Kirsten Cornelson is an Assistant Professor in Business, Economics and Public Policy at the Ivey Business School. She is an applied microeconomist, focusing on the role of the social environment in shaping economic, political, and health decisions. Her work has been published in journals such as Labour Economics, Demography, Health Economics, and the Journal of Economic Literature. She received her PhD from the University of Toronto in 2017, and previously worked as an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Notre Dame.
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Mourali, M.; Benham, J. L.; Lang, R.; Fullerton, M. M.; Boucher, J-C.; Cornelson, K.; Oxoby, R. J.; Constantinescu, C.; Tang, T.; Marshall, D. A., et al., 2023, "Persuasive Messages for Improving Adherence to COVID-19 Prevention Behaviors: Randomized Online Experiment", JMIR Human Factors, February 10
Abstract: Background:
Adherence to nonpharmaceutical interventions for COVID-19, including physical distancing, masking, staying home while sick, and avoiding crowded indoor spaces, remains critical for limiting the spread of COVID-19.
Objective:
The aim of this study was to test the effectiveness of using various persuasive appeals (deontological moral frame, empathy, identifiable victim, goal proximity, and reciprocity) at improving intentions to adhere to prevention behaviors.
Methods:
A randomized online experiment using a representative sample of adult Canadian residents with respect to age, ethnicity, and province of residence was performed from March 3 to March 6, 2021. Participants indicated their intentions to follow public health guidelines, saw one of six flyers featuring a persuasive appeal or no appeal, and then rated their intentions a second time. Known correlates of attitudes toward public health measures were also measured.
Results:
Intentions to adhere to public health measures increased in all appeal conditions. The message featuring an empathy appeal resulted in a greater increase in intentions than the control (no appeal) message. Moreover, the effectiveness of persuasive appeals was moderated by baseline intentions. Deontological, empathy, identifiable victim, and reciprocity appeals improved intentions more than the control message, but only for people with lower baseline intentions to adhere to nonpharmaceutical interventions.
Conclusions:
Public health marketing campaigns aiming to increase adherence to COVID-19 protective behaviors could achieve modest gains by employing a range of persuasive appeals. However, to maximize impact, it is important that these campaigns be targeted to the right individuals.
Link(s) to publication:
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/41328
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Cornelson, K.; Miloucheva, B., 2022, "Political polarization and cooperation during a pandemic", Health Economics, September 31(9)
Abstract: In this paper, we examine the relationship between political polarization and individuals' willingness to contribute to the public good by engaging in preventative behaviors against COVID-19. Using a sample of individuals from close-election states, we first show that individuals engage in fewer preventative behaviors when the governor of their state is from the opposite party. We also show that this effect is concentrated among moderate individuals who live in polarized states, and that it is strongest when the state has been relatively forceful in combating COVID-19. We estimate that the opposite-party effect increased COVID-19 cases by around 1%.
Link(s) to publication:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/hec.4560
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Boucher, J-C.; Cornelson, K.; Benham, J. L.; Fullerton, M. M.; Tang, T.; Constantinescu, C.; Mourali, M.; Oxoby, R. J.; Marshall, D. A.; Hemmati, H., et al., 2021, "Analyzing Social Media to Explore the Attitudes and Behaviors Following the Announcement of Successful COVID-19 Vaccine Trials: Infodemiology Study", JMIR Infodemiology, August 1(1)
Abstract: Background:
The rollout of COVID-19 vaccines has brought vaccine hesitancy to the forefront in managing this pandemic. COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy is fundamentally different from that of other vaccines due to the new technologies being used, rapid development, and widespread global distribution. Attitudes on vaccines are largely driven by online information, particularly information on social media. The first step toward influencing attitudes about immunization is understanding the current patterns of communication that characterize the immunization debate on social media platforms.
Objective:
We aimed to evaluate societal attitudes, communication trends, and barriers to COVID-19 vaccine uptake through social media content analysis to inform communication strategies promoting vaccine acceptance.
