Collectivism predicts mask use during COVID-19.

Since its outbreak, COVID-19 has impacted world regions differentially. Whereas some regions still record tens of thousands of new infections daily, other regions have contained the virus. What explains these striking regional differences? We advance a cultural psychological perspective on mask usage, a precautionary measure vital for curbing the pandemic. Four large-scale studies provide evidence that collectivism (versus individualism) positively predicts mask usage-both within the United States and across the world. Analyzing a dataset of all 3,141 counties of the 50 US states (based on 248,941 individuals), Study 1a revealed that mask usage was higher in more collectivistic US states. Study 1b replicated this finding in another dataset of 16,737 individuals in the 50 US states. Analyzing a dataset of 367,109 individuals in 29 countries, Study 2 revealed that mask usage was higher in more collectivistic countries. Study 3 replicated this finding in a dataset of 277,219 Facebook users in 67 countries. The link between collectivism and mask usage was robust to a host of control variables, including cultural tightness-looseness, political affiliation, demographics, population density, socioeconomic indicators, universal health coverage, government response stringency, and time. Our research suggests that culture fundamentally shapes how people respond to crises like the COVID-19 pandemic. Understanding cultural differences not only provides insight into the current pandemic, but also helps the world prepare for future crises.

Historically rice-farming societies have tighter social norms in China and worldwide.

Data recently published in PNAS mapped out regional differences in the tightness of social norms across China [R. Y. J. Chua, K. G. Huang, M. Jin, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 116, 6720-6725 (2019)]. Norms were tighter in developed, urbanized areas and weaker in rural areas. We tested whether historical paddy rice farming has left a legacy on social norms in modern China. Premodern rice farming could plausibly create strong social norms because paddy rice relied on irrigation networks. Rice farmers coordinated their water use and kept track of each person's labor contributions. Rice villages also established strong norms of reciprocity to cope with labor demands that were twice as high as dryland crops like wheat. In line with this theory, China's historically rice-farming areas had tighter social norms than wheat-farming areas, even beyond differences in development and urbanization. Rice-wheat differences were just as large among people in 10 neighboring provinces (n = 3,835) along the rice-wheat border. These neighboring provinces differ sharply in rice and wheat, but little in latitude, temperature, and other potential confounding variables. Outside of China, rice farming predicted norm tightness in 32 countries around the world. Finally, people in rice-farming areas scored lower on innovative thinking, which tends to be lower in societies with tight norms. This natural test case within China might explain why East Asia-historically reliant on rice farming-has tighter social norms than the wheat-farming West.

Collective Resilience and Coping Mechanisms Among International Faculty Members Amid Snap Lockdowns During the Delta and Omicron Variant Outbreaks in East China.

This study explores international faculty members' resilience and the active challenges to establishing coping mechanisms while facing a mental health crisis provoked by the Delta and Omicron lockdowns in China. Grounded in a qualitative approach, this study used a transcendental phenomenological methodology to examine 16 international faculty members affiliated with higher education institutions in Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Nanjing. The findings showed that participants had various mental health issues amid snap lockdowns and persistent nucleic acid application tests. They perceived the most influential sources of coping mechanisms to be (a) social and emotional support; (b) prosocial behavior; and (c) engagement with the public and social services alongside the domestic faculty members. This study emphasizes the significance of collective resilience and prosocial behaviors, calling on future scholars to pay more attention to the host group's cultural values and community resilience as coping mechanisms during the public health crisis provoked by the pandemic.

How Rice Fights Pandemics: Nature-Crop-Human Interactions Shaped COVID-19 Outcomes.

Wealthy nations led health preparedness rankings in 2019, yet many poor nations controlled COVID-19 better. We argue that a history of rice farming explains why some societies did better. We outline how traditional rice farming led to tight social norms and low-mobility social networks. These social structures helped coordinate societies against COVID-19. Study 1 compares rice- and wheat-farming prefectures within China. Comparing within China allows for controlled comparisons of regions with the same national government, language family, and other potential confounds. Study 2 tests whether the findings generalize to cultures globally. The data show rice-farming nations have tighter social norms and less-mobile relationships, which predict better COVID outcomes. Rice-farming nations suffered just 3% of the COVID deaths of nonrice nations. These findings suggest that long-run cultural differences influence how rice societies-with over 50% of the world's population-controlled COVID-19. The culture was critical, yet the preparedness rankings mostly ignored it.

Fear during pandemic promoted holistic cognitive style: The moderating role of uncertainty.

