The current study examines the relationship between two social dimensions of trust (competence and warmth) and occupational frequency reference in several language corpora. Using archival data, Study 1 demonstrates a positive relationship between occupational frequency and ratings of prestige in user-generated content. Using experimental data, Study 2 found that a positive relationship between users’ ratings of social warmth and GoogleTrends data. Taken together, these results suggest that the two dimensions of trust might differ in terms how they are used to promote, and the change the perception of, source credibility.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused rapid changes within our societies. Nowhere is this more evident than health information seeking behaviour (HISB) such that medical and governmental websites, general search engines, and social media platforms were relied upon to retrieve credible information. Using state-level measures of conformity bias (cultural tightness) and conservatism in the US and a province-level measure of conservativism in Canada, the present study considers the relationship between cultural tightness, conservativism, and vaccination rates. The analyses demonstrate that cultural tightness and conservatism were associated with lower levels of vaccination and a reduced rate of vaccination. Replicating previous studies, this study also represents a correlation between internet HISB and consequential health behaviours, in this case, changes in vaccination rate and regional mobility.

Psychographic techniques allow for the prediction of choices, personality traits, and latent variables which might be associated with sensitive user information. By combining these techniques with behavioural traces obtained from internet of things (IoT) devices, these methods are poised to seriously challenge individual privacy and autonomy placing considerable power in the hands of choice architects. Following a review of models of persuasive communication, an overview of the methods, efficacy, and use of psychographic research is presented. The Cambridge Analytica is presented as a model to demonstrate both the ethical concerns raised by these techniques, organizational responses, and public reaction. Finally, five ethical issues associated with the IoT are considered, focusing on how the heterogeneity of the device and heterarchical structure of informal regulation create a problematic sociotechnical system.

Healthcare systems are under-resourced. Autonomous and intelligent systems (A/IS) bring the promise of providing methods that can supplement, or replace, healthcare professionals (HCPs). However, healthcare is most effect when patients and HCPs develop a therapeutic alliance (i.e., a trusting relationships) that might not be replicable in A/IS-human interaction. A framework is provided to operationalize the therapeutic alliance in A/IS-mediate healthcare. Using models of persuasive communication as a guide, it assumes that treatment compliance requires understanding discrepancies between the disease models of HCPs and patients in a transactive memory network. The paper also highlights the ethical issues that arise from the creation, or failures of, this process.

Despite years of training in computer science, there is currently no standardized, systematic integration of ethics into the curriculum. The development and communication of ethical standards represents one means to address this issue, however, in the absence of considering how information and computer science (ICS) professionals will make sense of ethical issues within a specific context, there is a growing consensus that there will be no immediate, enforceable actions that will follow ethical violations. A curriculum is needed. We consider critical features of a curriculum based on principles of moral education and review studies that have assessed aspects of an ICS ethics curriculum.

Surveillance technologies have come to occupy a central position in human affairs, whether in terms of CCT cameras, smart homes, or network security technologies. Due to function creep and the relative invisibility of these technologies, individuals and societies continue to grapple with the potential trade-offs between security, convenience, and privacy. The attitudes toward surveillance technologies appear to differ significantly between groups and societies. Following a review of surveillance technologies and the ethical issues associated with them, the present study suggests that a number of social-cognitive factors (e.g., group size, social identity, relational models, and conformity bias) likely affect the acceptance and adoption of surveillance technologies within a group.

The existence of physical and financial barriers in the provision of healthcare leads to an increasing recognition that alternative sources of information are being used to supplement or replace the advice of healthcare professionals. Internet search engines are a common means to obtain health information. However, information, misinformation, and disinformation are all available concurrently, leaving health information seekers to distinguish these categories of information. Following a review of theories directly and indirectly related to health information-seeking behaviour (HISB), we examine how public announcements made by credible sources (e.g., health professionals and politicians) in varying geographic regions (globally, nationally (Canada), and regionally (New York State) influenced both HISB (represented by Google Searches) and whether this influences human behaviour (represented by Google Mobility Data). Across these analyses, we demonstrate that there are strong correlations between information search behaviour and mobility around the time of public health announcements suggesting that, directly or indirectly, health communication was associated with changes in individual behaviour.