This study was conducted to determine the predictors of COVID-19 vaccination attitudes across mul... more This study was conducted to determine the predictors of COVID-19 vaccination attitudes across multiple waves in seven countries geographically spread across the European continent, using data from a COVID-19 survey provided by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology COVID-19. Facebook users from across the globe participated in this survey which collected information on their knowledge of COVID-19, attitudes towards risk and available information, and their willingness or lack thereof to take the vaccine. In this secondary data analysis study, neural networks were used with special attention given to the importance of the predictors of COVID-19 vaccination attitudes. Perception of social norms regarding COVID-19 vaccination was found to be the most important predictor of vaccine acceptance. Country of residence and wave of data collection were among the important predictors, with different patterns for each country emerging across different waves. Other strong predictors included attitudes towards masks and mask wearing; attitudes towards the influenza vaccine; distrust in government health authorities and scientists; and level of knowledge of existing treatments for COVID-19. The results of this study can inform effective public health prevention and intervention efforts against infectious diseases.
This study was conducted to determine the predictors of COVID-19 vaccination attitudes across mul... more This study was conducted to determine the predictors of COVID-19 vaccination attitudes across multiple waves in seven countries geographically spread across the European continent, using data from a COVID-19 survey provided by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology COVID-19. Facebook users from across the globe participated in this survey which collected information on their knowledge of COVID-19, attitudes towards risk and available information, and their willingness or lack thereof to take the vaccine. In this secondary data analysis study, neural networks were used with special attention given to the importance of the predictors of COVID-19 vaccination attitudes. Perception of social norms regarding COVID-19 vaccination was found to be the most important predictor of vaccine acceptance. Country of residence and wave of data collection were among the important predictors, with different patterns for each country emerging across different waves. Other strong predictors included attitudes towards masks and mask wearing; attitudes towards the influenza vaccine; distrust in government health authorities and scientists; and level of knowledge of existing treatments for COVID-19. The results of this study can inform effective public health prevention and intervention efforts against infectious diseases.
Smartphone apps for smoking cessation can provide a useful tool in helping individuals stop smoki... more Smartphone apps for smoking cessation can provide a useful tool in helping individuals stop smoking. The aim of this study was to analyze the content of smoking cessations apps that claim to provide help in quitting smoking. It assesses the degree to which apps adhere to established evidence-based practices for smoking cessation, with the hope of identifying the best quality ones. Another aim was to identify potential apps that smoking cessation advisors may wish to recommend to clients. A search for smoking cessation apps on the iPhone and Android stores was done. Apps meeting inclusion criteria were downloaded. Their content was rated via a checklist devised from previous systematic reviews looking at the effectiveness of smartphone apps for smoking cessation. A total of 76 apps were included. Of these, only 5 apps incorporated advise from health care professionals, with most apps being devised by individuals whose credentials are unknown. It is unclear if these individual have an...
Positive mental health is considered to be a significant predictor of health and longevity; howev... more Positive mental health is considered to be a significant predictor of health and longevity; however, our understanding of the ways in which this important characteristic is represented in users’ behavior on social networking sites is limited. The goal of this study was to explore associations between positive mental health and language used in online communication in a large sample of Russian Facebook users. The five-item World Health Organization Well-Being Index (WHO-5) was used as a self-report measure of well-being. Morphological, sentiment, and semantic analyses were performed for linguistic data. The total of 6,724 participants completed the questionnaire and linguistic data were available for 1,972. Participants’ mean age was 45.7 years ( SD = 11.6 years); 73.4% were female. The dataset included 15,281 posts, with an average of 7.67 ( SD = 5.69) posts per participant. Mean WHO-5 score was 60.0 ( SD = 19.1), with female participants exhibiting lower scores. Use of negative sen...
People have been using images to express ideas, share stories, and communicate since early histor... more People have been using images to express ideas, share stories, and communicate since early history. The advent of social media has made sharing images an important part of everyday life. Among other things, social networks can be used to express psychological distress; however, research on this topic is limited. The goal of this study was to explore representations of psychological distress in the Russian-speaking segment of Instagram. The study involved contrasting images labeled with hashtags in Russian with images marked by analogous Anglophone hashtags in a data set of 1,512 images. Quantitative content analysis revealed significant differences between images labeled with Russian and Anglophone hashtags. Images containing depictions of texts were significantly less frequent among images with Russian hashtags, while inanimate object depictions were more prevalent. Hashtags for fear in both languages were related not to psychological distress but to the “scary” in popular culture....
