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Understanding how individual beliefs and societal values influence support for measures to prevent SARS-CoV-2 transmission is vital to developing and implementing effective prevention policies. Using both Just World Theory and Cultural Dimensions Theory, the present study considered how individual-level justice beliefs and country-level social values predict support for vaccination and quarantine policy mandates to reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission. Data from an international survey of adults from 46 countries (N = 6424) were used to evaluate how individual-level beliefs about justice for self and others, as well as national values—that is, power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long-term orientation, and indulgence—influence support for vaccination and quarantine behavioral mandates. Multilevel modeling revealed that support for vaccination and quarantine mandates were positively associated with individual-level beliefs about justice for self, and negatively associated with country-level uncertainty avoidance. Significant cross-level interactions revealed that beliefs about justice for self were associated more strongly with support for mandatory vaccination in countries high in individualism, whereas beliefs about justice for others were more strongly associated with support for vaccination and quarantine mandates in countries high in long-term orientation. Beliefs about justice and cultural values can independently and also interactively influence support for evidence-based practices to reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission, such as vaccination and quarantine. Understanding these multilevel influences may inform efforts to develop and implement effective prevention policies in varied national contexts.

In this article we illustrate how trainers and trainees negotiate epistemic and deontic authority within systemic family therapy training. Adult education principles and postmodern imperatives have challenged trainers’ and trainees’ asymmetries regarding knowledge (epistemics) and power (deontics), normatively implicated by the institutional training setting. Up-to-date, we lack insight into how trainers and trainees negotiate epistemic and deontic rights in naturally occurring dialog within training. Drawing from discursive psychology and conversation analysis, we present an analysis of eight transcribed, videotaped training seminars from a systemic family therapy training program, featuring three trainers and eleven trainees. Our analysis highlights the dilemmatic ways in which participants resist and affirm the normatively implicated trainers’ deontic and epistemic authority. Trainers are shown as mitigating directives and trainees as resisting them, with both displaying (not)knowing, while attending to concerns about (a)symmetry. We discuss our findings’ implications for systemic family therapy training.

Online excessive gaming has been associated with negative player identity constructions depicting an abnormal life-style. Up-to-date, there is limited insight into player identity management talk about excessive online gaming. To address this gap, drawing from discursive and rhetorical psychology, we investigated naturally occurring talk of 134 players of World of Warcraft (WoW) -a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG)- from three publicly available websites and of five players from one focus group. The analysis illuminated participants’ dilemmatic and contradictory ways of constructing the player identity, while displaying immersion in the game. Participants invoke identity constructions like ‘nolifer’, ‘hardcore’ or ‘clean’ player, which they disavow or assign to themselves and to each other depending on the conversational context, while attending to concerns about (ab)normalcy. The study’s findings highlight a dynamic process of player identity construction in talk, occasioned by and exemplifying the contingencies of the discursive context.

Cross-societal differences in cooperation and trust among strangers in the provision of public goods may be key to understanding how societies are managing the COVID-19 pandemic. We report a survey conducted across 41 societies between March and May 2020 (N = 34,526), and test pre-registered hypotheses about how cross-societal differences in cooperation and trust relate to prosocial COVID-19 responses (e.g., social distancing), stringency of policies, and support for behavioral regulations (e.g., mandatory quarantine). We further tested whether cross-societal variation in institutions and ecologies theorized to impact cooperation were associated with prosocial COVID-19 responses, including institutional quality, religiosity, and historical prevalence of pathogens. We found substantial variation across societies in prosocial COVID-19 responses, stringency of policies, and support for behavioral regulations. However, we found no consistent evidence to support the idea that cross-societal variation in cooperation and trust among strangers is associated with these outcomes related to the COVID-19 pandemic. These results were replicated with another independent cross-cultural COVID-19 dataset (N = 112,136), and in both snowball and representative samples. We discuss implications of our results, including challenging the assumption that managing the COVID-19 pandemic across societies is best modeled as a public goods dilemma.

