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Abstract Background Implementing a lockdown for disease mitigation is a balancing act: Non-pharmaceutical interventions can reduce disease transmission significantly, but interventions also have considerable societal costs. Therefore, decision-makers need near real-time information to calibrate the level of restrictions. Methods We fielded daily surveys in Denmark during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic to monitor public response to the announced lockdown. A key question asked respondents to state their number of close contacts within the past 24 hours. Here, we establish a link between survey data, mobility data, and hospitalizations via epidemic modelling of a short time-interval around Denmark’s December 2020 lockdown. Using Bayesian analysis, we then evaluate the usefulness of survey responses as a tool to monitor the effects of lockdown and then compare the predictive performance to that of mobility data. Results We find that, unlike mobility, self-reported contacts decreased significantly in all regions before the nation-wide implementation of non-pharmaceutical interventions and improved predicting future hospitalizations compared to mobility data. A detailed analysis of contact types indicates that contact with friends and strangers outperforms contact with colleagues and family members (outside the household) on the same prediction task. Conclusions Representative surveys thus qualify as a reliable, non-privacy invasive monitoring tool to track the implementation of non-pharmaceutical interventions and study potential transmission paths.

Questionable research practices (QRP) are believed to be widespread, but empirical assessments are generally restricted to a few types of practices. Furthermore, conceptual confusion is rife with use and prevalence of QRPs often being confused as the same quantity. We present the hitherto most comprehensive study examining QRPs across scholarly fields and knowledge production modes. We survey perception, use, prevalence and predictors of QRPs among 3,402 researchers in Denmark and 1,307 in the UK, USA, Croatia and Austria. Results reveal remarkably similar response patterns among Danish and international respondents (τ = 0.85). Self-reported use indicates whether respondents have used a QRP in recent publications. 9 out of 10 respondents admitted using at least one QRP. Median use is three out of nine QRP items. Self-reported prevalence reflects the frequency of use. On average, prevalence rates were roughly three times lower compared to self-reported use. Findings indicated that the perceived social acceptability of QRPs influenced self-report patterns. Results suggest that most researchers use different types of QRPs within a restricted time period. The prevalence estimates, however, do not suggest outright systematic use of specific QRPs. Perceived pressure was the strongest systemic predictor for prevalence. Conversely, more local attention to research cultures and academic age was negatively related to prevalence. Finally, the personality traits conscientiousness and, to a lesser degree, agreeableness were also inversely associated with self-reported prevalence. Findings suggest that explanations for engagement with QRPs are not only attributable to systemic factors, as hitherto suggested, but a complicated mixture of experience, systemic and individual factors, and motivated reasoning.

What is the relation between morality and politics? If morality is a collection of cooperative rules, and politics is conflict over which cooperative projects to pursue, then they should be correlated. We examined the relation between moral values and political orientation in samples of participants from the USA (N = 518), Denmark (N = 552), the Netherlands (N = 353), and an international online population (N = 1,337). Political conservatism was consistently related to deference values. We also found some support for the hypotheses that political orientation has distinct relations with family values and group values, and has distinct relations with fairness values and reciprocity values. However, for most hypotheses the results showed no support, largely due to poor model fit or measurement error associated with the political scales. The results suggest that improved measurement of political preferences will help understand the relation between morality and politics.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0282308.].

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all domains of human life, including the economic and social fabric of societies. One of the central strategies for managing public health throughout the pandemic has been through persuasive messaging and collective behaviour change. To help scholars better understand the social and moral psychology behind public health behaviour, we present a dataset comprising of 51,404 individuals from 69 countries. This dataset was collected for the International Collaboration on Social & Moral Psychology of COVID-19 project (ICSMP COVID-19). This social science survey invited participants around the world to complete a series of moral and psychological measures and public health attitudes about COVID-19 during an early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic (between April and June 2020). The survey included seven broad categories of questions: COVID-19 beliefs and compliance behaviours; identity and social attitudes; ideology; health and well-being; moral beliefs and motivation; personality traits; and demographic variables. We report both raw and cleaned data, along with all survey materials, data visualisations, and psychometric evaluations of key variables.

