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Susceptibility to COVID-19 Scams: The Roles of Age, Individual Difference Measures, and Scam-Related Perceptions

As the COVID-19 pandemic was unfolding, a surge in scams was registered across the globe. While COVID-19 poses higher health risks for older adults, it is unknown whether older adults are also facing higher financial risks as a result of COVID-19 scams. Here, we examined age differences in vulnerabi...

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Autores principales: Nolte, Julia, Hanoch, Yaniv, Wood, Stacey, Hengerer, David
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8715153/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34975685
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.789883
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author Nolte, Julia
Hanoch, Yaniv
Wood, Stacey
Hengerer, David
author_facet Nolte, Julia
Hanoch, Yaniv
Wood, Stacey
Hengerer, David
author_sort Nolte, Julia
collection PubMed
description As the COVID-19 pandemic was unfolding, a surge in scams was registered across the globe. While COVID-19 poses higher health risks for older adults, it is unknown whether older adults are also facing higher financial risks as a result of COVID-19 scams. Here, we examined age differences in vulnerability to COVID-19 scams and individual difference measures (such as impulsivity, ad skepticism, and past experiences with fraud) that might help explain them. A lifespan sample (M = 48.03, SD = 18.56) of sixty-eight younger (18–40 years, M = 25.67, SD = 5.93), 79 middle-aged (41–64 years, M = 49.86, SD = 7.20), and 63 older adults (65–84 years, M = 69.87, SD = 4.50) recruited through Prolific completed questions and questionnaires online. In a within-subjects design, each participant responded to five COVID-19 solicitations, psychological measures, and demographic questions. Age group comparisons revealed that older adults were marginally less likely to perceive COVID-19 solicitations as genuine than middle-aged adults were. In addition, older adults perceived significantly fewer benefits than both younger and middle-aged adults did and perceived marginally higher risks than younger adults did. Hence, older adults did not exhibit greater vulnerability to COVID-19 scams. Regardless of age, intentions to respond to COVID-19 solicitations were positively predicted by higher levels of educational attainment, being married, past fraud victimization, and higher levels of positive urgency. As expected, stronger genuineness and benefit perceptions positively predicted action intentions, whereas stronger risk perceptions negatively predicted action intentions As such, COVID-19 scam susceptibility appears to be the result of a impulse control issue that is not easily inhibited, not even by past experiences of scam victimization.
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spelling pubmed-87151532021-12-30 Susceptibility to COVID-19 Scams: The Roles of Age, Individual Difference Measures, and Scam-Related Perceptions Nolte, Julia Hanoch, Yaniv Wood, Stacey Hengerer, David Front Psychol Psychology As the COVID-19 pandemic was unfolding, a surge in scams was registered across the globe. While COVID-19 poses higher health risks for older adults, it is unknown whether older adults are also facing higher financial risks as a result of COVID-19 scams. Here, we examined age differences in vulnerability to COVID-19 scams and individual difference measures (such as impulsivity, ad skepticism, and past experiences with fraud) that might help explain them. A lifespan sample (M = 48.03, SD = 18.56) of sixty-eight younger (18–40 years, M = 25.67, SD = 5.93), 79 middle-aged (41–64 years, M = 49.86, SD = 7.20), and 63 older adults (65–84 years, M = 69.87, SD = 4.50) recruited through Prolific completed questions and questionnaires online. In a within-subjects design, each participant responded to five COVID-19 solicitations, psychological measures, and demographic questions. Age group comparisons revealed that older adults were marginally less likely to perceive COVID-19 solicitations as genuine than middle-aged adults were. In addition, older adults perceived significantly fewer benefits than both younger and middle-aged adults did and perceived marginally higher risks than younger adults did. Hence, older adults did not exhibit greater vulnerability to COVID-19 scams. Regardless of age, intentions to respond to COVID-19 solicitations were positively predicted by higher levels of educational attainment, being married, past fraud victimization, and higher levels of positive urgency. As expected, stronger genuineness and benefit perceptions positively predicted action intentions, whereas stronger risk perceptions negatively predicted action intentions As such, COVID-19 scam susceptibility appears to be the result of a impulse control issue that is not easily inhibited, not even by past experiences of scam victimization. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-12-15 /pmc/articles/PMC8715153/ /pubmed/34975685 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.789883 Text en Copyright © 2021 Nolte, Hanoch, Wood and Hengerer. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Nolte, Julia
Hanoch, Yaniv
Wood, Stacey
Hengerer, David
Susceptibility to COVID-19 Scams: The Roles of Age, Individual Difference Measures, and Scam-Related Perceptions
title Susceptibility to COVID-19 Scams: The Roles of Age, Individual Difference Measures, and Scam-Related Perceptions
title_full Susceptibility to COVID-19 Scams: The Roles of Age, Individual Difference Measures, and Scam-Related Perceptions
title_fullStr Susceptibility to COVID-19 Scams: The Roles of Age, Individual Difference Measures, and Scam-Related Perceptions
title_full_unstemmed Susceptibility to COVID-19 Scams: The Roles of Age, Individual Difference Measures, and Scam-Related Perceptions
title_short Susceptibility to COVID-19 Scams: The Roles of Age, Individual Difference Measures, and Scam-Related Perceptions
title_sort susceptibility to covid-19 scams: the roles of age, individual difference measures, and scam-related perceptions
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8715153/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34975685
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.789883
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