Research
Job Market Paper
Active Unpacking of the Financial Consequences of
Health Outcomes Improves Preventive Decisions (Preliminary version pdf)
Traditional health economic models assume that decision-makers (DMs) incorporate all dimensions of information regarding potential health outcomes when making preventive decisions. However, behavioral sciences suggest that individuals might deviate from this assumption in two key aspects. The first is opportunity cost neglect due to limited attention, whereby DMs may overlook some indirect or non-salient dimensions of loss from illness. The second is evaluability issues, whereby DMs may fail to comprehend the actual relevance of numerical health information to their circumstances. To increase people’s attention to financial losses and make health outcomes more evaluable, we designed an intervention entitled “Active Unpacking with Money” (AUM), which directs DMs to actively calculate the monetary losses from experiencing a negative health condition over a specified time period. Through a series of six consecutive online experiments, we demonstrate that: (1) AUM amplifies people’s perceived severity of health risks and their willingness-to-pay (WTP) for a guaranteed preventive measure; (2) AUM heightens people’s sensitivity to the length of a disease; and (3) AUM bolsters sensitivity to probabilistic information. We clarify how AUM assists in mitigating both salience and evaluability challenges within these contexts, and why AUM is likely welfare-improving. Finally, we discuss its practical implications in health communication.
Health Outcomes Improves Preventive Decisions (Preliminary version pdf)
Traditional health economic models assume that decision-makers (DMs) incorporate all dimensions of information regarding potential health outcomes when making preventive decisions. However, behavioral sciences suggest that individuals might deviate from this assumption in two key aspects. The first is opportunity cost neglect due to limited attention, whereby DMs may overlook some indirect or non-salient dimensions of loss from illness. The second is evaluability issues, whereby DMs may fail to comprehend the actual relevance of numerical health information to their circumstances. To increase people’s attention to financial losses and make health outcomes more evaluable, we designed an intervention entitled “Active Unpacking with Money” (AUM), which directs DMs to actively calculate the monetary losses from experiencing a negative health condition over a specified time period. Through a series of six consecutive online experiments, we demonstrate that: (1) AUM amplifies people’s perceived severity of health risks and their willingness-to-pay (WTP) for a guaranteed preventive measure; (2) AUM heightens people’s sensitivity to the length of a disease; and (3) AUM bolsters sensitivity to probabilistic information. We clarify how AUM assists in mitigating both salience and evaluability challenges within these contexts, and why AUM is likely welfare-improving. Finally, we discuss its practical implications in health communication.
Publications
Cui, Z., Liu, L., & Zhuang, C. C. (2023). The impact of the removal of Zero-COVID policies on subjective well-being: Evidence from a digital world. Economics Letters, 111189. (link) (pdf)
Chen, C., Cui, Z., & Chen, Y. (2023). A randomized controlled trial of an information intervention to bolster COVID-19 vaccination intention among people with purity concerns. Health Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/hea0001295 (pdf)
Cui, Z., Liu, L., Li, D., Wu, S. J., & Zhai, X. (2022). Safety Messaging Boosts Parental Vaccination Intention for Children Ages 5–11. Vaccines, 10(8), 1205. (link)
Zhang, S.; Grant, L.H.; Geipel, J.; Cui, Z.; Keysar, B. The Impact of Informational Intervention on HPV Vaccination Intention among Heterosexual Men. Vaccines 2023, 11, 1653. https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines11111653 (link)
Chen, C., Cui, Z., & Chen, Y. (2023). A randomized controlled trial of an information intervention to bolster COVID-19 vaccination intention among people with purity concerns. Health Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/hea0001295 (pdf)
Cui, Z., Liu, L., Li, D., Wu, S. J., & Zhai, X. (2022). Safety Messaging Boosts Parental Vaccination Intention for Children Ages 5–11. Vaccines, 10(8), 1205. (link)
Zhang, S.; Grant, L.H.; Geipel, J.; Cui, Z.; Keysar, B. The Impact of Informational Intervention on HPV Vaccination Intention among Heterosexual Men. Vaccines 2023, 11, 1653. https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines11111653 (link)
Working Papers
The Cultural Psychology of Large Language Models: Is ChatGPT a Holistic or Analytic Thinker? (With Chuanyang Jin, Songyang Zhang, and Tianmin Shu) (pdf), submitted to PNAS
The Political Economy of Responses to COVID-19 (With Geoffrey Heal, Howard Kunreuther and Lu Liu), NBER Working Paper (pdf) (Originally Covid-19, Shelter-In-Place Strategies and Tipping)
The Impact of an Informational Intervention on HPV 2 Vaccination Intentions Among Heterosexual Men (With Songyang Zhang, Leigh Grant, Janet Geipel, and Boaz Keysar)
The Roles of Economics and Partisanship in Undermining COVID-19 Policies in the U.S. (With Sherry Wu, Lu Liu, et. al) (pdf)
Economics and Psychology of Personality Traits in China: Evidence from a Longitudinal Twin Study in Yunnan Province (With Lu Liu and Junsen Zhang) (pdf)
Competing Persuaders in Zero-Sum Games (With Dilip Ravindran) (pdf), under review
The Impact of an Informational Intervention on HPV 2 Vaccination Intentions Among Heterosexual Men
The Political Economy of Responses to COVID-19 (With Geoffrey Heal, Howard Kunreuther and Lu Liu), NBER Working Paper (pdf) (Originally Covid-19, Shelter-In-Place Strategies and Tipping)
The Impact of an Informational Intervention on HPV 2 Vaccination Intentions Among Heterosexual Men (With Songyang Zhang, Leigh Grant, Janet Geipel, and Boaz Keysar)
The Roles of Economics and Partisanship in Undermining COVID-19 Policies in the U.S. (With Sherry Wu, Lu Liu, et. al) (pdf)
Economics and Psychology of Personality Traits in China: Evidence from a Longitudinal Twin Study in Yunnan Province (With Lu Liu and Junsen Zhang) (pdf)
Competing Persuaders in Zero-Sum Games (With Dilip Ravindran) (pdf), under review
The Impact of an Informational Intervention on HPV 2 Vaccination Intentions Among Heterosexual Men
Ongoing Work
Behavioral Economics:
Learned Sparsity, with Lu Liu, Yiwen Shen and Kyle Chauvin.
Behavioral Decision Making:
Openness-to-experience May Backfire in Entry-level Job Applications, with Wenyuan Liu and Ting Ren.
n Neglect a
Health Economics:
In-class Sexual Education and Health Literacy: Field Experiment Evidence in Chinese Universities, with Fangwen Lu, Xuezheng Qin, Jinxian Yao, and Castiel Chen Zhuang.
Long COVID Perception and COVID-19 Prevention Measures, with Lu Liu, Dan Li, David Dolifka and Sten Vermund.
Release Restrictions, Release Consumption, but with
Inequality, with Lu Liu and Castiel Chen Zhuang.
Learned Sparsity, with Lu Liu, Yiwen Shen and Kyle Chauvin.
Behavioral Decision Making:
Openness-to-experience May Backfire in Entry-level Job Applications, with Wenyuan Liu and Ting Ren.
n Neglect a
Health Economics:
In-class Sexual Education and Health Literacy: Field Experiment Evidence in Chinese Universities, with Fangwen Lu, Xuezheng Qin, Jinxian Yao, and Castiel Chen Zhuang.
Long COVID Perception and COVID-19 Prevention Measures, with Lu Liu, Dan Li, David Dolifka and Sten Vermund.
Release Restrictions, Release Consumption, but with
Inequality, with Lu Liu and Castiel Chen Zhuang.