Intentions to be Vaccinated Against COVID-19: The Role of Prosociality and Conspiracy Beliefs across 20 Countries.

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.

Social identity threat across group status: Links to psychological well-being and intergroup bias through collective narcissism and ingroup satisfaction.

OBJECTIVE: Through two correlational studies (Study 1: Turkish majority, Kurdish minority; Study 2: White British majority; Black minority), we examined the implications of social identity threat for majority and minority ethnic group members' psychological well-being and intergroup bias, using a social identity framework that incorporates the recently highlighted distinction between narcissistic and non-narcissistic positive evaluation of the ingroup (i.e., collective narcissism and ingroup satisfaction, respectively). METHOD: Online questionnaires were completed by 397 Turkish nationals (265 ethnic Turks and 132 ethnic Kurds, Mage = 32.81, SD = 11.67) in Study 1 and 351 British individuals (163 White and 188 Black British; Mage = 31.47, SD = 10.84) in Study 2. RESULTS: Social identity threat was consistently associated with collective narcissism among all ethnic groups, whereas it was either unrelated or related negatively to ingroup satisfaction. Collective narcissism was positively associated with intergroup bias among both majority and minority groups. Unexpectedly, ingroup satisfaction was also related to greater bias particularly among majority members. In all groups, ingroup satisfaction (but not collective narcissism) was directly associated with greater psychological well-being. CONCLUSIONS: Findings highlight the importance of exploring the narcissistic component of positive ingroup evaluation to provide a more nuanced understanding of the relationships between social identity threat and personal well-being, as well as intergroup bias. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

A social identity needs perspective to Veg*nism: Associations between perceived discrimination and well-being among Veg*ns in Turkey.

We examined the associations between perceived discrimination, social identity need satisfaction, and well-being among a sample of vegetarians and vegans (veg*ns) in Turkey. Drawing on the Rejection Identification Model, Motivated Identity Construction Theory, and the Social Cure approach, we tested whether perceived discrimination was related to the satisfaction of esteem, meaning, belonging, efficacy, distinctiveness, and continuity needs derived from veg*n group membership and whether the satisfaction of these needs, in turn, was associated with psychological well-being and self-esteem. A total of 350 veg*ns living in Turkey participated in an online study and completed measures of perceived discrimination based on veg*n group membership, veg*n identity need satisfaction, psychological well-being, and global level self-esteem. As expected, perceived discrimination was prevalent among Turkish veg*ns (more so among vegans) and was strongly associated with the greater satisfaction of all identity needs. In turn, the satisfaction of efficacy and continuity needs was related to greater well-being, showing an indirect association between perceived discrimination and well-being. Findings also showed that the satisfaction of the esteem need predicted (less strongly) lower levels of psychological well-being and self-esteem, indicating only some aspects of need satisfaction through veg*n identities to have positive implications for well-being. Findings are discussed in terms of the relevant socio-cultural environment, social identity theories, and stigmatization in the context of veg*n group membership.

Imagined contact facilitates acculturation, Sometimes: Contradicting evidence from two sociocultural contexts.

OBJECTIVE: Imagined intergroup contact has been shown to be an effective tool to improve intergroup relationships in various settings, yet the application of the strategy among minority group members and across cultures has been scarce. The current research aimed to test imagined contact effects on minority group members' acculturation strategies (contact participation and culture maintenance), perceived discrimination, feelings of belongingness, and social acceptance across three studies conducted in the United Kingdom (Study 1) and Turkey (Studies 2 and 3). METHOD: The sample consisted of Eastern Europeans in Study 1 (N = 63) and Kurds in Study 2 and 3 (N = 66 and 210, respectively). Participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 conditions (control vs. imagined contact) and completed measures of acculturation, perceived discrimination, general belongingness, and social acceptance. RESULTS: Findings showed that while imagined contact significantly reduced perceived discrimination and culture maintenance, and increased contact participation and social acceptance among Eastern Europeans (Study 1), it reduced social acceptance and contact participation among Kurds recruited from a conflict-ridden homogeneous setting (Study 2). With a larger and more heterogeneous sample of Kurds (Study 3), these effects occurred only among those with higher ingroup identification. Moreover, in all studies social acceptance mediated the effects of imagined contact on contact participation and perceived discrimination. DISCUSSION: Findings offer important insights about the use of the imagined contact strategy among minority group members and imply the need to take into account the context-dependent nature of contact strategies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Toleration, discrimination, or acceptance? How majorities interpret and legitimize minority toleration depends on outgroup threat.

The notion of tolerance is widely embraced in plural contexts, but little is known about how majority members interpret the toleration of minorities. With four studies, we investigated majority group members' interpretations of a minority toleration situation (compared to full acceptance and discrimination situations) as a function of outgroup threat. Study 1 (N = 214) showed that higher perception of threat from Syrian refugees was associated with Turkish natives' stronger likelihood of interpreting a refugee toleration situation as 'acceptance'. Studies 2 (N = 161, threatening context: Syrian refugees-Turkish natives) and 3 (N = 206, non-threatening context: homosexuals-liberal heterosexual students) demonstrated that toleration was interpreted more as a form of acceptance in a high-threat context, whereas it was perceived more like discrimination in the non-threatening context. Experimental Study 4 (N = 150, pre-registered, Muslims-Christians in the UK) indicated that increasing outgroup threat led to higher legitimization of toleration, which, in turn, related to lower support of minority rights. It is concluded that outgroup threat affects how people interpret the way in which minorities are treated, which has implications for initiatives and policies that try to stimulate tolerance towards minority groups.