BackgroundThe effective implementation of government policies and measures for controlling the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic requires compliance from the public. This study aimed to examine cross-sectional and longitudinal associations of trust in government regarding COVID-19 control with the adoption of recommended health behaviours and prosocial behaviours, and potential determinants of trust in government during the pandemic.MethodsThis study analysed data from the PsyCorona Survey, an international project on COVID-19 that included 23 733 participants from 23 countries (representative in age and gender distributions by country) at baseline survey and 7785 participants who also completed follow-up surveys. Specification curve analysis was used to examine concurrent associations between trust in government and self-reported behaviours. We further used structural equation model to explore potential determinants of trust in government. Multilevel linear regressions were used to examine associations between baseline trust and longitudinal behavioural changes.ResultsHigher trust in government regarding COVID-19 control was significantly associated with higher adoption of health behaviours (handwashing, avoiding crowded space, self-quarantine) and prosocial behaviours in specification curve analyses (median standardised β = 0.173 and 0.229, p < 0.001). Government perceived as well organised, disseminating clear messages and knowledge on COVID-19, and perceived fairness were positively associated with trust in government (standardised β = 0.358, 0.230, 0.056, and 0.249, p < 0.01). Higher trust at baseline survey was significantly associated with lower rate of decline in health behaviours over time (p for interaction = 0.001).ConclusionsThese results highlighted the importance of trust in government in the control of COVID-19.

It is puzzling that a sizeable percentage of people refuse to get vaccinated against COVID-19. This study aimed to examine social psychological factors influencing their vaccine hesitancy. This longitudinal study traced a cohort of 2663 individuals in 25 countries from the time before COVID-19 vaccines became available (March 2020) to July 2021, when vaccination was widely available. Multilevel logistic regressions were used to examine determinants of actual COVID-19 vaccination behavior by July 2021, with country-level intercept as random effect. Of the 2663 participants, 2186 (82.1%) had been vaccinated by July 2021. Participants' attitude toward COVID-19 vaccines was the strongest predictor of both vaccination intention and subsequent vaccination behavior (p .001). Perceived risk of getting infected and perceived personal disturbance of infection were also associated with higher likelihood of getting vaccinated (p .001). However, religiosity, right-wing political orientation, conspiracy beliefs, and low trust in government regarding COVID-19 were negative predictors of vaccination intention and behavior (p .05). Our findings highlight the importance of attitude toward COVID-19 vaccines and also suggest that certain life-long held convictions that predate the pandemic make people distrustful of their government and likely to accept conspiracy beliefs and therefore less likely to adopt the vaccination behavior.

Although it is known that collective narcissism is associated with problematic intergroup relations, its predictors are less well understood. Two studies, conducted in four European Union countries (Germany, Greece, Portugal, the United Kingdom [UK]), tested the hypotheses that integrated (i.e., realistic and symbolic) threat (Study 1, N = 936) as well as distinctiveness threat (Study 2, N = 434) positively predict national collective narcissism and national ingroup satisfaction, but that only national collective narcissism predicts problematic intergroup relations in reference to threatening outgroups. The results were consistent with those hypotheses. The two types of threat predicted increased national collective narcissism and national ingroup satisfaction. However, only national collective narcissism was associated with negative emotions and hostile behavioral intentions toward the threatening outgroups, when its overlap with national ingroup satisfaction was partialled out. These cross-national findings advanced knowledge of predictors, as well as consequences, of collective narcissism. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused a global health crisis. Consequently, many countries have adopted restrictive measures that caused a substantial change in society. Within this framework, it is reasonable to suppose that a sentiment of societal discontent, defined as generalized concern about the precarious state of society, has arisen. Literature shows that collectively experienced situations can motivate people to help each other. Since societal discontent is conceptualized as a collective phenomenon, we argue that it could influence intention to help others, particularly those who suffer from coronavirus. Thus, in the present study, we aimed (a) to explore the relationship between societal discontent and intention to help at the individual level and (b) to investigate a possible moderating effect of societal discontent at the country level on this relationship. To fulfil our purposes, we used data collected in 42 countries (N = 61,734) from the PsyCorona Survey, a cross-national longitudinal study. Results of multilevel analysis showed that, when societal discontent is experienced by the entire community, individuals dissatisfied with society are more prone to help others. Testing the model with longitudinal data (N = 3,817) confirmed our results. Implications for those findings are discussed in relation to crisis management. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement. New York University Abu Dhabi

