Evangelical Christians are among the most hesitant to get the COVID-19 vaccine. This study examined the extent to which COVID-19 vaccination uptake among Evangelicals is explained by demographic characteristics, Health Belief Model constructs, and faith-based support factors. Survey research firm Qualtrics recruited 531 U.S. adults and conducted a survey to explore predictors of COVID-19 vaccine uptake among people who self-identified as Evangelicals in September 2021. A logistic regression showed that those reporting high perceived benefits of the COVID-19 vaccine were more likely to be vaccinated, while those reporting high perceived barriers were less likely to be vaccinated. Those whose healthcare provider asked them about the vaccine were more likely to be vaccinated than those whose healthcare provider did not ask. Finally, while those who reported information seeking from religious leaders were less likely to be vaccinated, those who reported more faith-based support for vaccination were more likely to be vaccinated. In addition to beliefs about benefits and barriers to vaccination, the role of healthcare providers and clergy were important factors influencing vaccination status. Intervention efforts that capitalize on partnerships between health providers and clergy in supportive congregations may be able to reach undecided Evangelicals.

This study experimentally evaluated the short-term effects of the Arizona Attorney General’s cybersafety promotion presentation, a key component of which is cyberbullying prevention. Fifty-one parents of children attending a middle school in the southwestern United States participated in the study. Results reveal parents who viewed the presentation believed their children to be more susceptible to cyberbullying, and indicated that they were more likely to talk to their children about saving evidence, not retaliating, and telling an adult compared to parents who had not viewed the presentation. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.

Cyberbullying is a common byproduct of the digital revolution with serious consequences to victims. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of empirically based methods to confront it. This study used social cognitive theory to design and test an intervention message aimed at persuading college students to abstain from retaliation, seek social support, save evidence, and notify authorities—important victim responses identified and recommended in previous research. Using a posttest-only control group design, this study tested the effectiveness of an intervention message in changing college students’ perceived susceptibility to and perceived severity of cyberbullying as well as their self-efficacy, response efficacy, attitudes, and behavioral intentions toward each recommended response in future episodes of cyberbullying. Results indicated that the intervention message caused participants in the experimental condition to report significantly higher susceptibility, but not perceived severity, to cyberbullying than those in the control condition. The intervention message also caused expected changes in all outcomes except self-efficacy for not retaliating and in all outcomes for seeking social support, saving evidence, and notifying an authority. Implications for message design and future research supporting evidence-based anti-cyberbullying health communication campaigns are discussed.

This investigation theoretically extended Tinto’s model of student persistence by drawing on interpersonal communication research to elaborate on the role of commitment in student persistence. College student departure literature was reviewed and critiqued concerning the conceptualization and measurement of commitment within the interactionalist model of student persistence. Rusbult’s investment model was used as an exploratory theoretical frame for understanding commitment between students and institutions. Self-report measures of commitment and investment model predictors for students in higher education were included. Support was found for hypotheses using the investment model as a frame for understanding how both students’ commitment and perceptions of their institution’s commitment are relevant in understanding persistence in the higher education setting.

Through dual quantitative and critical-interpretive (feminist Foucauldian) analyses, we examine how college students frame risk when trying to prevent a close friend from hooking up while drunk. Our analysis of participants’ (N = 539) open-ended responses to a hypothetical scenario revealed five discursive strategies of corporeal control: diseased body, dangerous body, marked body, gross body, and remorseful body. We argue that these strategies both reflect and reinforce the sexual double standard, serving as complex dimensions of the sexual double standard in hooking up culture as it affects heterosexual women and men. Through Foucauldian theory, we position the sexual double standard as a technology of self and of power, serving a larger ethic of care for college students.