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In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Psychological Science Accelerator coordinated three large-scale psychological studies to examine the effects of loss-gain framing, cognitive reappraisals, and autonomy framing manipulations on behavioral intentions and affective measures. The data collected (April to October 2020) included specific measures for each experimental study, a general questionnaire examining health prevention behaviors and COVID-19 experience, geographical and cultural context characterization, and demographic information for each participant. Each participant started the study with the same general questions and then was randomized to complete either one longer experiment or two shorter experiments. Data were provided by 73,223 participants with varying completion rates. Participants completed the survey from 111 geopolitical regions in 44 unique languages/dialects. The anonymized dataset described here is provided in both raw and processed formats to facilitate re-use and further analyses. The dataset offers secondary analytic opportunities to explore coping, framing, and self-determination across a diverse, global sample obtained at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which can be merged with other time-sampled or geographic data.

The paper investigates the psychological factors associated with the unprecedented assistance that Poles have offered refugees from Ukraine since the outset of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Building on social identity theory, and examining the current social context in Poland, we focus on three social identity dimensions, i.e., a feeling of closeness towards refugees from Ukraine, anticipatory fears (of a Russian invasion), and a community norm of helping. These three dimensions predict collective helping resulting from a sense of a common fate and a feeling of togetherness with Ukrainians. We tested this hypothesis in a study (N = 1066) conducted between 11 and 17 March 2022. Participants were asked about their helping activities during the previous week; they also responded to questions on different measures of social identity processes. The results support our expectations, revealing that closeness, anticipatory fears, and social norms are associated with two forms of help: benevolent and activist. The results of the study contribute to the discussion on social identity processes underlying offers of help to people fleeing from war-zones. Thus, they enhance our understanding of the role of citizens in terms of their contribution to helping refugees, and can be used to improve responses to other humanitarian crises.

According to the principle of energy-conservation principle, effort investment is usually reduced in situations that are perceived as uncontrollable. This is because when success is recognized as impossible, any effortful actions are no longer justified. However, we predicted that individual differences in uncertainty tolerance, i.e., the need for closure (NFC), may moderate effort investment in uncontrollable situations. We tested this prediction in two experimental studies in which we exposed participants with differing levels of NFC to uncontrollable events, and indexed effort through the assessment of systolic blood pressure (SBP) responses. As predicted, in the uncontrollability (vs. controllability) condition, effort investment decreased significantly among low- but not high-NFC participants. Since gaining certainty and achieving closure is not a critical epistemic goal for low-NFC individuals, exerting extra effort to gain certainty is therefore no longer justified. On the other hand, high-NFC participants do not withhold their efforts, as they are highly motivated to obtain certainty. These results may help to account for contradictory findings in effort-investment behaviour and add substantively to the literature concerning motivation toward closure.

One might assume that the desire to help (here described as Want) is the essential driver of helping declarations and/or behaviors. However, even if desire to help (Want) is low, intention to help may still occur if the expectancy regarding the perceived effectiveness of helping is high. We tested these predictions in a set of three experimental studies. In all three, we measured the desire to help (Want) and the Expectancy that the aid would be impactful for the victim; in addition, we manipulated Expectancy in Study 3. In Studies 1 and 3, we measured the participants’ declaration to help while in Study 2, their helping behavior was examined. In all three studies, we used variations of the same story about a victim. The results supported our hypothesis. Thus, the studies help to tease apart the determinants of helping under conditions of lowered desire to do so, an issue of great importance in public policymaking.

The paper investigates the role of political ideology and an open-minded thinking style (i.e., the tendency to reason based on rules of inference rather than intuitive heuristics) with respect to the accuracy of factual beliefs. In line with political asymmetry theory, we assumed that right-wing beliefs, in contrast to left-wing beliefs, are associated with more inaccurate factual beliefs. We also expected that the open-minded thinking style acts as a buffer against inaccurate factual beliefs among people with right-wing (but not left-wing) political affinities. To test these hypotheses, we conducted three studies (totalThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11109-022-09789-z.