El texto completo de este trabajo no está disponible en el Repositorio Académico UPC por restricciones de la casa editorial donde ha sido publicado. Understanding the determinants of COVID-19 vaccine uptake is important to inform policy decisions and plan vaccination campaigns. The aims of this research were to: (1) explore the individual- and country-level determinants of intentions to be vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2, and (2) examine worldwide variation in vaccination intentions. This cross-sectional online survey was conducted during the first wave of the pandemic, involving 6697 respondents across 20 countries. Results showed that 72.9% of participants reported positive intentions to be vaccinated against COVID-19, whereas 16.8% were undecided, and 10.3% reported they would not be vaccinated. At the individual level, prosociality was a significant positive predictor of vaccination intentions, whereas generic beliefs in conspiracy theories and religiosity were negative predictors. Country-level determinants, including cultural dimensions of individualism/collectivism and power distance, were not significant predictors of vaccination intentions. Altogether, this study identifies individual-level predictors that are common across multiple countries, provides further evidence on the importance of combating conspiracy theories, involving religious institutions in vaccination campaigns, and stimulating prosocial motives to encourage vaccine uptake.

A variety of public officials have expressed concern that policies mandating collective public health behaviors (e.g., national/ regional “lockdown”) may result in behavioral fatigue that ultimately renders such policies ineffective. Boredom, specifically, has been singled out as one potential risk factor for non-compliance. We examined whether there was empirical evidence to support this concern during the COVID-19 pandemic in a large cross-national sample of 63,336 community respondents from 116 countries. Although boredom was higher in countries with more COVID-19 cases and countries that instituted more stringent lockdowns, such boredom did not predict longitudinal within-person decreases in social distancing behavior (or vice versa; n = 8031) in early spring and summer of 2020. Overall, we found little evidence that changes in boredom predict individual public health behaviors (handwashing, staying home, self-quarantining, avoiding crowds) over time, or that such behaviors had any reliable longitudinal effects on boredom itself. In summary, contrary to concerns, we found little evidence that boredom posed a public health risk during lockdown and quarantine.

In two studies, we examined the association between nostalgia proneness (i.e., trait-level nostalgia) and importance of the collective self. In Study 1, we tested and supported the hypothesis that nostalgia proneness is positively correlated with relational collectivism, which entails an emphasis on one’s connections with close others and small social networks. In Study 2, we demonstrated that nostalgia proneness is also positively correlated with group collectivism, which emphasizes one’s membership in more abstract, larger social groups or categories, and was reflected in increased identification with a national ingroup. These findings offer insight into the nature of nostalgia proneness—a consequential and stable personality trait.

Previous studies suggested that public trust in government is vital for implementations of social policies that rely on public's behavioural responses. This study examined associations of trust in government regarding COVID-19 control with recommended health behaviours and prosocial behaviours. Data from an international survey with representative samples (N=23,733) of 23 countries were analysed. Specification curve analysis showed that higher trust in government was significantly associated with higher adoption of health and prosocial behaviours in all reasonable specifications of multilevel linear models (median standardised β=0.173 and 0.244, P

Child maltreatment (CM) is a serious societal problem that needs to be reported in order to be dealt with. Teachers, who are in a key position to identify and report CM, often do not report it and this instigated much research on teachers’ intention to report CM. However, most of this research examined potentially related variables without using any particular theory, while the few theoretically informed studies mostly used the theory of planned behavior (TPB), an extension of the theory of reasoned action (TRA). In the present study, both TRA and TPB were used to predict teachers’ intention to report CM. Teachers’ (N = 117) attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control and intention to report CM were assessed with the Child Abuse Report Intention Scale (CARIS) in a 4 (abuse type: physical vs. sexual vs. emotional vs. neglect) × 2 (severity level: low vs. high) within subjects design. TRA and TPB could both predict teachers’ intention to report CM. However, TRA was better than TPB in predicting report intention for low severity cases, whereas TPB was better for high severity cases. TRA and TPB are both useful theories within the context of reporting CM. For the reporting of high (but not low) severity CM it is crucial to understand the potential reporter’s relevant control beliefs. Theoretically driven research on teachers’ intentions to report CM promises an overall better handling of this serious societal problem.

The mere exposure effect (MEE) has been demonstrated mainly in the laboratory. One real-world area where MEEs have been reported concerns the Eurovision Song Contest. However, the two relevant prev...