In the modern world, humans risk exposure to traumatic events such as major stress, terrorism, di... more In the modern world, humans risk exposure to traumatic events such as major stress, terrorism, diseases, catastrophes a threat to a persons’ life or health, sexual assault, military experience etc. After being exposed to those, a posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can develop. PTSD symptoms may include re-experiencing, avoidance, withdrawal, hyperarousal, vigilance and reactivity, as well as changes in more complex cognitive and emotional behavior. Recently, PTSD research has focused on the role of early age victimization as a pathological factor. Our paper considers consequences of psychological trauma from the neurobiological point of view. To better understand PTSD, we offer to use paradigms developed by the newly established area of neuroscience called neuroeconomics. We review the neurobiological findings of PTSD with the aim to uncover neurobiological correlates of early child traumatization. We offer to use economic approach and, more specifically, economic games, to interp...
The goal of this explorative research project was to explore possible connections between prior v... more The goal of this explorative research project was to explore possible connections between prior victimization, traumatic birth experiences of mothers and attachment of their infants. Ten women with traumatic birth experience (aged 22�33 years old) and their children (aged 11�16 months) took part in the study. The following methods were used: (a) The Strange Situation Procedure was used for attachment classification. The videotaped procedures were classified according to criteria of M. Ainsworth and P. Crittenden (Crittenden, 2002); (b) Birth Experiences Interview with consequent analysis of trauma narratives according to the method described by Foa (1995); (c) questionnaires for the assessment of demographics, obstetric history, symptoms of postnatal PTSD (PPQ, Callahan, 2006) and history of lifetime trauma and victimization. The results demonstrated that the mothers, who took part in the study, experienced a wide range of trauma and victimization in childhood and adult life prior t...
2016 IEEE Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Conference (AINL), 2016
The presented project is intended to make use of growing amounts or textual data in social networ... more The presented project is intended to make use of growing amounts or textual data in social networks in the Russian language, In order to Hnd Ungulstlc correlates of the Dark Triad personality traits, comprising non-clinical Nareissism, Machiavellianism and Psychopathy. The baekgronnd for the ilwestigation includes, on the one haotl, psychological research on these phenomena and their measurement instruments, and on the other haod, recent advaoces In computational stylometry and text-based author profiling. The measures for these psychological phenomena are provided by recognized self-report psychological surveys adapted to Russian. Morphological and semantic analysis are applied to investigate the relationship between the Dark traits and their linguistic manifestation in social network texts. Slgnlflcant morphological and semantic correlates of Narcissism, MachlavelUanlsm and Psychopathy are ldentllled and compared to respective advaoces In Engltsh author proftUng. In order to deepe...
This study aimed to assess the traumatic impact of the COVID-19 outbreak and to explore the contr... more This study aimed to assess the traumatic impact of the COVID-19 outbreak and to explore the contribution of fatalism to a) psychological distress and b) pandemic-related behavior change Data for the study were collected via an anonymous online survey The survey included questions about demographic characteristics, health status, pandemic-related stress, impact of COVID-19 on health and behavior, posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS), and fatalism The sample included 465 participants from 30 countries (mean age = 36 87, SD = 13 39, age range = 18 – 76;80% female) While none of the study participants have been diagnosed with COVID-19, almost 25% knew someone who had received the diagnosis The overwhelming majority (79%) had to make changes to their daily routine, and 48 82% of the sample reported moderate to severe PTSS Fatalism was found to be a statistically significant predictor of PTSS in a multiple regression model and was also associated with lack of behavior changes in response ...
The goal of this paper was to assess the connection between dark personality traits and engagemen... more The goal of this paper was to assess the connection between dark personality traits and engagement in harmful online behaviors in a sample of Russian Facebook users, and to describe the language they use in online communication. A total of 6724 individuals participated in the study (mean age ¼ 44.96 years, age range: 18e85 years, 77.9% d female). Data was collected via a purpose-built application, which served two purposes: administer the survey and download consenting user's public wall posts, gender and age from the Facebook profile. The survey included questions on engagement in harmful online behaviors and the Short Dark Triad scale; 15,281 wall posts from 1972 users were included in the dataset. These posts were subjected to morphological, lexical and semantic analyses. More than 25% of the sample reported engaging in harmful online behaviors. Males were more likely to send insulting or threatening messages and post aggressive comments; no gender differences were found for disseminating other people's private information. Psychopathy and male gender were the unique predictors of engagement in harmful online behaviors. A number of significant correlations were found between the dark traits and numeric, lexical, morphological and semantic characteristics of the participants' posts.
