Robert Böhm

• Doctor of Psychology
• Professor at University of Vienna

Most vaccines not only directly protect vaccinated individuals but also provide a social benefit through community protection. Therefore, vaccination can be considered a prosocial act to protect others. We review the recent empirical evidence on (i) how prosocial concerns relate to vaccination intentions and (ii) promoting prosocial vaccination thr...

Public discord between those vaccinated and those unvaccinated for COVID-19 has intensified globally. Theories of intergroup relations propose that identifying with one’s social group plays a key role in the perceptions and behaviours that fuel intergroup conflict. We test whether identification with one’s vaccination status is associated with curr...

How people recall the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is likely to prove crucial in future societal debates on pandemic preparedness and appropriate political action. Beyond simple forgetting, previous research suggests that recall may be distorted by strong motivations and anchoring perceptions on the current situation1–6. Here, using 4 studies across 11 coun...

The existence and nature of pandemic fatigue–defined as a gradually emerging subjective state of weariness and exhaustion from, and a general demotivation towards, following recommended health-protective behaviors, including keeping oneself informed during a pandemic–has been debated. Herein, we introduce the Pandemic Fatigue Scale and show how pan...

Background The 2024 discovery of a new class of antibiotics is cause for cautious celebration. However, media coverage of this discovery shows overstated optimism, potentially leading to a false sense of safety in the general public. Objectives We investigated whether informing participants about the discovery of new antibiotics changes their perc...

Zusammenfassung Trotz des großen Erfolges von Impfungen stellt die zunehmende Impfmüdigkeit eine Bedrohung für die öffentliche Gesundheit dar. Deshalb ist eine effektive Impfkommunikation wichtig. Sowohl personalisierte und bedürfnisgerechte Gespräche zwischen Ärzt*innen und Patient*innen als auch großangelegte standardisierte Impfkampagnen über kl...

Previous research has shown that parents' vaccination readiness, as measured by the 7C vaccination readiness scale, helps to understand whether and why parents are (not) willing to vaccinate their children. However, there is a lack of research investigating the association between parents' vaccination readiness and their children's actual vaccine u...

The Triple Dominance Measure (choosing between prosocial, individualistic, and competitive options) and the Slider Measure (“sliding” between various orientations, for example, from individualistic to prosocial) are two widely used techniques to measure social value orientation, that is, the weight individuals assign to own and others’ outcomes in...

Scientists have started to explore whether novel artificial intelligence (AI) tools based on large language models, such as GPT-4, could support the scientific peer review process. We sought to understand (i) whether AI versus human reviewers are able to distinguish between made-up AI-generated and human-written conference abstracts reporting on ac...

Emphasizing herd immunity may increase or decrease vaccination motivation through prosocial or selfish motivations or have no effect at all. Despite extensive research, a quantitative synthesis of evidence is lacking. We conducted a systematic review and three- level meta-analysis regarding the impact of emphasizing herd immunity on vaccination mot...

People regularly encounter situations in which they have to engage in tasks they find boring or irrelevant, in which case their autonomy—the need to act in ways that are meaningful for oneself—is impeded. When there is no motivational support available, individuals need to find ways to overcome their motivational barriers by themselves. Applying au...

Crowdsourced annotations of data play a substantial role in the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI). It is broadly recognised that annotations of text data can contain annotator bias, where systematic disagreement in annotations can be traced back to differences in the annotators' backgrounds. Being unaware of such annotator bias can lead t...

Objetivo: Individuos en algunos países tuvieron la opción de elegir entre diferentes vacunas, con algunas siendo percibidas menos favorables que otras, durante la pandemia de COVID-19. Investigaciones sobre el efecto señuelo sugieren que la preferencia para una opción (objetivo) aumenta cuando una opción inferior (señuelo) es añadida a el conjunto...

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global health threat. This randomized controlled trial evaluates the impact of experiential virtual reality (VR) versus information provision via VR or leaflet on prudent antibiotic use. A total of 249 (239 analyzed) participants were randomized into three conditions: VR Information + Experience, VR Information,...

Governmental responses to the frequently occurring terrorist hostage-takings, in which authorities must weigh the lives of the hostages against the lives of potential future victims, depend on popular support for governmental policy. Yet, little is known about how people form their judgement of governmental policies in this moral dilemma. We argue...

One of the most important tools available to limit the spread and impact of infectious diseases is vaccination. It is therefore important to understand what factors determine people’s vaccination decisions. To this end, previous behavioural research made use of, (i) controlled but often abstract or hypothetical studies (e.g., vignettes) or, (ii) re...