Looking for your cross-group friends after the breakout? Children's intergroup contact behaviours before and after the onset of COVID-19.

While COVID-19 implications for prejudice have been investigated among adults in previous research, children's intergroup reactions to the pandemic and specifically how native children's contact behaviours with refugees might have changed after the pandemic has not been examined yet. Drawing on a unique longitudinal school dataset (N = 861, 5th graders, Mage reported at T1 = 10.38, SD = 0.68) collected before the onset of the pandemic (T1, pre-lockdown), after the onset of the pandemic (T2, post-lockdown), and 6 months after the post-lockdown (T3, follow-up) in Turkey, we examined how children's contact behaviour (positive and negative contact), contact motivation (self-efficacy and volition), as well as behavioural tendencies (approach and avoidance) have shifted during this period (2.5 years). We observed a consistent pattern of improvement in contact behaviours demonstrated by increases in positive contact variables and decreases in negative contact variables particularly from T1 to T2. The change in some positive contact variables was stable for 6 months, while negative contact and avoidance rapidly regressed to the baseline during the normalization period (T3). The boosting effect of the pandemic was particularly pronounced among children who displayed greater prejudice towards refugees before the pandemic. Findings contribute to the growing research literature delineating the potential benefits of COVID-19 at the collective level.

Pandemic boredom: Little evidence that lockdown-related boredom affects risky public health behaviors across 116 countries.

Some 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 noncompliance. 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 in countries that instituted more stringent lockdowns, such boredom did not predict longitudinal within-person decreases in social distancing behavior (or vice versa; n = 8,031) 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, and 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. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Concern with COVID-19 pandemic threat and attitudes towards immigrants: The mediating effect of the desire for tightness.

Tightening social norms is thought to be adaptive for dealing with collective threat yet it may have negative consequences for increasing prejudice. The present research investigated the role of desire for cultural tightness, triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, in increasing negative attitudes towards immigrants. We used participant-level data from 41 countries (N = 55,015) collected as part of the PsyCorona project, a cross-national longitudinal study on responses to COVID-19. Our predictions were tested through multilevel and SEM models, treating participants as nested within countries. Results showed that people's concern with COVID-19 threat was related to greater desire for tightness which, in turn, was linked to more negative attitudes towards immigrants. These findings were followed up with a longitudinal model (N = 2,349) which also showed that people's heightened concern with COVID-19 in an earlier stage of the pandemic was associated with an increase in their desire for tightness and negative attitudes towards immigrants later in time. Our findings offer insight into the trade-offs that tightening social norms under collective threat has for human groups.

Correction: Politicization of COVID-19 health-protective behaviors in the United States: Longitudinal and cross-national evidence.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0256740.].

Using machine learning to identify important predictors of COVID-19 infection prevention behaviors during the early phase of the pandemic.

Before vaccines for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) became available, a set of infection-prevention behaviors constituted the primary means to mitigate the virus spread. Our study aimed to identify important predictors of this set of behaviors. Whereas social and health psychological theories suggest a limited set of predictors, machine-learning analyses can identify correlates from a larger pool of candidate predictors. We used random forests to rank 115 candidate correlates of infection-prevention behavior in 56,072 participants across 28 countries, administered in March to May 2020. The machine-learning model predicted 52% of the variance in infection-prevention behavior in a separate test sample-exceeding the performance of psychological models of health behavior. Results indicated the two most important predictors related to individual-level injunctive norms. Illustrating how data-driven methods can complement theory, some of the most important predictors were not derived from theories of health behavior-and some theoretically derived predictors were relatively unimportant.

Predictors of adherence to public health behaviors for fighting COVID-19 derived from longitudinal data.

The present paper examines longitudinally how subjective perceptions about COVID-19, one's community, and the government predict adherence to public health measures to reduce the spread of the virus. Using an international survey (N = 3040), we test how infection risk perception, trust in the governmental response and communications about COVID-19, conspiracy beliefs, social norms on distancing, tightness of culture, and community punishment predict various containment-related attitudes and behavior. Autoregressive analyses indicate that, at the personal level, personal hygiene behavior was predicted by personal infection risk perception. At social level, social distancing behaviors such as abstaining from face-to-face contact were predicted by perceived social norms. Support for behavioral mandates was predicted by confidence in the government and cultural tightness, whereas support for anti-lockdown protests was predicted by (lower) perceived clarity of communication about the virus. Results are discussed in light of policy implications and creating effective interventions.

Lockdown Lives: A Longitudinal Study of Inter-Relationships Among Feelings of Loneliness, Social Contacts, and Solidarity During the COVID-19 Lockdown in Early 2020.

