Veronica Derricks

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https://hdl.handle.net/1805/27423

Examining the Effects of Targeting Health Information to Black Americans

Professor Veronica Derricks' translational research program focuses primarily on understanding the psychological mechanisms that perpetuate disparities in health and academic outcomes. She conducts ongoing research in which she works with Black community members and primary care physicians to develop messaging interventions that can improve clinicians' delivery of targeted health communication.

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    Too Close for Comfort: Resisting Relevance as a Lever for Persuasion
    (2019-11-22) Derricks, Veronica; Earl, Allison
    Objective: This work investigates how broad principles of persuasion (e.g., the role of relevance) operate in the context of social identities. Although relevance is expected to facilitate persuasion, we use information targeting as a relevance intervention to test whether and why signaling relevance through identities (e.g., race) backfires. Methods: In Study 1, medical practitioners were surveyed about their evaluations and use of information targeting. In Studies 2-5, European Americans and African Americans were told they received information about HIV and/or flu after providing their demographics (targeting condition) or due to chance (control condition). Collectively, these studies tested the direct consequences of increasing relevance via targeting identities (Study 2), the mechanism underlying these consequences (Studies 3-4), whether consequences emerge only when identities are used as a relevance cue (Studies 3-4), and whether perceptions about the source of relevance produces divergent consequences (Study 5). Results: Practitioners reported favorable evaluations and use of targeting (Study 1). In Studies 2-5, being in the targeting (versus control) condition generally decreased attention to the information and produced more negative source evaluations for African Americans, but not European Americans. Studies 3-4 showed that consequences emerged due to perceptions of being unfairly judged, and only emerged when racial identities were used as a relevance cue. Study 5 revealed that targeting backfires when recipients perceive that relevance is derived from the research team. Conclusions: Leveraging relevance through social identities can preclude the expected benefits of relevance by increasing perceptions of judgment and/or beliefs that relevance is being externally imposed.
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    Real and Perceived Discordance in Physicians and U.S. Adults’ Beliefs Regarding the Causes and Controllability of Type 2 Diabetes
    (Taylor & Francis, 2021) Derricks, Veronica; Mosher, Jeremy; Earl, Allison; Jayaratne, Toby E.; Shubrook, Jay H.
    Discordance between physicians and patients’ health beliefs can impede health communication efforts. However, little research considers physicians’ perceptions of patient beliefs, despite the importance of perceptions in shaping communication. In the current work, we examine instances of actual and perceived discordance between physicians and U.S. adults’ beliefs regarding the causes and controllability of type 2 diabetes. 229 family physicians completed an online survey measuring their health beliefs and perceptions of their patients’ beliefs. Physicians’ responses were contrasted against beliefs from a national survey sample of 1,168 U.S. adults. T-tests assessed whether (a) physicians’ beliefs diverged from the national sample’s beliefs (actual discordance), (b) physicians perceived that their health beliefs diverged from their patients’ beliefs (perceived discordance), and (c) physicians’ perceptions of patient beliefs diverged from the national sample’s beliefs (accuracy of perceived discordance). Findings revealed evidence of actual discordance; compared to the national sample, physicians were more likely to attribute type 2 diabetes to genes (versus lifestyle factors) and perceived greater control over developing diabetes. Moreover, although physicians perceived discordance between their own and their patients’ beliefs, data from the national sample suggested that these gaps were less substantial than physicians expected. In particular, findings showed that physicians generally overestimated discordance, expecting that people would be less likely to (1) attribute the development of diabetes to lifestyle factors (versus genes), and (2) perceive control over developing diabetes, than was actually reported. Implications of actual and perceived discordance for effective health communication and patient education are discussed.
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    They’re comparing me to her: Social comparison perceptions reduce belonging and STEM engagement among women with token status
    (SAGE, 2021) Derricks, Veronica; Sekaquaptewa, Denise
    Belonging and academic engagement are important predictors of women’s retention in STEM. To better understand the processes influencing these outcomes, we investigate how numerical underrepresentation (i.e., token status) triggers social comparison perceptions – concerns that others are comparing oneself to another person – that can undermine women’s STEM outcomes. Across four experiments, female college students recruited via subject pool (Study 1a) and MTurk (Studies 1b-3) read a hypothetical scenario in which another female (Studies 1a-3) or male student (Study 2) performed well or poorly in an engineering course. Findings showed that having token (versus non-token) status in the course increased social comparison perceptions (i.e., perceptions about being compared to an ingroup peer), which subsequently reduced course belonging (Studies 1a-1b). Study 2 found that (a) token status increased social comparison perceptions in response to the ingroup (versus outgroup) peer, and (b) social comparison perceptions decreased belonging through stereotype threat concerns, particularly when the peer performed poorly. Study 3 directly manipulated social comparison perceptions to further establish their causal role on negative outcomes and demonstrated that these perceived direct comparisons predicted additional consequences signaling STEM disengagement. Collectively, findings identify a novel process that can diminish belonging and academic engagement for women in STEM. Additional online materials for this article are available on PWQ’s website.