Promoting prosocial behavior toward future generations is crucial to combat societal challenges such as climate change and the depletion of natural resources. Here, we invoke a social dilemma lens to predict and promote future-oriented prosociality in four preregistered online experiments (total N = 2,407). Integrating research on temporal preferen...

A typical empirical study involves choosing a sample, a research design, and an analysis path. Variation in such choices across studies leads to heterogeneity in results that introduce an additional layer of uncertainty, limiting the generalizability of published scientific findings. We provide a framework for studying heterogeneity in the social s...

What were relevant predictors of individuals' proclivity to adhere to recommended health‐protective behaviors during the COVID‐19 pandemic in Denmark? Applying machine learning (namely, lasso regression) to a repeated cross‐sectional survey spanning 10 months comprising 25 variables (Study 1; N = 15,062), we found empathy toward those most vulnerab...

Motivated by theoretical accounts positing that participation in intergroup conflict is driven by a desire to promote the in-group, past studies have explored the link between prosocial personality dimensions and out-group harm. However, while dimensions such as Honesty-Humility predict in-group cooperation, they do not explain out-group harm. Acro...

Governments need to develop and implement effective policies to address pressing societal problems of our time, such as climate change and global pandemics. While some policies focus on changing individual thoughts and behaviors (e.g., informational interventions, behavioral nudges), others involve systemic changes (e.g., car bans, vaccination mand...

The overprescription of antibiotics due to diagnostic uncertainty and inappropriate patient expectations influence antimicrobial resistance. This research assesses (i) whether communicating diagnostic uncertainty reduces expectations of receiving antibiotics and (ii) which communication strategies minimise unintended consequences of such communicat...

For many people, COVID‐19 vaccination now informs social identity, triggering prejudice and discrimination toward those with a different vaccination status. As this may jeopardize social cohesion, we investigated the effects of three brief, theory‐informed interventions for reducing ingroup bias in a preregistered experimental intervention study in...

The book begins by overviewing the timeline of the pandemic and how it affected life, followed by a discussion of the ethics and legal aspects of the pandemic. It then discusses behaviors during the pandemic (e.g., social distancing, protesting) before discussing experiences during the pandemic (e.g., prejudice, well-being, stress, joblessness, fam...

A typical empirical study involves choosing a sample, a research design, and an analysis path. Variation in such choices across studies leads to heterogeneity in results that introduce an additional layer of uncertainty not accounted for in reported standard errors and con dence intervals. We provide a framework for studying heterogeneity in the so...

As the world transitions to a postpandemic phase, societies are looking to evaluate their past responses to COVID-19 and prepare for future crises. However, a recently published series of studies1 sheds light on a concerning issue; sustained societal polarisation between the vaccinated and unvaccinated is distorting the accuracy of people's recall...

The Covid pandemic has yielded new insights into psychological vaccine acceptance factors. This knowledge serves as a basis for behavioral and communication interventions that can increase vaccination readiness for other diseases.

The release of ChatGPT and related tools have made generative artificial intelligence (AI) easily accessible for the broader public. We conducted four preregistered experimental studies (total N = 3308; participants from the US) to investigate people’s perceptions of generative AI and the advice it generates on how to address societal and personal...

Objetivo: La resistencia antimicrobiana es una amenaza para la salud mundial perpetuada por la prescripción excesiva de antibióticos en la atención médica primaria. Una estrategia para reducir el uso de antibióticos en este contexto es retrasar la prescripción. Sin embargo, varios factores psicológicos pueden socavar su eficacia. El objetivo del es...

Whereas research has investigated links between personality and commenting behavior on various online platforms, research testing who comments positively, neutrally, or negatively in online scientific studies is missing. Herein, we tackle this gap, considering the HEXACO personality dimensions. Relying on a COVID-19 survey (N = 8,809), we find that...

This research helps to clarify the relation between pandemic fatigue (PF) and vaccination intentions (VI). Theoretically, two patterns seem plausible. First, as with any other health protective measure, PF might reduce the motivation to get vaccinated. Second, PF might increase the motivation to get vaccinated because vaccination reduces the number...

The existence and nature of pandemic fatigue––defined as a gradually emerging subjective state of weariness and exhaustion from, and a general demotivation towards, following recommended health-protective behaviors, including keeping oneself informed during a pandemic––has been debated. Herein, we introduce the Pandemic Fatigue Scale and show how p...

How people recall the SARS-CoV2 pandemic is likely to prove crucial in future societal debates on pandemic preparedness and appropriate political action. Beyond simple forgetting, previous research suggests that recall may be distorted by strong motivations and anchoring perceptions on the current situation. Here, based on four studies across 11 co...