We examine how social contacts and feelings of solidarity shape experiences of loneliness during the COVID-19 lockdown in early 2020. From the PsyCorona database, we obtained longitudinal data from 23 countries, collected between March and May 2020. The results demonstrated that although online contacts help to reduce feelings of loneliness, people who feel more lonely are less likely to use that strategy. Solidarity played only a small role in shaping feelings of loneliness during lockdown. Thus, it seems we must look beyond the current focus on online contact and solidarity to help people address feelings of loneliness during lockdown. Finally, online contacts did not function as a substitute for face-to-face contacts outside the home-in fact, more frequent online contact in earlier weeks predicted more frequent face-to-face contacts in later weeks. As such, this work provides relevant insights into how individuals manage the impact of restrictions on their social lives.

'We are all in the same boat': How societal discontent affects intention to help during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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.

COVID-19 stressors and health behaviors: A multilevel longitudinal study across 86 countries.

Anxiety associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and home confinement has been associated with adverse health behaviors, such as unhealthy eating, smoking, and drinking. However, most studies have been limited by regional sampling, which precludes the examination of behavioral consequences associated with the pandemic at a global level. Further, few studies operationalized pandemic-related stressors to enable the investigation of the impact of different types of stressors on health outcomes. This study examined the association between perceived risk of COVID-19 infection and economic burden of COVID-19 with health-promoting and health-damaging behaviors using data from the PsyCorona Study: an international, longitudinal online study of psychological and behavioral correlates of COVID-19. Analyses utilized data from 7,402 participants from 86 countries across three waves of assessment between May 16 and June 13, 2020. Participants completed self-report measures of COVID-19 infection risk, COVID-19-related economic burden, physical exercise, diet quality, cigarette smoking, sleep quality, and binge drinking. Multilevel structural equation modeling analyses showed that across three time points, perceived economic burden was associated with reduced diet quality and sleep quality, as well as increased smoking. Diet quality and sleep quality were lowest among respondents who perceived high COVID-19 infection risk combined with high economic burden. Neither binge drinking nor exercise were associated with perceived COVID-19 infection risk, economic burden, or their interaction. Findings point to the value of developing interventions to address COVID-related stressors, which have an impact on health behaviors that, in turn, may influence vulnerability to COVID-19 and other health outcomes.

I (dis)like the way you (dis)like them: The role of extended contact on social distance and attitudes towards the ingroup.

While extended intergroup contact has been commonly studied in the context of prejudice reduction, less is known about its implications for processes related to the ingroup. Through three correlational and one experimental studies (total N = 897) conducted in two different intergroup contexts (Turkey and United Kingdom), we investigated whether extended intergroup contact relates to social distance and attitudes towards ingroup members as a function of outgroup attitudes. We also investigated ingroup identification and perceived ingroup morality as potential mediators in these associations. Correlational studies demonstrated that especially when outgroup attitudes were more negative, participants' positive (but not negative) extended contact was related to a more negative evaluation of the ingroup; whereas when outgroup attitudes were more positive, extended contact was associated with positive attitudes towards the ingroup. We found experimental evidence for the suggested relationships in relation to ingroup social distance. Findings are discussed in the light of vicarious dissonance theory and deprovincialization hypothesis.

Politicization of COVID-19 health-protective behaviors in the United States: Longitudinal and cross-national evidence.

During the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. conservative politicians and the media downplayed the risk of both contracting COVID-19 and the effectiveness of recommended health behaviors. Health behavior theories suggest perceived vulnerability to a health threat and perceived effectiveness of recommended health-protective behaviors determine motivation to follow recommendations. Accordingly, we predicted that-as a result of politicization of the pandemic-politically conservative Americans would be less likely to enact recommended health-protective behaviors. In two longitudinal studies of U.S. residents, political conservatism was inversely associated with perceived health risk and adoption of health-protective behaviors over time. The effects of political orientation on health-protective behaviors were mediated by perceived risk of infection, perceived severity of infection, and perceived effectiveness of the health-protective behaviors. In a global cross-national analysis, effects were stronger in the U.S. (N = 10,923) than in an international sample (total N = 51,986), highlighting the increased and overt politicization of health behaviors in the U.S.

Lives versus Livelihoods? Perceived economic risk has a stronger association with support for COVID-19 preventive measures than perceived health risk.

This paper examines whether compliance with COVID-19 mitigation measures is motivated by wanting to save lives or save the economy (or both), and which implications this carries to fight the pandemic. National representative samples were collected from 24 countries (N = 25,435). The main predictors were (1) perceived risk to contract coronavirus, (2) perceived risk to suffer economic losses due to coronavirus, and (3) their interaction effect. Individual and country-level variables were added as covariates in multilevel regression models. We examined compliance with various preventive health behaviors and support for strict containment policies. Results show that perceived economic risk consistently predicted mitigation behavior and policy support-and its effects were positive. Perceived health risk had mixed effects. Only two significant interactions between health and economic risk were identified-both positive.