Methods:
Social network analysis (SNA) and unsupervised machine learning were used to characterize COVID-19 vaccine content on Twitter globally. Tweets published in English and French were collected through the Twitter application programming interface between November 19 and 26, 2020, just following the announcement of initial COVID-19 vaccine trials. SNA was used to identify social media clusters expressing mistrustful opinions on COVID-19 vaccination. Based on the SNA results, an unsupervised machine learning approach to natural language processing using a sentence-level algorithm transfer function to detect semantic textual similarity was performed in order to identify the main themes of vaccine hesitancy.
Results:
The tweets (n=636,516) identified that the main themes driving the vaccine hesitancy conversation were concerns of safety, efficacy, and freedom, and mistrust in institutions (either the government or multinational corporations). A main theme was the safety and efficacy of mRNA technology and side effects. The conversation around efficacy was that vaccines were unlikely to completely rid the population of COVID-19, polymerase chain reaction testing is flawed, and there is no indication of long-term T-cell immunity for COVID-19. Nearly one-third (45,628/146,191, 31.2%) of the conversations on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy clusters expressed concerns for freedom or mistrust of institutions (either the government or multinational corporations) and nearly a quarter (34,756/146,191, 23.8%) expressed criticism toward the government’s handling of the pandemic.
Conclusions:
Social media content analysis combined with social network analysis provides insights into the themes of the vaccination conversation on Twitter. The themes of safety, efficacy, and trust in institutions will need to be considered, as targeted outreach programs and intervention strategies are deployed on Twitter to improve the uptake of COVID-19 vaccination.
Link(s) to publication:
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/28800
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Baker, M.; Cornelson, K., 2019, "Title IX and the spatial content of female employment—Out of the lab and into the labor market", Labour Economics, June 58: 128 - 144.
Abstract: Sports participation is a sex typed extracurricular activity cited as a source of the male advantage in some spatial skills. We exploit the large increase in females’ high school sports participation due to Title IX, which prohibited discrimination in federally assisted educational programs, to test this hypothesis. We relate Title IX induced increases in females’ sport participation to a test of three dimensional spatial rotation and the spatial content of their occupational employment as captured by Dictionary of Occupational Titles codes. We find little evidence that this increase in sports participation had an impact on either of these measures.
Link(s) to publication:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2019.04.004
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Cornelson, K.; Baker, M., 2018, "Gender-Based Occupational Segregation and Sex Differences in Sensory, Motor, and Spatial Aptitudes", Demography, October 55(5): 1749 - 1775.
Abstract: Research on sex differences in humans documents gender differences in sensory, motor, and spatial aptitudes. These aptitudes, as captured by Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) codes, predict the occupational choices of men and women in the directions indicated by this research. We simulate that eliminating selection on these skills reduces the Duncan index of gender-based occupational segregation by 20 % to 23 % in 1970 and 2012, respectively. Eliminating selection on DOT variables capturing other accounts of this segregation has a smaller impact.
Link(s) to publication:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13524-018-0706-3
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Siow, A.; Cornelson, K., 2016, "A Quantitative Review of Marriage Markets: How Inequality Is Remaking the American Family by Carbone and Cahn", Journal of Economic Literature, March 54(1): 193 - 207.
Abstract: June Carbone and Naomi Cahn argue that growing earnings inequality and the increased educational attainment of women, relative to men, have led to declining marriage rates for less-educated women and an increase in positive assortative matching since the 1970s. These trends have negatively affected the welfare of children, as they increase the proportion of poor, single-female-headed households. Using data on marriage markets defined by state, race and time, and the Choo-Siow marriage matching function, this review provides a quantitative assessment of these claims. We show that changes in earnings inequality had a qualitatively consistent but modest quantitative impact on marriage rates and positive assortative matching. Neither changes in the wage distributions nor educational attainments can explain the large decline in marriage rates over this period. (JEL C78, D63, J12, J15, J16, J31)
Link(s) to publication:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/jel.54.1.193
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