We proposed that nostalgia, by virtue of its sociality, can be an indirect strategy to counteract relational deficiencies stemming from group-based exclusion. We instructed Greek participants to recall an event in which they experienced exclusion on the basis of their nationality versus a control event. We anticipated that participants would react to group-based exclusion with increased nostalgia. Specifically, because low attachment-related avoidance facilitates proximity-seeking in response to distress, we hypothesized that group-based exclusion would increase nostalgia (a form of proximity-seeking) more strongly when avoidance is low. Results supported this moderation hypothesis. In turn, increased nostalgia in response to group-based exclusion predicted stronger ingroup identification. For low-avoidants, then, group-based exclusion fortified ingroup identification via increased nostalgia (moderated mediation).

Highlights • Risk perception of COVID-19 was associated with more negative/less positive emotions. • Risk perception of COVID-19 was inversely associated with subsequent mental health. • The association between risk perception and mental health was mediated by emotions. • Specification curve analysis was used to avoid subjective analytical decisions., Background Although there are increasing concerns on mental health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, no large-scale population-based studies have examined the associations of risk perception of COVID-19 with emotion and subsequent mental health. Methods : This study analysed cross-sectional and longitudinal data from the PsyCorona Survey that included 54,845 participants from 112 countries, of which 23,278 participants are representative samples of 24 countries in terms of gender and age. Specification curve analysis (SCA) was used to examine associations of risk perception of COVID-19 with emotion and self-rated mental health. This robust method considers all reasonable model specifications to avoid subjective analytical decisions while accounting for multiple testing. Results : All 162 multilevel linear regressions in the SCA indicated that higher risk perception of COVID-19 was significantly associated with less positive or more negative emotions (median standardised β=-0.171, median SE=0.004, P0.05). Limitations Reliance on self-reported data. Conclusions : Risk perception of COVID-19 was associated with emotion and ultimately mental health. Interventions on reducing excessive risk perception and managing emotional distress could promote mental health.

This research examines specific facets of parent satisfaction with childcare centres, namely satisfaction with parent–centre communication and the educational services they provide, as well as respective parent beliefs. These were investigated in relation to centre type (private vs public) and parents’ education. Parents of different educational levels and with children in private or public day-care centres participated in the study. Whereas centre type played a role only concerning the satisfaction with parent–centre communication, the educational level of parents was consistently associated with parent beliefs and parent satisfaction: higher educated parents rated day-care centres less favourably as compared to lower educated parents. Furthermore, parent beliefs mediated the relationship between the educational level of parents and parent satisfaction. Our findings are discussed in the context of existing evidence and in relation to the necessity for a theoretical integration of this issue with ...

This chapter begins with brief review of I. D. Steiner theory of group productivity. It analyzes the conditions under which motivation losses have been found in groups and contrast these with the conditions under which motivation gains have been observed. The study of M. Ringelmann was the earliest demonstration of motivation losses in groups. W. Stroebe and B. S. Frey proposed an economic theory of group productivity that attributed this type of motivation loss to differences in incentive structure between individual and group performance. The theoretical and empirical analysis of the factors that are responsible for motivation losses in groups performed previously makes it possible to design group settings in which motivation losses are unlikely to occur. The chapter describes H. Kohler's original studies and his interpretation of the findings. In a series of articles published in the journal Industrielle Psychotechrnik, Kohler reported the results of several experiments using different types of physical tasks.

The present research examined the relation between choice preferences in elections and 2 peripheral cues: presentation order and familiarity. Relevant previous evidence concerns mainly voters' choices in political elections, where primacy effects were found (i.e., candidates listed earlier had an advantage over candidates listed subsequently). Also, some studies found recency effects in various competitions. However, evidence on the role of familiarity in voting preferences seems rather limited. In 3 studies, data from political and nonpolitical elections were examined with respect to order and familiarity effects. All studies demonstrated the concurrent presence of order and familiarity effects. The findings are viewed in relation to theoretical ideas pertaining to heuristic processing and to implications applying to voting situations.