The present study explored the link between fear and holistic cognitive style and the moderating role of uncertainty. We examined these effects in a real-life situation: the long-term, global COVID-19 pandemic, which provided a natural context of fear and uncertainty. The current study comprises three studies recruiting N = 1,310 participants. Study 1 compared the link between fear and holistic style in the United States (a relatively uncertain situation presented by the COVID-19 pandemic) and China (a pandemic situation with relative certainty) in the early days of the pandemic. Study 2 examined the moderation effect of uncertainty in the relationship between fear and holistic style by manipulating participants into a fearful (vs. control) condition. Study 3 employed a longitudinal design to demonstrate the effect of fear-related emotions on holistic style change over a 3-month period. Across three studies, the moderation effect of uncertainty in the relationship between fear-related emotions and holistic style during the COVID-19 pandemic was consistently observed. In sum, this study provided an ecological and explanatory mechanism for understanding the impact of individuals' fear on holistic cognitive style. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Trauma-Informed Care: A Transcendental Phenomenology of the Experiences of International Faculty during the Delta and Omicron Variant Outbreaks in East China.

This transcendental phenomenological study explored psychologically traumatic incidents and risk factors among international faculty members (IFMs) who experienced long-term lockdowns during the Delta and Omicron outbreak periods in East China. Based on empirical voices from 18 IFMs in Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Nanjing, this study used trauma-informed care as its primary theoretical lens to examine potential traumatic incidents and risk factors. Findings showed that participants had neuroses about the omen of lockdowns and felt exhausted and frustrated about persistent polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests. They also experienced or witnessed burnout and dropout due to leisure constraints. Most notably, participants had concerns about families and friends during the series of lockdowns, entailing extreme stress due to separation, illness, loss, and grief. Overall, this study provides practical implications for counseling practices about social and cultural considerations and systemic barriers that impact clients' well-being.

Coping and Anxiety During Lockdown in Spain: The Role of Perceived Impact and Information Sources.

Background/Purpose: In the context of COVID-19 lockdowns, extant research suggests that secondary coping (a strategy aimed at adjusting oneself self to the stressor) is more robustly associated with better mental health than primary coping (a strategy aimed at adjusting the stressor to oneself). We investigated whether these findings are generalizable to Spain-one of the most severely affected countries at that time. We also tested whether the link between secondary coping and mental health (as measured by anxiety) can be accounted for by how individuals perceive the COVID-19 impact (ie, perceived life changes and personal global impact) and how frequently they use traditional and social media to check COVID-19-related information. Methods: A diverse community sample (N = 408), collected during the first lockdown in Spain (early April 2020), completed a multi-measure online survey including the targeted variables. Results: Secondary coping outperformed primary coping in predicting reduced anxiety during the lockdown in Spain. Moreover, lower perceived life changes from COVID-19 and reduced personal global impact from COVID-19 both mediated the negative secondary coping-anxiety relationship. No indirect effects emerged for either conventional or social media exposure. Conclusion: These results (a) strengthen the cross-cultural validity of the link between secondary coping and anxiety and (b) advance our understanding of the psychological mechanisms underlying this association.

Mask Use Depends on the Individual, Situation, and Location-Even Without COVID-19 Transmission: An Observational Study in Shanghai.

COVID-19 has drastically altered people's mask-wearing behaviors around the world. What is unknown is how long these mask behaviors will last post-COVID-19? To investigate how individual, situational, and locational factors influence mask use in the absence of community spread of COVID-19, we conducted an observational study in public areas in the megacity of Shanghai, China. Researchers coded people's mask use in various suburban and urban districts and outdoor and indoor locations with and without mask requirements. Firstly, even without any local transmissions in more than 40days, 62% of the sample (N=1,282) still wore masks in public places. The data showed that people in more urban areas wore masks more often and that people wore masks in places where it was mandated. Women also wore masks more than men, and older people complied more with mask enforcement policies. We found that more densely populated districts and areas with more inflow of non-locals also predicted more mask use. We argue that the pandemic has long-lasting effects on human behavior like mask usage and reflects individuals' continual conformity to new social norms.

Anger among Chinese migrants amid COVID-19 discrimination: The role of host news coverage, cultural distance, and national identity.

