Individual predictors of vaccine hesitancy in the Italian post COVID-19 pandemic era.

A wide range of survey studies have explored vaccination hesitancy/resistance during the COVID-19 pandemic and provided evidence that this can be explained by several individual variables from the ideological, clinical, and socio-affective domain. However, evidence about which individual variables predict vaccine hesitancy in the post-pandemic state of COVID-19 is meager. We administered a battery of questionnaires to a group of 120 Italian participants with high and low scores on the adult vaccine hesitancy scale (aVHS) to investigate the predictive role of ideological (i.e. political orientation), clinical (i.e. anxiety, interoceptive accuracy), and socio-affective (i.e. alexithymia, disgust sensitivity/propensity, empathy) variables on vaccine hesitancy/resistance. This study provides evidence that lower interoceptive awareness and cognitive empathy are predictors of a greater hesitancy to get vaccinated in the post-pandemic COVID-19 state.

Do natural landscapes reduce future discounting in humans?

An important barrier to enduring behavioural change is the human tendency to discount the future. Drawing on evolutionary theories of life history and biophilia, this study investigates whether exposure to natural versus urban landscapes affects people's temporal discount rates. The results of three studies, two laboratory experiments and a field study reveal that individual discount rates are systematically lower after people have been exposed to scenes of natural environments as opposed to urban environments. Further, this effect is owing to people placing more value on the future after nature exposure. The finding that nature exposure reduces future discounting-as opposed to exposure to urban environments-conveys important implications for a range of personal and collective outcomes including healthy lifestyles, sustainable resource use and population growth.

Having to Work from Home: Basic Needs, Well-Being, and Motivation.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many employees were asked to start working from home for an extended time. The current study investigated how well employees worked and felt in this novel situation by following n = 199 German employees-56% of them female, 24% with childcare duties-over the course of two working weeks in which they reported once daily on their well-being (PANAS-20, detachment) and motivation (work engagement, flow). Participants reported on organizational and personal resources (emotional exhaustion, emotion regulation, segmentation preference, role clarity, job control, social support). Importantly, they indicated how well their work-related basic needs, i.e., autonomy, competence, and relatedness, were met when working from home and how these needs had been met in the office. Multilevel models of growth showed that work engagement, flow, affect and detachment were on average positive and improving over the two weeks in study. Higher competence need satisfaction predicted better daily work engagement, flow, and affect. In a network model, we explored associations and dynamics between daily variables. Overall, the results suggest that people adapted well to the novel situation, with their motivation and well-being indicators showing adequate levels and increasing trajectories. Avenues for improving work from home are job control and social support.

Partner dissimilarity in life satisfaction: Stability and change, correlates, and outcomes.

Dissimilarities between partners in prominent domains of functioning are often thought to be a risk factor for compromised relationship quality and relationship dissolution. However, the nature, correlates, and consequences of developmental trajectories of within-couple dissimilarities in key quality-of-life indicators such as life satisfaction are not well understood. In the current study, we applied multilevel growth models to up to 31-wave annual longitudinal data from 13,714 romantic partners in the German Socio-Economic Panel (age at baseline: M = 43 years, SD = 15, range 17-92 years). Partner dissimilarity was calculated at the within-couple level and indicated considerable differences in life satisfaction between partners within a given couple (0.64 SD or 1.14 units on an 11-point scale). Over time, partner dissimilarity slightly increased among partners who remained together. Examining individual and relationship correlates indicated that dissimilarity was greatest for couples who were older, had children, or had a shorter relationship history. Also, dissimilarity was greater when individual life satisfaction or satisfaction with family life was low, particularly among wives, as well as among couples who later separated. Examining consequences, larger levels of and increases in partner dissimilarity were independently predictive of lower satisfaction with family life at the end of the study, over and above individual life satisfaction of either partner as well as key individual and relationship correlates. Our discussion focuses on the advantages of investigating (developmental trajectories of) within-couple dissimilarity and its implications for individual and partner development. (PsycINFO Database Record