Exposure to violence has been shown to negatively affect mental health and well-being. The goal o... more Exposure to violence has been shown to negatively affect mental health and well-being. The goal of this Facebook-based study was to describe the rates of exposure to violence in a sample of Russian adults and to assess the impact of these experiences on subjective well-being and victimization-related psychological distress. Three types of victimization were assessed: physical assault by a stranger, physical assault by someone known to victim, and nonconsensual sexual experiences. The 5-item World Health Organization Well-Being Index (WHO-5) was used to assess subjective well-being, and Primary Care PTSD Screen (PC-PTSD) was employed as an indicator of victimization-related psychological distress. Data were obtained from 6,724 Russian-speaking Facebook users. Significant levels of lifetime victimization were reported by the study participants. Lifetime physical assault by a stranger, physical assault by someone known to victim, and sexual assault were reported by 56.9%, 64.2%, and 54...
Exposure to violence has been shown to negatively affect mental health and well-being. The goal o... more Exposure to violence has been shown to negatively affect mental health and well-being. The goal of this Facebook-based study was to describe the rates of exposure to violence in a sample of Russian adults and to assess the impact of these experiences on subjective well-being and victimization-related psychological distress. Three types of victimization were assessed: physical assault by a stranger, physical assault by someone known to victim, and nonconsensual sexual experiences. The 5-item World Health Organization Well-Being Index (WHO-5) was used to assess subjective well-being, and Primary Care PTSD Screen (PC-PTSD) was employed as an indicator of victimization-related psychological distress. Data were obtained from 6,724 Russian-speaking Facebook users. Significant levels of lifetime victimization were reported by the study participants. Lifetime physical assault by a stranger, physical assault by someone known to victim, and sexual assault were reported by 56.9%, 64.2%, and 54...
This study was conducted to determine the predictors of COVID-19 vaccination attitudes across mul... more This study was conducted to determine the predictors of COVID-19 vaccination attitudes across multiple waves in seven countries geographically spread across the European continent, using data from a COVID-19 survey provided by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology COVID-19. Facebook users from across the globe participated in this survey which collected information on their knowledge of COVID-19, attitudes towards risk and available information, and their willingness or lack thereof to take the vaccine. In this secondary data analysis study, neural networks were used with special attention given to the importance of the predictors of COVID-19 vaccination attitudes. Perception of social norms regarding COVID-19 vaccination was found to be the most important predictor of vaccine acceptance. Country of residence and wave of data collection were among the important predictors, with different patterns for each country emerging across different waves. Other strong predictors included attitudes towards masks and mask wearing; attitudes towards the influenza vaccine; distrust in government health authorities and scientists; and level of knowledge of existing treatments for COVID-19. The results of this study can inform effective public health prevention and intervention efforts against infectious diseases.
This study was conducted to determine the predictors of COVID-19 vaccination attitudes across mul... more This study was conducted to determine the predictors of COVID-19 vaccination attitudes across multiple waves in seven countries geographically spread across the European continent, using data from a COVID-19 survey provided by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology COVID-19. Facebook users from across the globe participated in this survey which collected information on their knowledge of COVID-19, attitudes towards risk and available information, and their willingness or lack thereof to take the vaccine. In this secondary data analysis study, neural networks were used with special attention given to the importance of the predictors of COVID-19 vaccination attitudes. Perception of social norms regarding COVID-19 vaccination was found to be the most important predictor of vaccine acceptance. Country of residence and wave of data collection were among the important predictors, with different patterns for each country emerging across different waves. Other strong predictors included attitudes towards masks and mask wearing; attitudes towards the influenza vaccine; distrust in government health authorities and scientists; and level of knowledge of existing treatments for COVID-19. The results of this study can inform effective public health prevention and intervention efforts against infectious diseases.