As the early COVID-19 outbreak sparked xenophobia against people of Asian and Chinese background, we collected data from Chinese migrants worldwide to test how discrimination at a macro-level was perceived by the Chinese during COVID-19 globally. Specifically, we examined (1) whether/how the Chinese migrants were aware of discrimination against their co-nationals during COVID; (2) if so, whether anger was a predominant reaction of these Chinese towards certain exposure to relevant information; (3) how responses of anger transcend across the group of Chinese migrants. Integrating the ecological approach to media and cultural psychology, as well as the intergroup perspective of social psychology, we conducted a study that explored the impact of traditional media exposure to discrimination on collective anger-a process mediated by national identity among the Chinese migrants. Findings provide some evidence that geographically dispersed mono-cultural groups may share or identify with collective emotions when facing xenophobic threats in a macro context. Further examination of cultural distance (between China and the host country) among the Chinese migrants also revealed a particular interaction between host newspaper coverage and cultural distance on national identity. These findings suggest further research to examine the emotional norms of similar cultures bonded via strong collective identities in times of intergroup threat and the theoretical possibility for diasporic identity processes.

Ethnic Stereotype Formation and Its Impact on Sojourner Adaptation: A Case of "Belt and Road" Chinese Migrant Workers in Montenegro.

Ethnic stereotypes are cognitive markers that are formed and modified because of intercultural contact with a new cultural group. There is now much empirical evidence that explicates how stereotypes of ethnic groups can impact individuals' acculturation experiences. However, what is unknown is how previously nonexistent ethnic beliefs are formed as a result of contact with the local culture. One hundred and seventy-four (N = 174) overseas Chinese construction workers were contacted through the Chinese Consulate in Montenegro and agreed to participate in the present study. The online questionnaire asked workers to describe Montenegrin majority members in terms of five characteristics. These traits formed the stereotype markers that were classified as positive, neutral, or negative. Sojourners also answered questions that measured perceived cultural distance, social exclusion, knowledge of Montenegrin culture, feelings of social exclusion, and their sociocultural adaptation. Results show that both positive and negative stereotypes are correlated with less social exclusion and better socio-cultural adaptation. Perceived cultural distance, knowledge of host culture and length of stay was mediated by stereotypes on adaptation outcomes. Interestingly longer sojourn did not lessen the type of stereotype, nor did it reduce cultural distance. Contribution to the stereotype literature and practical understanding of how Chinese sojourners see majority members will be discussed.

Crossing the rice-wheat border: Not all intra-cultural adaptation is equal.

This study aimed to test whether or not where people come from and move to impacts their method for dealing with stress. We investigated this research question among newcomers crossing between the rice and wheat farming regions in China-south and north China, respectively. New evidence suggests wheat-farming agriculture fosters a coping strategy of changing the environment (primary coping), while rice-farming regions foster the converse strategy of fitting into the environment (secondary coping). Using two longitudinal studies on newcomers at universities located in both the rice and wheat farming regions, we hypothesized that students from south China (rice region) at a university in north China (wheat region) would use more primary coping and it would lead to better adaptation (Study 1). In contrast, students from wheat-farming regions moving to a rice university would benefit from secondary coping as an effective strategy for buffering stress (Study 2). Results indicated that for students from rice-farming regions who were studying universities in wheat-farming regions, secondary coping was damaging and attenuated the stress-adaptation relationship. However, in study 2, the reverse was found, as secondary coping was found to buffer the negative effects of stress on sociocultural adaptation for students from wheat-farming regions who were studying at universities in rice-farming regions. This study lends further support to the theory that ecological factors impact how individuals cope with the acculturative stress of moving to a new environment.

The stress of studying in China: primary and secondary coping interaction effects.

Answering the call for research on coping outside of the Western world, the present study confirms previous research that indicated Asians cope with stress differently from other ethnic groups. In the present study, we explore the stress-coping-adjustment model and its role in acculturation for educational sojourners in the People's Republic of China. Using a sample of 121 recent exchange students (Asian, n = 52; non-Asian, n = 69), we administered surveys in the Fall of 2013 and 90 days later to measure students' socio-cultural adaptation. Results indicate several significant findings. Acculturative stress and perceived cultural distance had no role in predicting adaptation. Non-Asians reported greater adjustment even though cultural distance was greater. As hypothesized, non-Asians used more primary and secondary coping compared to Asians. Moderation analyses indicate three-way interactions among stress × coping × group, showing that non-Asians benefit from high usage primary coping, while primary coping exacerbates the negative effects of stress on adjustment for Asians. Secondary coping proves to be beneficial for both groups and improves adjustment across low and moderate stress levels. Results support recent developments in collective coping, suggesting that primary and secondary coping may not be beneficial for all ethnic groups in all circumstances. Research implications and practical contributions are discussed.