Studies assessing the impact of relationship quality and social support on marital bereavement have typically focussed on depressive symptoms as the major (and often only) bereavement outcome. Although sadness and depression are important symptoms of grieving, they are neither the only nor necessarily the most important ones. We argue that in addition to measures of depression, grief measures need to be used in assessing bereavement outcome. However, grief measures do not only assess reactions that are specific to bereavement such as yearning, but also general responses that grief shares with other critical life events (e.g., anxiety, shock, anger, intrusive thoughts, and despair). We would expect marital quality to only affect yearning for the loved one who died, but not other more general grief reactions. In contrast, experiencing support from family and friends, though unlikely to reduce yearning, might ameliorate these general grief symptoms as well as depression. Using data on widows from the Changing Lives of Older Couples (CLOC) study, a large-scale prospective study of older couples, we assessed the relationship between marital quality and social support with depression and grief on the death of a spouse. Consistent with hypotheses, social support but not relationship quality was associated with depression and general grief reactions. In contrast, relationship quality but not social support was associated with yearning. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Studies assessing the impact of relationship quality (RQ) on marital bereavement have resulted in discrepant findings. These discrepancies could be due to two shortcomings of previous research, namely that RQ is typically assessed only after bereavement and that bipolar measures of RQ are used. We tested these assumptions with data from the Changing Lives of Older Couples (CLOC) study. This study assessed positive and negative RQ with separate measures and before bereavement. Only negative RQ moderated the impact of bereavement on depressive symptoms: Whereas depression increased with negative RQ during marriage, negative RQ became irrelevant once the partner had died.

This essay aims at a secondary analysis of some of the Greek data collected for the Youth and History project. It is an exploratory investigation that adopts an approach based on Social Identity Theory (SIT) in order to identify correlates of the forms of national identification and ethnocentric bias expressed by Greek adolescents. Variables reflecting both ethnocentric and Eurocentric views were found to be significant predictors of the level of national identification. At the same time, high ethnocentric bias was found to be negatively related to conventional views of nations and an affirmative concept of Europe, while positively related to discriminatory attitudes towards immigrants.

A study of a sample of bereaved and married individuals tested the prediction from stress theory that sex differences in bereavement outcome are due to differences in social support extended to the bereaved. Previous research had established that compared to same-sex married controls, widowers suffer greater health deterioration following the death of a spouse than widows. Although there is some evidence that widows receive more social support than widowers, it has never been tested empirically whether differential social support is responsible for the sex difference in bereavement outcome. Two sets of tests were conducted to examine these hypotheses: first, sex differences in bereavement outcome and in the social support perceived by the bereaved were assessed by means of sex×marital status ANOVAs on depressive symptomatology, loneliness and social support; second, an ANCOVA was used to assess whether the marital status×sex interaction on distress was substantially reduced or eliminated when social support was used as a covariate. Although there was evidence of the expected sex differences in bereavement outcome and social support, there was no evidence that social support mediates the sex differences in bereavement outcome. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

OBJECTIVE: This report examined suicidal behavior during bereavement. METHOD: Suicidal ideation was examined in a group of 60 recently bereaved widows and widowers compared to 60 individually matched married comparison subjects. RESULTS: Suicidal ideation was higher among widowed people than married people and was most excessive for widows. The effect disappeared when there was control for emotional loneliness. Social support did not buffer bereaved individuals against suicidal ideation but reduced suicidal ideation among the married and bereaved alike. CONCLUSIONS: Bereaved persons are at excess risk of suicidal ideation compared to nonbereaved people. Heightened suicidal ideation in bereavement is associated with extreme emotional loneliness and severe depressive symptoms.

The illusion of group effectivity refers to the belief, persistent despite contradictory empirical evidence, that groups can stimulate creativity. This article uses unpublished data from the authors' research on brainstorming to illustrate the illusion of group effectivity and then presents a theoretical interpretation of this illusion based on two assumptions: (a) People are motivated to view their own performance in a positive light. (b) People who generate ideas in groups have difficulty in differentiating between own and others' ideas. They are therefore more prone to this self-serving bias than persons who work individually. In an experiment conducted to test these hypotheses, subjects who had brainstormed either in groups or individually were presented with the set of ideas produced by their nominal or real groups and asked to identify the ideas they had suggested and those that had occurred to them. Results were generally consistent with the hypotheses.

A longitudinal study of a matched sample of 60 recently widowed and 60 married men and women tested predictions from stress and attachment theory regarding the role of social support in adjustment to bereavement. Stress theory predicts a buffering effect, attributing the impact of bereavement on well-being to stressful deficits caused by the loss and assuming that these deficits can be compensated through social support. In contrast, attachment theory denies that supportive friends can compensate the loss of an attachment figure and predicts main effects of marital status and social support. Attachment theory further suggests that marital status and social support influence well-being by different pathways, with the impact of marital status mediated by emotional loneliness and the impact of social support mediated by social loneliness. Results clearly supported attachment theory.