Correction to: Nature Human Behaviour https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01173-x, published online 2 August 2021.In the version of this article initially published, the following authors were omitted from the author list and the Author contributionssection for “investigation” and “writing and editing”: Nandor Hajdu (Institute of Psychology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest,Hungary), Jordane Boudesseul (Facultad de Psicología, Instituto de Investigación Científica, Universidad de Lima, Lima, Perú), RafałMuda (Faculty of Economics, Maria Curie-Sklodowska University, Lublin, Poland) and Sandersan Onie (Black Dog Institute, UNSWSydney, Sydney, Australia & Emotional Health for All Foundation, Jakarta, Indonesia). In addition, Saeideh FatahModares’ name wasoriginally misspelled as Saiedeh FatahModarres in the author list. Further, affiliations have been corrected for Maria Terskova (NationalResearch University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia), Susana Ruiz Fernandez (FOM University of Applied Sciences,Essen; Leibniz-Institut fur Wissensmedien, Tubingen, and LEAD Research Network, Eberhard Karls University, Tubingen, Germany),Hendrik Godbersen (FOM University of Applied Sciences, Essen, Germany), Gulnaz Anjum (Department of Psychology, Simon FraserUniversity, Burnaby, Canada, and Department of Economics & Social Sciences, Institute of Business Administration, Karachi, Pakistan).

This paper investigates the influence of ideology on trust in scientists. We assume that during a pandemic, ideology is linked to levels of trust in scientists such that those espousing left- (vs. right-) wing beliefs trust the scientific profession more. We posit that the negative perception of scientists, a feature of right-wing narratives in the country of study, underlies this effect. Additionally, we argue that ideology has an indirect impact, via levels of trust in scientists, on beliefs and attitudes towards vaccines and vaccine policy. To test these hypotheses, we conducted three studies ( N = 1,155): one prepandemic study and two studies during a pandemic. The results confirmed the hypotheses; however, we observed varied effects at the outset of the pandemic versus later stages. The findings contribute to the ongoing discussion around the ideological underpinnings of trust in scientists and carry implications for public health measures.

The effects of education on people’s climate change beliefs vary as a function of political ideology: for those on the political left, education is related to pro-climate change beliefs, whereas for those on the political right, these effects are weak or negative. This phenomenon has been examined mainly in the US, where climate change has become a highly politicized issue; however, climate change is less politicized in other contexts. Here we analyse the effects of education and political ideology across 64 countries and show that education has positive effects on pro-climate change beliefs at low and mid-levels of development. At higher levels of development, right-wing ideology attenuates (but does not reverse) the positive effects of education. These analyses extend previous findings by systematically investigating the between-country variation in the relationship between education, ideology and climate change beliefs. The current findings suggest that US-centric theories on the topic should not be generally applied to other contexts uncritically. Education increases political polarization on climate change beliefs in the US. Here the authors find that this effect does not generalize to other contexts. Across 64 countries, education has positive effects on climate change beliefs, and interactions with ideology are more nuanced and contextual.

Critical reflection on one's own group is beneficial for the group in the long run, yet critics addressing its wrongdoings are usually not welcomed and have to cope with hostility and ostracism from the ingroup. The present research tested whether the personal sense of control and perceived self-efficacy help one to speak out against one's own group and to endure its pressure to conform. The results across two studies (total N = 212) show that perceived self-efficacy (Study 1, correlational), or its experimental equivalent, perceived self-competence (Study 2, experimental), mediated the relationship between the sense of control and critical group reflection. The findings suggest that confidence in one's own abilities, which is the core of perceived self-efficacy and self-competence, is more important than the feelings of being in control and of having influence over reality. Confidence in one's own efficacy drives the individual to defend one's own ideas even when they are at odds with ingroup norms, and it allows one to cope with the adversity that may arise as a consequence of doing so.

In this experimental study we test the mechanism responsible for the effect of ideology on trust in scientists and beliefs, attitudes towards vaccines and policy acceptance. Based on previous study we expect an increased trust in scientists among the left- vs. right-wingers. We assume that the perception of scientists-as-elites may be responsible for this effect. In addition, we investigate if the perception of scientists as elitists is linked to higher levels of trusts in scientists and higher levels of trust are in turn associated with more positive beliefs and attitudes towards vaccines and vaccine policy.

In three experimental studies we investigate the role of contextual (i.e. issue politicization) and individual (i.e. active open-mindedness) factors, assuming that they influence the manner in which people of different political affinities perceive policy-relevant facts. We focus on political beliefs in the cultural domain, expecting that right-wing beliefs, compared to left-wing beliefs are associated with more inaccurate perceptions of facts (i.e. misperceptions) in ways that are politically congenial to right-wing ideology and official right-wing party narratives. We also argue that the level of accuracy in perceptions held by right-wingers (vs. lefts-wingers) is even lower when assessing highly-politicized (vs. less-politicalized) facts. Then, we postulate that assessments of highly-politicized facts are driven by political beliefs. In contrast, when assessing less-politicized facts, active open-mindedness modifies the relationship between ideology and accuracy assessment. The results of the study confirm the hypotheses proposed.

