Background: The research focused on the relationships between attitudes towards vaccination and the trust placed in different sources of information (science, experts and the information available on the Internet) before and during COVID-19. Method: A longitudinal design was applied with the first measurement in February 2018 (N = 1039). The second measurement (N = 400) was carried out in December 2020 to test if the pandemic influenced the trust in different sources of information. Results: The final analyses carried out on final sample of 400 participants showed that there has been no change in trust in the Internet as a source of knowledge about health during the pandemic. However, the trust in science, physicians, subjective health knowledge, as well as the attitude towards the vaccination has declined. Regression analysis also showed that changes in the level of trust in physicians and science were associated with analogous (in the same direction) changes in attitudes toward vaccination. The study was also focused on the trust in different sources of health knowledge as possible predictors of willingness to be vaccinated against SARS-nCoV-2. However, it appeared that the selected predictors explained a small part of the variance. This suggests that attitudes toward the new COVID vaccines may have different sources than attitudes toward vaccines that have been known to the public for a long time.

AIMS: The aim of the study was to investigate the relation between declared intention to get/not get vaccinated against COVID-19, prior to the start of the global vaccination program, and actual vaccine uptake. Moreover, reasons for getting vaccinated or rejecting it were measured along with declared intent and behavior. METHODS: Within a longitudinal design, a representative sample of 918 Polish people was surveyed in February 2021 and August 2021. In February 2021, participants were asked about their intention to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and the reasons behind it. In August 2021, the same group was asked about having been vaccinated, along with the reasons. RESULTS: A significant pro-vaccine shift from declared intent to behavior was observed, with many participants turning away from being anti-vaccine or undecided and getting vaccinated. Significant correlations with attitudes toward general mandatory vaccination of children were found. Increased support for anti-vaccine arguments was seen over time in the unvaccinated sample, and decreased support for pro-vaccine arguments was seen in the vaccinated sample. Several key arguments for and against vaccination were identified. CONCLUSIONS: Declared attitude toward COVID-19 vaccination is not fully consistent with vaccination behavior. Pro-vaccine changes in attitudes of previously anti-vaccine and undecided individuals indicate that these groups may be influenced to potentially accept the COVID-19 vaccination over time.

The paper presents research into the effects of the use of negations in directives (orders, suggestions, requests). Three experiments are described that tested the effects of instructions formulated in various ways: direct (pay attention to) and negated (don’t pay attention to) commands to focus the attention. Indicators of attention focusing that were used include: the correctness of answers to questions about a selection of comic book pages (Experiment 1); the time needed to name the colours of stimulus words and the level of recall of these words after completion of the colour naming task (Experiment 2 and 3). The results showed that a direct command influenced all indicators of attention focusing. However, a negated command increased the level of recall of details about the comic book pages, as well as the level of key word recall. Both the automatic process that generates the paradoxical effects of negated commands, as well as the controlled process of reasoning, may be responsible for the results of the memory task.

AIMS: The study aims to investigate how trust in science, conspiratorial thinking, and religiosity affected people’s declared willingness to vaccinate against COVID-19 at the onset of the vaccination program in Poland, their actual vaccination, and the consistency between intention and vaccination. METHODS: In a longitudinal design, a representative sample of 918 members of the Polish general population was polled at the beginning of the vaccination program (February 2021) and polled again after 6 months of mass vaccination (August 2021). We measured the willingness to vaccinate, actual vaccination after 6 months, and individual variables—trust in science, conspiratorial thinking and religiosity. RESULTS: The actual vaccination rate was higher than the declared intent, especially in the initially undecided and unwilling groups. Higher Trust in science and lower Conspiratorial Thinking were associated with declared intent to vaccinate and actual vaccination, while Religiosity was not clearly associated with vaccination. CONCLUSIONS: Declared willingness to vaccinate is not an effective indicator of actual vaccination. Trust in science and Conspiratorial thinking are important factors associated with vaccine hesitancy. There may be a possibility to influence those unwilling to vaccinate and that are undecided to eventually get vaccinated.

The experience of good fortune and misfortune often reveals itself in the context of risk. We posed the question of whether there are differences between the lucky and the unlucky in perceiving and undertaking risky behaviours, and if these differences constitute predictors of good or ill fortune. A range of instruments were applied in the research to examine groups of lucky and unlucky individuals in respect of their propensity for taking risk, attitudes towards the risk occurring in various domains, the functions of risky behaviours and manner of taking risky decisions depending on the adopted perspective. The research results indicate a number of differences between the differentiated groups. It occurred that the lucky have a greater tendency than the unlucky to take risks, especially in the social and financial (investment) domains; they prefer instrumental risk; and they are more flexible in applying perspectives for potential outcomes when making risky decisions. We conclude that the results received can be interpreted in the context of predictors of good and bad luck.

Studies of the acquisition of negative meanings suggest that rejection (refusal) is the first semantic category of negation children are able to express. The second negative function that is typically attested in children’s gestures and speech refers to the expression of disappearance or nonexistence – this function of negation is the topic of our study. In this article an experiment is presented demonstrating that negation can have paradoxical effects, making children believe that a negated idea actually existed. In the experiment, the participants (five and six year old children) listened to a description of a house, in which some objects were mentioned, some were negated, and some were not mentioned at all. After one day, when questioned about the existence of all the objects, the children gave more false alarms in the case of the negated items that the ones not mentioned at all. The results are discussed in terms of the inhibition and retention hypothesis.