low numeracy levels. The aim of this study is to investigate whether we observe the 50% blips in a series of low probability side effects risk estimation questions and to analyse if this can be explained by the participants’ confidence in their estimation. Data was collected through a survey, consisting of a Subjective Numeracy Scale (SNS), four side effect risk estimation questions and a follow-up question to assess the participants’ confidence in their answer. We observed no uses of 50%. We presume this is a consequence of our study set-up, primarily because our research sample is highly homogenous and consisted of high education level and high numeracy level students. We conclude that the 50% blips does not apply in high education and high numeracy level groups. This is in line with previous research that found an association between the use of 50% and low education and high numeracy level. More research on this topic is needed to gain further insight into the underlying mechanisms of health risk estimations on Patient Information Leaflets (PILs).Show less