Smartphone apps for smoking cessation can provide a useful tool in helping individuals stop smoki... more Smartphone apps for smoking cessation can provide a useful tool in helping individuals stop smoking. The aim of this study was to analyze the content of smoking cessations apps that claim to provide help in quitting smoking. It assesses the degree to which apps adhere to established evidence-based practices for smoking cessation, with the hope of identifying the best quality ones. Another aim was to identify potential apps that smoking cessation advisors may wish to recommend to clients. A search for smoking cessation apps on the iPhone and Android stores was done. Apps meeting inclusion criteria were downloaded. Their content was rated via a checklist devised from previous systematic reviews looking at the effectiveness of smartphone apps for smoking cessation. A total of 76 apps were included. Of these, only 5 apps incorporated advise from health care professionals, with most apps being devised by individuals whose credentials are unknown. It is unclear if these individual have an...
Positive mental health is considered to be a significant predictor of health and longevity; howev... more Positive mental health is considered to be a significant predictor of health and longevity; however, our understanding of the ways in which this important characteristic is represented in users’ behavior on social networking sites is limited. The goal of this study was to explore associations between positive mental health and language used in online communication in a large sample of Russian Facebook users. The five-item World Health Organization Well-Being Index (WHO-5) was used as a self-report measure of well-being. Morphological, sentiment, and semantic analyses were performed for linguistic data. The total of 6,724 participants completed the questionnaire and linguistic data were available for 1,972. Participants’ mean age was 45.7 years ( SD = 11.6 years); 73.4% were female. The dataset included 15,281 posts, with an average of 7.67 ( SD = 5.69) posts per participant. Mean WHO-5 score was 60.0 ( SD = 19.1), with female participants exhibiting lower scores. Use of negative sen...
People have been using images to express ideas, share stories, and communicate since early histor... more People have been using images to express ideas, share stories, and communicate since early history. The advent of social media has made sharing images an important part of everyday life. Among other things, social networks can be used to express psychological distress; however, research on this topic is limited. The goal of this study was to explore representations of psychological distress in the Russian-speaking segment of Instagram. The study involved contrasting images labeled with hashtags in Russian with images marked by analogous Anglophone hashtags in a data set of 1,512 images. Quantitative content analysis revealed significant differences between images labeled with Russian and Anglophone hashtags. Images containing depictions of texts were significantly less frequent among images with Russian hashtags, while inanimate object depictions were more prevalent. Hashtags for fear in both languages were related not to psychological distress but to the “scary” in popular culture....
In the modern world, humans risk exposure to traumatic events such as major stress, terrorism, di... more In the modern world, humans risk exposure to traumatic events such as major stress, terrorism, diseases, catastrophes a threat to a persons’ life or health, sexual assault, military experience etc. After being exposed to those, a posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can develop. PTSD symptoms may include re-experiencing, avoidance, withdrawal, hyperarousal, vigilance and reactivity, as well as changes in more complex cognitive and emotional behavior. Recently, PTSD research has focused on the role of early age victimization as a pathological factor. Our paper considers consequences of psychological trauma from the neurobiological point of view. To better understand PTSD, we offer to use paradigms developed by the newly established area of neuroscience called neuroeconomics. We review the neurobiological findings of PTSD with the aim to uncover neurobiological correlates of early child traumatization. We offer to use economic approach and, more specifically, economic games, to interp...
The goal of this explorative research project was to explore possible connections between prior v... more The goal of this explorative research project was to explore possible connections between prior victimization, traumatic birth experiences of mothers and attachment of their infants. Ten women with traumatic birth experience (aged 22�33 years old) and their children (aged 11�16 months) took part in the study. The following methods were used: (a) The Strange Situation Procedure was used for attachment classification. The videotaped procedures were classified according to criteria of M. Ainsworth and P. Crittenden (Crittenden, 2002); (b) Birth Experiences Interview with consequent analysis of trauma narratives according to the method described by Foa (1995); (c) questionnaires for the assessment of demographics, obstetric history, symptoms of postnatal PTSD (PPQ, Callahan, 2006) and history of lifetime trauma and victimization. The results demonstrated that the mothers, who took part in the study, experienced a wide range of trauma and victimization in childhood and adult life prior t...