While climate change requires decisive and rapid action, public discourse on the appropriateness of climate policies has intensified in many countries. Based on a quota-representative sample from Germany (N = 1,014), we show that people form groups based on their climate policy opinions, and that identification with these groups relates to differen...

Economic games provide models of real-world contexts in which researchers can probe dispositional and structural determinants of intergroup relations. Most intergroup games focus on determinants of aggression between groups and constrain the possibilities for peace. However, games such as the Intergroup Parochial and Universal Cooperation game allo...

Economic games provide models of real-world contexts in which researchers can probe dispositional and structural determinants of intergroup relations. Most intergroup games focus on determinants of aggression between groups and constrain the possibilities for peace. However, games such as the Intergroup Parochial and Universal Cooperation game allo...

Driven by technological transformation, changing competency requirements are receiving increased attention. Technological developments, such as digitization, automation, and cyber-physical systems, will change occupational requirements. Additionally, many companies are already confronted with a shortage of a skilled workforce due to demographic cha...

Gershon and Fridman (1) argue that when group members face a trade-off between net-negative options-either harming the in-group or benefiting the out-group-they rather choose to harm the in-group to avoid even minimal support for the out-group. Five experiments provide evidence for this claim: Participants from different groups (e.g., Democrats vs....

Parochial altruism suggests that humans are intrinsically motivated to harm out-groups, and that this is tightly connected to a preference for benefitting their in-group. Yet, there is little evidence for the kind of unconditional out-group harm suggested by this account, nor for the assertion that it would be associated with in-group cooperation....

Background: It has been reported that a substantial number of COVID-19 infections are asymptomatic, with both symptomatic and asymptomatic infections contributing to transmission dynamics. Yet, the share of asymptomatic cases varies greatly across studies. One reason for this could be the measurement of symptoms in medical studies and surveys. Desi...

Understanding individuals' preferences for antibiotics can help mitigate the acceleration of antibiotic resistance. Similar to the climate crisis, individuals "today" need to appropriately use antibiotics to reduce the negative consequences of antibiotic resistance for individuals "tomorrow." We use an established-yet novel in this research field-b...

The release of ChatGPT has received significant attention from both scientists and the public. Despite its acknowledged capabilities and potential applications, the perception and reaction of individuals to content generated by ChatGPT is not well understood. To address this, we focus on two important application domains: recommendations for (i) so...

Background Mitigation of the COVID-19 pandemic requires continued uptake of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. To increase vaccination intention and uptake, key determinants of primary and booster vaccination need to be understood and potential effects of vaccination policies examined. Design Using experimental data collected in Germany in February 2022 ( N = 2...

This study investigates the impact of an immersive virtual reality (VR) simulation of herd immunity on vaccination intentions and its potential underlying mechanisms. In this preregistered field study, N = 654 participants were randomly assigned to one of the three VR conditions: (1) Gamified Herd Immunity; (2) Gamified Herd Immunity + Empathy (wit...

Background: COVID-19 booster vaccine uptake rates are behind the rate of primary vaccination in many countries. Governments and non-governmental institutions rely on a range of interventions aiming to increase booster uptake. Yet, little is known how experts and the general public evaluate these interventions. Methods: We applied a novel crowdsourc...

In the metaverse, users will actively engage with 3D content using extended reality (XR). Such XR platforms can stimulate a revolution in health communication, moving from information-based to experience-based content. We outline three major application domains and describe how the XR affordances (presence, agency and embodiment) can improve health...

During the current COVID-19 pandemic, governments must make decisions based on a variety of information including estimations of infection spread, health care capacity, economic and psychosocial considerations. The disparate validity of current short-term forecasts of these factors is a major challenge to governments. By causally linking an establi...

Background: COVID-19 booster vaccine uptake rates are behind the rate of primary vaccination in many countries. Governments and non-governmental institutions rely on a range of interventions aiming to increase booster uptake. Yet, little is known how experts and the general public evaluate these interventions. Methods: We applied a novel crowdsourc...

To reach high vaccination rates against COVID-19, children and adolescents should be also vaccinated. To improve childhood vaccination rates and vaccination readiness, parents need to be addressed since they decide about the vaccination of their children. We adapted the 7C of vaccination readiness scale to measure parents’ readiness to vaccinate th...

This study investigates the impact of an immersive virtual reality (VR) simulation of herd immunity on vaccination intentions and its potential underlying mechanisms. In this preregistered field study, N = 654 participants were randomly assigned to one of the three VR conditions: (1) Gamified Herd Immunity; (2) Gamified Herd Immunity + Empathy (wit...