We examined whether political repression deters citizens from engaging in anti-government behaviour (its intended goal) or in fact motivates it. Analyses of 101 nationally representative samples from three continents (N = 139 266) revealed a positive association between perceived levels of repression and intentions to engage in anti-government violence. Additional analyses of fine-grained data from three countries characterized by widespread repression and anti-government violence (N = 2960) identified a positive association between personal experience with repression and intentions to engage in anti-government violence. Randomized experiments revealed that thoughts about repression also motivate participation in anti-government violence. These results suggest that political repression, aside from being normatively abhorrent, motivates anti-repressor violence.

Abstract How should health authorities communicate to motivate the public to comply with health advice during a prolonged health crisis such as a pandemic? During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, for example, people have had to comply with successive restrictions as the world faced multiple races between controlling new waves of the virus and the development and implementation of vaccines. Here, we examine how health authorities and governments most effectively motivate the public by focusing on a specific race: between the Alpha variant and the implementation of the first generation of COVID-19 vaccinations in the winter of 2021. Following prior research on crisis communication, we focus on appeals to fear and hope using communicative aids in the form of visualizations based on epidemiological modelling. Using a population-based experiment conducted in United States ( $$N = 3,022$$ N = 3 , 022 ), we demonstrate that a hope-oriented visual communication aid, depicting the competing effects on the epidemic curve of (1) a more infectious variant and (2) vaccinations, motivates public action more effectively than a fear-oriented visual communication, focusing exclusively on the threat of the new variant. The importance of the implementation of such hope-oriented messages is further highlighted by cross-national representative surveys from eight countries ( $$N = 3,995$$ N = 3 , 995 ), which demonstrate that feelings of fear towards the Alpha variant alone were insufficient to activate strong compliance. Overall, these findings provide general insights into the importance of hope as a health communication strategy during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

Understanding collective behaviour is an important aspect of managing the pandemic response. Here the authors show in a large global study that participants that reported identifying more strongly with their nation reported greater engagement in public health behaviours and support for public health policies in the context of the pandemic.

Theoretical work in evolutionary psychology have proposed that conspiracy theories may serve a coalitional function. Specifically, fringe and offensive statements such as conspiracy theories are expected to send a highly credible signal of coalition membership by clearly distinguishing the speaker’s group from other groups. A key implication of this theory is that cognitive systems designed for alliance detection should intuitively interpret the endorsement of conspiracy theories as coalitional cues. To our knowledge, no previous studies have empirically investigated this claim. Taking the domain of environmental policy as our case, we examine the hypothesis that beliefs framed in a conspiratorial manner act as more efficient coalitional markers of environmental position than similar but non-conspiratorial beliefs. To test this prediction, quota sampled American participants (total N = 2462) completed two pre-registered Who-Said-What experiments where we measured if participants spontaneously categorize targets based on their environmental position, and if this categorization process is enhanced by the use of a conspiratorial frame. We find firm evidence that participants categorize by environmental position, but no evidence that the use of conspiratorial statements increases categorization strength and thus serves a coalitional function.

