The Role of Personality, Political Attitudes and Socio-Demographic Characteristics in Explaining Individual Differences in Fear of Coronavirus: A Comparison Over Time and Across Countries.

Since the emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in December 2019 about 500,000 people died within the first 6 months. The virus itself, as well as the related political decisions, intensified an increasing feeling of fear in billions of people worldwide. However, while some people remained unperturbed, others experienced panic over the current situation. In order to investigate individual differences in the perceptions, emotions and behaviors in response to the Coronavirus pandemic, an online survey was conducted between 6th and 27th of March 2020. Participants included 7309 individuals from 96 countries, who provided information on socio-demographics, personality, political orientation and general life satisfaction. To determine the specificity of fear of Coronavirus, we also investigated fear related to two other current political issues: the refugee and the climate crises. Overall, in parallel with the escalation of the pandemic, fear of Coronavirus increased significantly over the 22-day period, with the strongest predictors being the personality variable neuroticism, as well as education, sex and being an at-risk person. A detailed longitudinal analysis of the largest sample, Germany, revealed that political orientation was also an important predictor of fear of Coronavirus. Specifically, conservatives were more afraid of Coronavirus than liberals. However, as the perceived threat of the virus increased, the influence of political orientation disappeared, whereas personality remained a stable predictor. The pattern of results regarding the perceived threat of the refugee and climate crises painted a different picture: political orientation was by far the best predictor, more important even than personality. Conservatives were more worried about the refugees, and liberals about climate change. Cross-cultural analyses showed pronounced differences between countries, dependent on the crisis. Nonetheless, the importance of personality for the prediction of fear of Coronavirus remained stable over time and across the world within the investigated 22-day period.

Personality associations with Facebook use and tendencies towards Facebook Use Disorder.

INTRODUCTION: The present study sought to address core issues in the association between personality and the putative disordered use of Facebook. First, to redress the issue of generalisation from samples solely recruited from Facebook, we sought to explore personality differences between users and non-users of Facebook. Second, we aimed to investigate associations between personality and Facebook Use Disorder. The present study contributes a novel perspective to extant research on this topic by moving beyond the broad Big Five of personality, to explore possible relationships between Facebook use and sub-facets of the Big Five; all analyses were additionally controlled for confounding effects of demographic variables. METHODS: 3,835 (n = 2,366 males) participants completed socio-demographic variables, the Big Five Inventory and stated their user status on Facebook (i.e. user versus non-user). Facebook-users also completed a Facebook Use Disorder scale assessing addictive tendencies towards Facebook use. RESULTS: Facebook users reported higher levels of extraversion and lower levels of conscientiousness compared to non-users. Tendencies towards Facebook Use Disorder correlated negatively with conscientiousness and positively with neuroticism in both males and females. CONCLUSIONS: The present results indicate that research samples drawn from Facebook users may be biased with regard to personality (extraversion, conscientiousness). Moreover, certain personality traits - conscientiousness and neuroticism - which may influence the tendency towards Facebook Use Disorder are discussed.

The role of genetic variation in the glucocorticoid receptor (NR3C1) and mineralocorticoid receptor (NR3C2) in the association between cortisol response and cognition under acute stress.

Although HPA - axis reactivity has repeatedly been related to cognitive functioning, ambiguity remains regarding the direction of the effect, i.e. whether it benefits or impairs functioning. Genetic factors that contribute to HPA - axis reactivity on the one hand and to cognitive functioning on the other could therefore help clarify the association between stress and cognition. We genotyped 10 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on the NR3C1 gene (rs10482682, rs33389, rs10482633, rs10515522, rs2963156, rs4128428, rs9324918, rs41423247, rs6189, rs10052957) coding for the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) and 4 SNPs on the NR3C2 gene (rs6810951, rs4635799, rs11099695, rs2070950) coding for the mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) and required N=126 healthy males to perform tasks assessing attention and reasoning before and after experiencing an acute laboratory stressor (the Socially Evaluated Cold Pressor Test, SECPT). Haplotype analyses revealed significant effects of NR3C1 (p=0.011) and NR3C2 (p=0.034) on cortisol stress response. NR3C2 also influenced attentional performance via an interaction with stress-induced cortisol response (p<0.001). Neither NR3C1 haplotype nor NR3C2 haplotype was associated with reasoning abilities. Results suggest that the association between stress induced cortisol reactivity and cognition strongly depends on genetic variation. The idea of an optimal arousal level depending on stress reactivity and genetic disposition is discussed.

Smartphone addiction, daily interruptions and self-reported productivity.

The advent of the smartphone has dramatically altered how we communicate, navigate, work and entertain ourselves. While the advantages of this new technology are clear, constant use may also bring negative consequences, such as a loss of productivity due to interruptions in work life. A link between smartphone overuse and loss of productivity has often been hypothesized, but empirical evidence on this question is scarce. The present study addressed this question by collecting self-report data from N = 262 participants, assessing private and work-related smartphone use, smartphone addiction and self-rated productivity. Our results indicate a moderate relationship between smartphone addiction and a self-reported decrease in productivity due to spending time on the smartphone during work, as well as with the number of work hours lost to smartphone use. Smartphone addiction was also related to a greater amount of leisure time spent on the smartphone and was strongly related to a negative impact of smartphone use on daily non-work related activities. These data support the idea that tendencies towards smartphone addiction and overt checking of the smartphone could result in less productivity both in the workplace and at home. Results are discussed in relation to productivity and technostress.