Mitigation of the COVID-19 pandemic requires continued uptake of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. Using experimental data collected in Germany in February 2022 (N = 2,701), this study investigated (a) predictors of primary and booster vaccination and (b) potential effects of policies combining vaccination mandates and monetary incentives. Compared to unvaccina...

Ending the COVID-19 pandemic will require rapid large-scale uptake of vaccines against the disease. Mandating vaccination is discussed as a suitable strategy to increase uptake. In a series of cross-sectional quota-representative surveys and two preregistered experiments conducted in Germany and the US (total N = 4629), we investigated (i) correlat...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, various behavioral measures were imposed to curb the spread of the virus. In a preregistered study based on a quota-representative sample of adult Danish citizens (N = 1,031), we compared the prevalence estimates of self-reported handwashing, physical distancing, and attitudes toward the behavioral measures between peo...

Background Regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, concerted efforts have been invested in research to investigate and communicate the importance of complying with protective behaviors, such as handwashing and mask wearing. Protective measures vary in how effective they are in protecting the individual against infection, how much experience people have wi...

Vaccine hesitancy poses one of the largest threats to global health. Informing people about the collective benefit of vaccination has great potential in increasing vaccination intentions. This research investigates the potential for engaging experiences in immersive virtual reality (VR) to strengthen participants’ understanding of community immunit...

Nielsen et al. (1) argue that Van Doesum et al. (2) need to consider three points for their interpretation of a positive association between individual-level social mindfulness (SoMi) and environmental performance (EPI) at the country level (3). The association is weaker when 1) it is controlled for GDP and 2) when the data of three countries are r...

Contact tracing apps have been identified as a promising technology to curb the spread of COVID-19. To be effective, a sufficient number of individuals needs to install the app and to disclose information like a COVID-19 infection to such an app. Yet, usage data demonstrates that a large amount of app users does not disclose a COVID-19 infection to...

Background Vaccination is the most effective means of preventing the spread of infectious diseases. Despite the proven benefits of vaccination, vaccine hesitancy keeps many people from getting vaccinated. Methods and findings We conducted a large-scale cluster randomized controlled trial in Finland to test the effectiveness of centralized written...

Background: Mandating vaccination against COVID-19 is often discussed as a means to counter low vaccine uptake. Beyond the potential legal, ethical, and psychological concerns, a successful implementation also needs to consider citizens’ support for such a policy. Public attitudes toward vaccination mandates and their determinants might differ over...

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit humanity globally. Besides its obvious threats to our physical health and economic stability, one can only speculate about the pandemic’s and its countermeasures’ psychosocial impacts. Here, we took advantage of a sample of healthy male participants who had completed psychosocial measures on mental health, environmenta...

As vaccination campaigns for COVID-19 fail to achieve sufficient immunization rates, public discord between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated has intensified globally. To explore the idea that identifying with one's vaccination status plays a key role in this societal polarization, the study draws on unique survey data from large samples of vacci...

The increasing development of resistant pathogens is one of the greatest global health challenges. As antibiotic overuse amplifies antibiotic resistance, antibiotic intake poses a social dilemma in which individuals need to decide whether to prosocially reduce their intake in the collective interest versus to (over)use it even in case of mild disea...

During COVID-19, conspiracy theories were intensely discussed in the media. Generally, both believing in specific conspiracy theories (i.e., explanations for events based on powerholders’ secret arrangements) and the general tendency to believe in conspiracy theories—a so-called conspiracy mentality—have been found to predict cognition and behavior...

Individuals and institutions around the world have been affected by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Herein, we investigate the role of basic (Big Five and HEXACO) and specific (Dark Factor of Personality, Narcissistic Rivalry, and Narcissistic Admiration) personality traits for 17 criteria related to COVID-19, grouped into (i) personal per...

Intergroup conflict is a persistent companion of the human existence. Why do individuals engage in intergroup conflict as often as they do? We propose that groups’ tendencies to present intergroup conflict as the default option and individuals’ tendencies to disproportionately choose default options fuel individual participation in intergroup confl...

Die bisherigen Maßnahmen zur Steigerung der Impfbereitschaft reichen offensichtlich nicht, um die erforderliche Impfquote zu erzielen. Über verschiedene Arten verpflichtender Regelungen und die Vor- und Nachteile einer Impfpflicht muss nachgedacht werden.