Objectives The management of the COVID-19 pandemic hinges on the approval of safe and effective vaccines but, equally importantly, on high vaccine acceptance among people. To facilitate vaccine acceptance via effective health communication, it is key to understand levels of vaccine scepticism and the demographic, psychological and political predictors. To this end, we examine the levels and predictors of acceptance of an approved COVID-19 vaccine.Design, setting and participants We examine the levels and predictors of acceptance of an approved COVID-19 vaccine in large online surveys from eight Western democracies that differ in terms of the severity of the pandemic and their response: Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Sweden, Italy, UK and USA (total N=18 231). Survey respondents were quota sampled to match the population margins on age, gender and geographical location for each country. The study was conducted from September 2020 to February 2021, allowing us to assess changes in acceptance and predictors as COVID-19 vaccine programmes were rolled out.Outcome measure The outcome of the study is self-reported acceptance of a COVID-19 vaccine approved and recommended by health authorities.Results The data reveal large variations in vaccine acceptance that ranges from 83% in Denmark to 47% in France and Hungary. Lack of vaccine acceptance is associated with lack of trust in authorities and scientists, conspiratorial thinking and a lack of concern about COVID-19.Conclusion Most national levels of vaccine acceptance fall below estimates of the required threshold for herd immunity. The results emphasise the long-term importance of building trust in preparations for health emergencies such as the current pandemic. For health communication, the results emphasise the importance of focusing on personal consequences of infections and debunking of myths to guide communication strategies.

Research suggests that scientists based at prestigious institutions receive more credit for their work than scientists based at less prestigious institutions, as do scientists working in certain countries. We examined the extent to which country- and institution-related status signals drive such differences in scientific recognition. In a preregistered survey experiment, we asked 4,147 scientists from six disciplines (astronomy, cardiology, materials science, political science, psychology and public health) to rate abstracts that varied on two factors: (i) author country (high status vs lower status in science); (ii) author institution (high status vs lower status university). We found only weak evidence of country- or institution-related status bias, and mixed regression models with discipline as random-effect parameter indicated that any plausible bias not detected by our study must be small in size.

We estimate the willingness to take the booster dose in a representative sample of Danes. We estimate an overall willingness in the adult Danish population of about 87 percent and a willingness of about 95.5 percent among primary vaccine takers. Moreover, we show that these percentages are significantly lower among younger populations, as well as among groups who do not see COVID-19 as a threat to society, those who do not feel that they have the ability to follow recommendations (‘self-efficacy’), those who do not perceive the advice of the health authorities as effective against disease spread (‘response efficacy’), and those who feel that the costs of following recommendations are high (‘response cost’).

The facial traits and appearance of political candidates have been found to predict election outcomes across countries with different electoral systems and institutions. Research over the last decade has provided two different versions of this overall conclusion. First and most thoroughly studied, candidates who from their mere faces are evaluated as more competent get more votes on Election Day. Second, recent research finds that the ideological leanings of candidates and the voters they cater to also matter: Right-wing and conservative candidates receive more votes if they look more dominant, while liberal candidates lose votes when looking dominant and masculine. In this article, we investigate whether these patterns extend to candidate selection and support within parties as determined by party organizations. We test this through an original combination of naive respondents’ trait ratings of candidates in Danish local elections and these candidates’ positions on the ballot as decided by nomination processes within local party organizations. The results strongly support that the conclusions in previous studies extend to dynamics within the party among party members: Danish local party organizations tend to nominate facially competent candidates at the top of the ballot regardless of their ideological leaning. Moreover, liberal and conservative parties position dominant-looking candidates significantly different on the ballot with liberal parties being less likely to assign facially dominant candidates to top ballot positions. These results add important new insights about the underlying psychological processes causing appearance-based voting and relate to the ongoing discussion about the quality of public opinion formation.

Throughout human evolutionary history, cooperative contact with others has been fundamental for human survival. At the same time, social contact has been a source of threats. In this article, we focus on one particular viable threat, communicable disease, and investigate how motivations to avoid pathogens influence people's propensity to interact and cooperate with others, as measured by individual differences in generalized social trust. While extant studies on pathogen avoidance have argued that such motivations should prompt people to avoid interactions with outgroups specifically, we argue that these motivations should prompt people to avoid others more broadly. Empirically, we utilise two convenience samples and a large nationally representative sample of US citizens to demonstrate the existence of a robust and replicable effect of individual differences in pathogen disgust sensitivity on generalized social trust. We furthermore compare the effects of pathogen disgust sensitivity on generalised social trust and outgroup prejudice and explore whether generalised social trust to some extent constitutes a pathway between pathogen avoidance motivations and prejudice.