Toward Psychoinformatics: Computer Science Meets Psychology.

The present paper provides insight into an emerging research discipline called Psychoinformatics. In the context of Psychoinformatics, we emphasize the cooperation between the disciplines of psychology and computer science in handling large data sets derived from heavily used devices, such as smartphones or online social network sites, in order to shed light on a large number of psychological traits, including personality and mood. New challenges await psychologists in light of the resulting "Big Data" sets, because classic psychological methods will only in part be able to analyze this data derived from ubiquitous mobile devices, as well as other everyday technologies. As a consequence, psychologists must enrich their scientific methods through the inclusion of methods from informatics. The paper provides a brief review of one area of this research field, dealing mainly with social networks and smartphones. Moreover, we highlight how data derived from Psychoinformatics can be combined in a meaningful way with data from human neuroscience. We close the paper with some observations of areas for future research and problems that require consideration within this new discipline.

The 2D:4D-Ratio and Neuroticism Revisited: Empirical Evidence from Germany and China.

The 2D:4D-Ratio, as an indirect measure of the fetal testosterone to estradiol ratio, is potentially very important for understanding and explaining different personality traits. It was the aim of the present study to replicate the findings from Fink et al. (2004) about the relation between individual differences in 2D:4D-Ratios and the Five Factor Model in different cultural groups. Therefore a sample of n = 78 Chinese and n = 370 German participants was recruited. Every participant provided hand scans of both hands, from which 2D:4D-Ratios were computed. Moreover, all participants filled in the NEO Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI). Significant sex differences were found for ratios of both hands in the expected direction, with females showing higher ratios than males. With respect to links between personality and the digit ratio, a positive association was observed between 2D:4D-Ratio and Neuroticism in females, as shown in the earlier study. These findings were observed in both female subsamples from China and Germany, as well as in the full sample of participants. But in contrast to the results for the whole and the German female sample, where 2D:4D-Ratio of both hands were related to Neuroticism, in the Chinese female sample only left hand 2D:4D-Ratio was significantly and positively related to Neuroticism. There were no significant correlations found in any of the male samples. Thus, prenatal exposure to sex steroids appears to influence the personality factor Neuroticism in females specifically. This finding potentially has implications for mental health, as Neuroticism has been shown to be a risk factor for various forms of psychopathology.

Does acceptance of power distance influence propensities for problematic Internet use? Evidence from a cross-cultural study.

INTRODUCTION: Several studies suggest that Asian countries are particularly afflicted by problematic Internet use (PIU). METHODS: The present study investigates whether individual differences in the acceptance of power distance can be linked to overuse of the Internet in Germany and in China. Power distance has been discussed as an essential dimension on which Asian and Western societies differ. In the present study, we investigate two large non-clinical samples from Germany (n = 297) and China (n = 556) to address this question. RESULTS: Both in Germany and in China, high acceptance of power distance was positively associated with PIU. These effects were more pronounced in China compared with Germany. Moreover, the observed effects were stronger in males compared with females. DISCUSSION: Clearly, these findings are just a starting point and need to be replicated in the future. Clinical populations and a further important difference variable - collectivism - also merit consideration in future work.

The importance of analogue zeitgebers to reduce digital addictive tendencies in the 21st century.

Analogue zeitgebers such as wristwatches and alarm clocks are essential for structuring everyday life. Since the dawn of the digital revolution - particularly since the advent of the smartphone - mobile phones have increasingly replaced analogue zeitgebers as a means of telling time. This functionality may prove problematic, in that it may contribute to the overuse of digital media (e.g. when checking the time turns into extended use of other smartphone utilities, including Internet-based applications). Of N = 3084 participants, 45% reported wearing a wristwatch and 67% used an analogue alarm clock. We observed that participants who reported using analogue zeitgebers used their mobile-/smartphone significantly less. Use of analogue zeitgebers may prove a practical tool for therapeutic and preventative interventions for problematic Internet use in an increasingly digital age.

Individual differences in reward prediction error: contrasting relations between feedback-related negativity and trait measures of reward sensitivity, impulsivity and extraversion.

Medial-frontal negativity occurring ∼200-300 ms post-stimulus in response to motivationally salient stimuli, usually referred to as feedback-related negativity (FRN), appears to be at least partly modulated by dopaminergic-based reward prediction error (RPE) signaling. Previous research (e.g., Smillie et al., 2011) has shown that higher scores on a putatively dopaminergic-based personality trait, extraversion, were associated with a more pronounced difference wave contrasting unpredicted non-reward and unpredicted reward trials on an associative learning task. In the current study, we sought to extend this research by comparing how trait measures of reward sensitivity, impulsivity and extraversion related to the FRN using the same associative learning task. A sample of healthy adults (N = 38) completed a battery of personality questionnaires, before completing the associative learning task while EEG was recorded. As expected, FRN was most negative following unpredicted non-reward. A difference wave contrasting unpredicted non-reward and unpredicted reward trials was calculated. Extraversion, but not measures of impulsivity, had a significant association with this difference wave. Further, the difference wave was significantly related to a measure of anticipatory pleasure, but not consummatory pleasure. These findings provide support for the existing evidence suggesting that variation in dopaminergic functioning in brain "reward" pathways may partially underpin associations between the FRN and trait measures of extraversion and anticipatory pleasure.