Trotz aktuell steigender Impfbereitschaft unter den Erstimpfungen ist nicht abzusehen, dass die vom RKI geforderten Impfquoten für die künftige Kontrolle des SARS-CoV-2 Virus mit den bisherigen Maßnahmen zur Steigerung der Impfbereitschaft erreicht werden können (Stand: Ende November, 2021). Daher werden in diesem Artikel drei Typen verpflichtender...

Governmental responses to the frequently occurring terrorist hostage-takings, in which authorities must weigh the lives of the hostages against the lives of potential future victims, depend on popular support for governmental policy. Despite this, little is known about how people form their judgement of governmental policies in this moral dilemma....

During the COVID-19 pandemic, different behavioral measures were imposed to curb the spread of the virus. In a pre-registered study based on a quota-representative sample of adult Danish citizens (N = 1,031), we compared the prevalence estimates of self-reported handwashing, physical distancing, and attitudes towards the behavioral measures between...

Psychological Reactance Theory assumes that the restriction of valued behaviors elicits anger and negative cognitions, motivating actions to regain the limited freedom. Two studies investigated the effects of two possible restrictions affecting COVID-19 vaccination: the limitation of non-vaccination by mandates and the limitation of vaccination by...

To reach high vaccination rates against COVID-19, children and adolescents should be also vaccinated. To improve childhood vaccination rates and vaccination readiness, parents need to be addressed since they decide about the vaccination of their children. We adapted the 7C of vaccination readiness scale to measure parents’ readiness to vaccinate th...

Effective interventions for increasing people’s intention to get vaccinated are crucial for global health, especially considering COVID-19. We devised a novel intervention using virtual reality (VR) consisting of a consultation with a general practitioner for communicating the benefits of COVID-19 vaccination and, in turn, increasing the intention...

Background During the COVID-19 pandemic, public perceptions and behaviours have had to adapt rapidly to new risk scenarios and radical behavioural restrictions. Aim To identify major drivers of acceptance of protective behaviours during the 4-week transition from virtually no COVID-19 cases to the nationwide lockdown in Germany (3–25 March 2020)....

Objective: An effective vaccine against COVID-19 is a desired solution to curb the spread of the disease. However, vaccine hesitancy might hinder high uptake rates and thus undermine efforts to eliminate COVID-19 once an effective vaccine became available. The present contribution addresses this issue by examining two ways of increasing the intenti...

While the ontogeny of prosociality during infancy, childhood, and adolescence has received substantial attention over the last decades, little is known about how prosocial preferences develop beyond emerging adulthood. Recent evidence suggests that the previously observed positive association between age and prosocial preferences is less robust tha...

The strategy method is a powerful method for eliciting conditional cooperation in strategic interactions. Theoretically, players' cooperation conditional on a specific level of others' cooperation using the strategy method should be equal to their unconditional cooperation given an equivalent belief about others' cooperation. However, using the Pri...

Humans are social animals, but not everyone will be mindful of others to the same extent. Individual differences have been found, but would social mindfulness also be shaped by one’s location in the world? Expecting cross-national differences to exist, we examined if and how social mindfulness differs across countries. At little to no material cost...

Participation in intergroup conflict is often framed as a matter of ‘in-group love’ or ‘out-group hate’. Indeed, theoretical accounts including social identity theory and parochial altruism suggest that such group-based preferences are inextricably linked. According to this view, individuals engage in intergroup conflict, including harmful behaviou...

Background. Vaccine hesitancy poses one of the biggest threats to global health. Informing people about the collective benefit of vaccination due to community immunity has great potential in increasing vaccination intentions. Novel communication formats are needed to increase people’s interest in and engagement with such information, boosting the i...

In real-world intergroup conflict, not all in-group members are equally threatened by the out-group. Yet, the impact of intragroup payoff asymmetry on the inclination to mutually cooperate during intergroup conflict and therefore to protect against out-group attacks, i.e., the “conflict-cooperation effect,” has not been investigated so far. In Stud...

It is often important to study people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors over time. To this end, researchers have relied on repeated cross-sectional studies, in which different people from the same population participate on different measurement occasions. Also, researchers have relied on panel studies, in which the same group of people participat...

Despite the omnipresence of inter-group conflicts, little is known about the heterogeneity and stability of individuals' social preferences toward in-group and out-group members. To identify the prevalence and stability of social preferences in inter-group conflict, we gather quota-representative, incentivized data from a lab-in-the-field study dur...

Although vaccines are among the most effective interventions used in fighting diseases, vaccination readiness varies substantially among individuals. Vaccination readiness is defined as a set of components that increase or decrease the individual’s likelihood of getting vaccinated. Building on earlier work that distinguished five components of vacc...