According to recent studies, people on both the political right and left show prejudice toward groups whose beliefs are in conflict with their own. This prediction applies both to cultural and economic dimensions of political beliefs. In three studies (N = 499) we demonstrate that people on both the cultural and economic right andleft show negative attitudes toward groups on the other side of the given spectrum and that underlying this effect is the perception of value violation. In two out of three studies, we manipulated the extremity of target worldviews to further explore the causal chain between political beliefs, the perception of value violation and prejudice. Our results showed high degree of symmetry between the political left and right in their attitudes toward groups with dissimilar beliefs. However, although people on both sides of the political spectrum show prejudice toward each other, people on the cultural and economic right seem to be more sensitive to value violations than people on the left.

As the relationship between ideology and attitudes towards vaccinations is usually analysed using data collected in the US context, in this report we focus on the vaccination attitudes in Europe, with a special focus on Poland. The current findings show that the effects of ideology on vaccine attitudes are insignificant when European context is considered. Instead, we found that ideology interact with political interest: among people interested in politics, right-wing ideology had negative effect on vaccine attitudes and beliefs, whereas for people not interested in politics, the effects of ideology were insignificant. However, the interaction effects were rather modest and did not provide support for the hypothesis that there is a “liberal bias” against vaccination. We suggest that it insignificant effects of ideology on vaccine attitudes in the European context is related to the fact that vaccines have not become a strongly politicized issue as it is in the US.

We focus on the effects of trust that people have in scientists on attitudes toward vaccination globally. We analysed data from Wellcome Global Monitor (Wellcome Trust, 2018), a survey conducted with more than 140,000 people in more than 140 countries. In our analysis, we focused on worldwide, European, and Polish data. We assumed that higher levels of trust in scientists are related to more positive beliefs and attitudes towards vaccines. We also expected that the level of education modifies the effects in a way that the higher the education, the more positive attitudes towards vaccines. We found that trust in scientists was related to more positive attitudes toward vaccination, which was further modified by education (education exacerbated the effects of trust). That was, however, not the case for Poland, where we only found the main effect of trust but the effects of education were insignificant.

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased negative emotions and decreased positive emotions globally. Left unchecked, these emotional changes might have a wide array of adverse impacts. To reduce negative emotions and increase positive emotions, we tested the effectiveness of reappraisal, an emotion regulation strategy which modifies how one thinks about a situation. Participants from 87 countries/regions (N = 21,644) were randomly assigned to one of two brief reappraisal interventions (reconstrual or repurposing) or one of two control conditions (active or passive). Results revealed that both reappraisal interventions (vs. both control conditions) had consistent effects in reducing negative emotions and increasing positive emotions across different measures. Reconstrual and repurposing had similar effects. Importantly, planned exploratory analyses indicated that reappraisal interventions did not reduce intentions to practice preventive health behaviours. The findings demonstrate the viability of creating scalable, low-cost interventions for use around the world to build resilience during the pandemic and beyond.

According to recent studies, people on both the political right and left show prejudice toward groups whose beliefs are in conflict with their own. This prediction applies to both cultural and economic dimensions of political beliefs. In three studies (N = 499) we demonstrate that people on both the cultural and economic right and left show negative attitudes toward groups on the other side of the given spectrum and that underlying this effect is the perception of value violation. In two out of three studies, we manipulated the extremity of target worldviews to further explore the causal chain between political beliefs, the perception of value violation, and prejudice. Our results showed a high degree of symmetry between the political left and right in their attitudes toward groups with dissimilar beliefs. However, although people on both sides of the political spectrum show prejudice toward each other, people on the cultural and economic right seem to be more sensitive to value violations than people on the left.

Need for cognitive closure (NFC), that is, individual's aversion toward uncertainty and the desire to reduce it quickly usually manifests in effort minimizing cognitive strategies. Recent studies, however, demonstrated that it is also linked with laborious processing when the task itself induces uncertainty. Although this pattern was observed when testing behaviors and cardiovascular activity, it has never been tested on a neurocognitive level. To fill this gap, we investigate whether NFC moderates the impact of task uncertainty on engagement-related P3b component of brain activity. In the experiment, we recorded the electroencephalographic activity of the brain while participants performed a sampling task which provides uncertainty manipulation within participants. We also manipulated NFC between participants. As predicted, we did not find any differences between high and low NFC participants in the P3b component at lower levels of uncertainty. However, at the highest level of uncertainty, the P3b component decreases significantly among low but not high NFC participants. That is because gaining certainty and achieving closure is not a critical epistemic goal for low NFC and thus, exerting extra effort to gain certainty is not justified.