2016 IEEE Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Conference (AINL), 2016
The presented project is intended to make use of growing amounts or textual data in social networ... more The presented project is intended to make use of growing amounts or textual data in social networks in the Russian language, In order to Hnd Ungulstlc correlates of the Dark Triad personality traits, comprising non-clinical Nareissism, Machiavellianism and Psychopathy. The baekgronnd for the ilwestigation includes, on the one haotl, psychological research on these phenomena and their measurement instruments, and on the other haod, recent advaoces In computational stylometry and text-based author profiling. The measures for these psychological phenomena are provided by recognized self-report psychological surveys adapted to Russian. Morphological and semantic analysis are applied to investigate the relationship between the Dark traits and their linguistic manifestation in social network texts. Slgnlflcant morphological and semantic correlates of Narcissism, MachlavelUanlsm and Psychopathy are ldentllled and compared to respective advaoces In Engltsh author proftUng. In order to deepe...
This study aimed to assess the traumatic impact of the COVID-19 outbreak and to explore the contr... more This study aimed to assess the traumatic impact of the COVID-19 outbreak and to explore the contribution of fatalism to a) psychological distress and b) pandemic-related behavior change Data for the study were collected via an anonymous online survey The survey included questions about demographic characteristics, health status, pandemic-related stress, impact of COVID-19 on health and behavior, posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS), and fatalism The sample included 465 participants from 30 countries (mean age = 36 87, SD = 13 39, age range = 18 – 76;80% female) While none of the study participants have been diagnosed with COVID-19, almost 25% knew someone who had received the diagnosis The overwhelming majority (79%) had to make changes to their daily routine, and 48 82% of the sample reported moderate to severe PTSS Fatalism was found to be a statistically significant predictor of PTSS in a multiple regression model and was also associated with lack of behavior changes in response ...
The goal of this paper was to assess the connection between dark personality traits and engagemen... more The goal of this paper was to assess the connection between dark personality traits and engagement in harmful online behaviors in a sample of Russian Facebook users, and to describe the language they use in online communication. A total of 6724 individuals participated in the study (mean age ¼ 44.96 years, age range: 18e85 years, 77.9% d female). Data was collected via a purpose-built application, which served two purposes: administer the survey and download consenting user's public wall posts, gender and age from the Facebook profile. The survey included questions on engagement in harmful online behaviors and the Short Dark Triad scale; 15,281 wall posts from 1972 users were included in the dataset. These posts were subjected to morphological, lexical and semantic analyses. More than 25% of the sample reported engaging in harmful online behaviors. Males were more likely to send insulting or threatening messages and post aggressive comments; no gender differences were found for disseminating other people's private information. Psychopathy and male gender were the unique predictors of engagement in harmful online behaviors. A number of significant correlations were found between the dark traits and numeric, lexical, morphological and semantic characteristics of the participants' posts.
Exposure to violence has been shown to negatively affect mental health and well-being. The goal o... more Exposure to violence has been shown to negatively affect mental health and well-being. The goal of this Facebook-based study was to describe the rates of exposure to violence in a sample of Russian adults and to assess the impact of these experiences on subjective well-being and victimization-related psychological distress. Three types of victimization were assessed: physical assault by a stranger, physical assault by someone known to victim, and nonconsensual sexual experiences. The 5-item World Health Organization Well-Being Index (WHO-5) was used to assess subjective well-being, and Primary Care PTSD Screen (PC-PTSD) was employed as an indicator of victimization-related psychological distress. Data were obtained from 6,724 Russian-speaking Facebook users. Significant levels of lifetime victimization were reported by the study participants. Lifetime physical assault by a stranger, physical assault by someone known to victim, and sexual assault were reported by 56.9%, 64.2%, and 54...
Exposure to violence has been shown to negatively affect mental health and well-being. The goal o... more Exposure to violence has been shown to negatively affect mental health and well-being. The goal of this Facebook-based study was to describe the rates of exposure to violence in a sample of Russian adults and to assess the impact of these experiences on subjective well-being and victimization-related psychological distress. Three types of victimization were assessed: physical assault by a stranger, physical assault by someone known to victim, and nonconsensual sexual experiences. The 5-item World Health Organization Well-Being Index (WHO-5) was used to assess subjective well-being, and Primary Care PTSD Screen (PC-PTSD) was employed as an indicator of victimization-related psychological distress. Data were obtained from 6,724 Russian-speaking Facebook users. Significant levels of lifetime victimization were reported by the study participants. Lifetime physical assault by a stranger, physical assault by someone known to victim, and sexual assault were reported by 56.9%, 64.2%, and 54...
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Papers by Olga Bogolyubova