Selvom de mandlige universitetsstuderende ikke klarer sig bedre end kvinderne frem til specialet, får de gennemsnitligt bedre specialekarakterer. Artiklens analyser viser, at det hverken handler om specialevejlederens køn eller om typen af universitetsstudium. Mulige forklaringer, som det er værd for kommende forskning at forfølge, er dels generel diskrimination af kvindelige specialestuderende og dels de studerendes møde med specialet, hvor kønnenes livssituation og/eller deres reaktioner på rollen som specialestuderende kan være forskellige.

Humans are equipped with a psychological system of followership that evolved to regulate choices of leaders based partly on would-be leaders’ physiological features. One such feature is voice pitch, which is determined by the physiology of the throat. Recent studies find that political candidates in modern elections with lower-pitched voices are generally more successful. As lower-pitched voices are perceived as stronger and more dominant, these findings have been taken to indicate a general preference for dispositional abilities in leaders to protect and prevail in conflicts. Here we extend upon these findings by demonstrating that conservatives and Republicans tend to view the world as much more competitive and threatening than liberals and Democrats. We utilize two existing data sources to show that political candidates with lower-pitched voices are preferred more among conservative Republicans than among liberal Democrats. In a third study we show that preferences for lower-pitched candidate voices stem from individual differences in Social Dominance Orientation (SDO). Importantly, across all three studies subjects’ party affiliation, ideology, and SDO only predict preferences for male candidate voices. We conclude with a discussion of the results in relation to followership psychology and general debates on the rationality of the public with respect to elections.

People are biased partisans: they tend to agree with policies from political parties they identify with, independent of policy content. Here, we investigate how physiological reactions to political parties shape bias. Using changes in galvanic skin conductance responses to the visual presentation of party logos, we obtained an implicit and physiological measure of the affective arousal associated with political parties. Subsequently, we exposed subjects to classical party cue experiments where the party sponsors of specific policies were experimentally varied. We found that partisan bias only obtains among those exhibiting a strong physiological reaction to the party source; being a self-reported party identifier is not sufficient on its own. This suggests that partisan bias is rooted in implicit, affective reactions.

As evidenced by research in evolutionary psychology, humans have evolved sophisticated psychological mechanisms tailored to solve enduring adaptive problems of social life. Many of these social problems are political in nature and relate to the distribution of costs and benefits within and between groups. In that sense, evolutionary psychology suggests that humans are, by nature, political animals. By implication, a straightforward application of evolutionary psychology to the study of public opinion seems to entail that modern individuals find politics intrinsically interesting. Yet, as documented by more than fifty years of research in political science, people lack knowledge of basic features of the political process and the ability to form consistent political attitudes. By reviewing and integrating research in evolutionary psychology and public opinion, we describe (1) why modern mass politics often fail to activate evolved mechanisms and (2) the conditions in which these mechanisms are in fact triggered.

According to models of animal behavior, the relative formidability of conspecifics determines the utility of deferring versus aggressing in situations of conflict. Here we apply and extend these models by investigating how the formidability of exploiters shapes third party moral outrage in humans. Deciding whether to defer to or stand up against a formidable exploiter is a complicated decision as there is both much to lose (formidable individuals are able and prone to retaliate) and much to gain (formidable individuals pose a great future threat). An optimally designed outrage system should, therefore, be sensitive to these cost-benefit trade-offs. To test this argument, participants read scenarios containing exploitative acts (trivial vs. serious) and were presented with head-shot photos of the apparent exploiters (formidable vs. non-formidable). As predicted, results showed that, compared to the non-formidable exploiter, the formidable exploiter activated significantly more outrage in male participants when the exploitative act was serious. Conversely, when it was trivial, the formidable exploiter activated significantly less outrage in male participants. However, these findings were conditioned by the exploiters' perceived trustworthiness. Among female participants, the results showed that moral outrage was not modulated by exploiter formidability.