Trinity Luke, Merrill Scott C, Clark Eric M, Koliba Christopher J, Zia Asim, Bucini Gabriela, Smith Julia M
Social Ecological Gaming & Simulation (SEGS) Lab, The University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, United States.
Complex Systems Center, The University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, United States.
Front Vet Sci. 2020 Mar 27;7:130. doi: 10.3389/fvets.2020.00130. eCollection 2020.
Disease outbreaks in U.S. animal livestock industries have economic impacts measured in hundreds of millions of dollars per year. Biosecurity, or procedures intended to protect animals against disease, is known to be effective at reducing infection risk at facilities. Yet, to the detriment of animal health, humans do not always follow biosecurity protocols. Human behavioral factors have been shown to influence willingness to follow biosecurity protocols. Here we show how social cues may affect cooperation with a biosecurity practice. Participants were immersed in a simulated swine production facility through a graphical user interface and prompted to make a decision that addressed their willingness to comply with a biosecurity practice. We tested the effect of varying three experimental variables: (1) the risk of acquiring an infection, (2) the delivery method of the infection risk information (numerical vs. graphical), and (3) the behavior of an automated coworker in the facility. We provide evidence that participants changed their behavior when they observed a simulated worker making a choice to follow or not follow a biosecurity protocol, even though the simulated worker had no economic effect on the participants' payouts. These results advance the understanding of human behavioral effects on biosecurity protocol decisions, demonstrating that social cues need to be considered by livestock facility managers when developing policies to make agricultural systems more disease resilient.
美国畜牧行业的疾病爆发每年造成数亿美元的经济影响。生物安全措施，即旨在保护动物免受疾病侵害的程序，已知在降低养殖场感染风险方面是有效的。然而，不利于动物健康的是，人们并不总是遵守生物安全协议。研究表明，人类行为因素会影响遵守生物安全协议的意愿。在此，我们展示了社会线索可能如何影响对生物安全措施的配合。参与者通过图形用户界面置身于一个模拟的养猪场环境中，并被要求做出一个关乎其遵守生物安全措施意愿的决定。我们测试了三个实验变量变化所产生的影响：（1）感染风险，（2）感染风险信息的传递方式（数字形式与图形形式），以及（3）养殖场中一个自动化“同事”的行为。我们提供的证据表明，当参与者观察到一个模拟工人做出遵守或不遵守生物安全协议的选择时，他们会改变自己的行为，尽管这个模拟工人对参与者的收益没有经济影响。这些结果增进了对人类行为对生物安全协议决策影响的理解，表明畜牧场管理者在制定使农业系统更具抗病能力的政策时需要考虑社会线索。