The study focuses on the relationship between religious fundamentalism and brain activity, investigating whether religious beliefs, especially in a fundamentalist form, act as a bulwark against uncertainty that mitigates feelings of threat and worthlessness. We hypothesize that this muted response to uncertainty would manifest neurophysiologically, such that under uncertainty (vs. certainty), religious fundamentalism is associated with reduced activity in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and evinced in the N2 component. Religious fundamentalism was measured on a scale and electroencephalographic neural reactivity in the ACC was recorded as participants completed a Stroop task. We found that greater religious fundamentalism is associated with lower conflict-related anterior cingulate activity (N2 component), suggesting lower sensitivity to cues that might alter a habitual response pattern. This study provides evidence that religious fundamentalism, by providing a sense of coherency and control, may offer relief from distress and uncertainty.

Examining the relationship between brain activity and religious fundamentalism, this study explores whether fundamentalist religious beliefs increase responses to error-related words among participants intolerant to uncertainty (i.e., high in the need for closure) in comparison to those who have a high degree of toleration for uncertainty (i.e., those who are low in the need for closure). We examine a negative-going event-related brain potentials occurring 400 ms after stimulus onset (the N400) due to its well-understood association with the reactions to emotional conflict. Religious fundamentalism and tolerance of uncertainty were measured on self-report measures, and electroencephalographic neural reactivity was recorded as participants were performing an emotional Stroop task. In this task, participants read neutral words and words related to uncertainty, errors, and pondering, while being asked to name the color of the ink with which the word is written. The results confirm that among people who are intolerant of uncertainty (i.e., those high in the need for closure), religious fundamentalism is associated with an increased N400 on error-related words compared with people who tolerate uncertainty well (i.e., those low in the need for closure).

We claim that religious orthodoxy is related to prejudice toward groups that violate important values, i.e., atheists. Moreover, we suggest that expressing prejudice may efficiently reduce the threat posed by this particular group among people who hold high levels, but not low levels, of orthodox belief. We tested these assumptions in an experimental study in which, after being exposed to atheistic worldviews (value-threat manipulation), high and low orthodox participants were allowed (experimental condition) or not (control condition) to express prejudice toward atheists. Threat was operationalized by cardiovascular reactivity, i.e., heart rate (HR); the higher the HR index, the higher the threat. The results found that people who hold high (vs. low) levels of orthodox belief responded with increased HR after the threat manipulation. However, we observed decreased HR after the expression of prejudice toward atheists among highly orthodox participants compared to the control condition. We did not find this effect among people holding low levels of orthodox belief. Thus, we conclude that expressing prejudice toward this particular group may be an efficient strategy to cope with the threat posed by this group for highly orthodox people. The results are discussed in light of previous findings on religious beliefs and the self-regulatory function of prejudice.

Need for Closure (NFC) refers to an individual’s aversion to uncertainty and desire to quickly resolve it. Although numerous studies have demonstrated that this need leads to a reluctance to invest effort in judgments and decision making, we argue that NFC may be associated with less or more effort investment depending on key features of the performance situation and instrumentality of effort for achieving closure. Specifically, we expect that high (vs. low) NFC individuals should exert less effort when both lowand high-effort performance options are available and both afford closure. By contrast, they should exert more effort when task-related uncertainty causes that only effortful means are instrumental for the goal of achieving closure. If only a high-performance option allows the task goal to be attained and instructions how to perform a task are clear and specific, there will be no differences between high and low NFC participants. We tested these hypotheses in an experiment framed in terms of Motivational Intensity Theory. The experiment asked participants to solve cognitive tasks under relevant performance circumstances, indexing effort through assessment of systolic blood pressure (SBP) responses. Results were supportive. They help to account for contradictory findings in the NFC literature and add substantively to the broader literature concerned with determinants and cardiovascular correlates of effort.

Need for closure (NFC), defined as a desire for a quick and unambiguous answer to a question and an aversion to uncertainty, usually leads to a more structured, persistent, and rigid cognitive style. We suggested that this cognitive characteristic could be related to differences in a simple sensory gating control mechanism as reflected in event-related potentials (N1 component). We expected that the higher an individual's NFC, the more attention he/she would allocate to the selected stimuli or the feature of the stimuli, which is manifested in an increased N1 component. We tested this assumption in two experiments where NFC was measured by a scale and event-related potentials were recorded during the Stroop task and the Visual Distractor task. In line with the hypotheses, we found that NFC was associated with amplified processing of stimuli at an early sensory stage, which was evidenced in an increased N1 component. We suggested that this early sensory gating mechanism protects high NFC individuals against anxiety-producing uncertainty.