Cultural challenges for adapting behavioral intervention frameworks: A critical examination from a cultural psychology perspective.

We introduce the bias and equivalence framework to highlight how concepts, methods, and tools from cultural psychology can contribute to successful cultural adaptation and implementation of behavioral interventions. To situate our contribution, we provide a review of recent cultural adaptation research and existing frameworks. We identified 68 different frameworks that have been cited when reporting cultural adaptations and highlight three major adaptation dimensions that can be used to differentiate adaptations. Regarding effectiveness, we found an average effect size of zr = 0.24 (95%CI 0.20, 0.29) in 24 meta-analyses published since 2014, but also substantive differences across domains and unclear effects of the extent of cultural adaptations. To advance cultural adaptation efforts, we outline a framework that integrates key steps from previous cultural adaptation frameworks and highlight how cultural bias and equivalence considerations in conjunction with community engagement help a) in the diagnosis of behavioral or psychological problems, b) identification of possible interventions, c) the selection of specific mechanisms of behavior change, d) the specification and documentation of dose effects and thresholds for diagnosis, e) entry and exit points within intervention programs, and f) cost-benefit-sustainability discussions. We provide guiding questions that may help researchers when adapting interventions to novel cultural contexts.

Dance for the dead: The role of top-down beliefs for social cohesion and anxiety management in naturally occurring collective rituals.

Collective rituals, particularly those characterized by synchrony and pain, have been shown to yield positive social and emotional outcomes. The question arises as to whether these findings extend to low-arousal, family-centered rituals and how spiritual beliefs factor into these communal practices. This study set out to examine the interplay between belief, ritual participation, and their effects on anxiety, social cohesion, and prosocial behavior during a low-arousal collective ritual in Mikasa, Japan. Drawing upon a sample of 183 festival participants, we measured belief in ancestors using a novel scale, identifying significant and consistent associations between these beliefs and measures of social cohesion across multiple targets. Moreover, active participation as a festival dancer displayed a positive relationship with feelings of social cohesion, particularly towards other festival attendees and at the national level. On measures of prosocial behavior, ancestral beliefs were positively associated with generosity shown within the festival setting, whereas observers were less generous towards community members than a non-attending control group. Anxiety outcomes displayed a negative relationship with ancestral beliefs and ritual observation but not participation as seen in previous research, suggesting a complex interplay between rituals, emotions, and individual states. These findings provide novel insights into the importance of belief systems and active participation in shaping social bonds and behaviors in the context of collective rituals.

The extended neural architecture of human attachment: An fMRI coordinate-based meta-analysis of affiliative studies.

Functional imaging studies and clinical evidence indicate that cortical areas relevant to social cognition are closely integrated with evolutionarily conserved basal forebrain structures and neighboring regions, enabling human attachment and affiliative emotions. The neural circuitry of human affiliation is continually being unraveled as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) becomes increasingly prevalent, with studies examining human brain responses to various attachment figures. However, previous fMRI meta-analyses on affiliative stimuli have encountered challenges, such as low statistical power and the absence of robustness measures. To address these issues, we conducted an exhaustive coordinate-based meta-analysis of 79 fMRI studies, focusing on personalized affiliative stimuli, including one's infants, family, romantic partners, and friends. We employed complementary coordinate-based analyses (Activation Likelihood Estimation and Signed Differential Mapping) and conducted a robustness analysis of the results. Findings revealed cluster convergence in cortical and subcortical structures related to reward and motivation, salience detection, social bonding, and cognition. Our study thoroughly explores the neural correlates underpinning affiliative responses, effectively overcoming the limitations noted in previous meta-analyses. It provides an extensive view of the neural substrates associated with affiliative stimuli, illuminating the intricate interaction between cortical and subcortical regions. Our findings significantly contribute to understanding the neurobiology of human affiliation, expanding the known human attachment circuitry beyond the traditional basal forebrain regions observed in other mammals to include uniquely human isocortical structures.

Nonordinary Experiences, Well-being and Mental Health: A Systematic Review of the Evidence and Recommendations for Future Research.

Throughout history, people have reported nonordinary experiences (NOEs) such as feelings of oneness with the universe and hearing voices. Although these experiences form the basis of several spiritual and religious traditions, experiencing NOEs may create stress and uncertainty among those who experience such events. To provide a more systematic overview of the research linking NOEs with mental health, we present a systematic review of studies focusing on NOEs, well-being and mental health indicators. In a search of ProQuest and PsycInfo, we identified 725 references, of which 157 reported empirical data and were included in our review. Overall, the studies reviewed suggest that the relationship between NOEs and mental health is complex, varying according to a series of psychological and social factors. In particular, they suggest that appraisal processes play a fundamental role in the mental health outcomes of these experiences. However, we also highlight important methodological challenges such as the conceptual overlap between NOEs and well-being or psychopathological constructs, the conflation between experiences and appraisal processes in the assessment procedure, and the need for clearer assessment of the duration, controllability, impact on daily functioning and general context of the experiences. We provide a qualitative summary of empirical evidence and main themes of research and make recommendations for future investigation.

Implementation of an online self-knowledge and mental health promotion journey for the Brazilian population: opportunities and challenges / Implementação de uma jornada online de autoconhecimento e promoção de saúde mental para população brasileira: oportunidades e desafios

The study aimed to investigate opportunities and challenges in implementing an online self-knowledge journey for the Brazilian population. The journey offers free psychological self-assessments and psychoeducational materials to participants. Personalized feedbacks are also provided by filling in standardized scales from international literature (on personality, emotions, values, beliefs, spirituality and mental health). In order to assess the challenges of using the online self-knowledge journey interviews were conducted with a think-aloud protocol (N=16). The findings of the interviews fed into the process of developing a new version. This new version was evaluated through focus groups (N=9) and qualitative interviews (N=6) which helped to validate the adjustments implemented. The strengths found in using the journey were high conceptual acceptance, good therapeutic opportunities, clear language, reliability and personal identification with the personalized feedbacks. To improve the journey we identified the need for usability adjustments, shorter texts and simpler graphics. The adjustments were incorporated and validated in the new release version, which was well accepted and has promising prospects to be used in the Brazilian Unified Health System. Based on the evaluations carried out, good results are expected in the clinical area with the use of the journey, which can be a useful technological device to complement health promotion actions linked to mental health and to personal development services.

O estudo visou investigar oportunidades e desafios na implementação de uma jornada online de autoconhecimento voltada para a população brasileira. A jornada desenvolvida oferece autoavaliações psicológicas gratuitas e materiais psicoeducativos aos participantes. Foram produzidos também feedbacks personalizados que são gerados com o preenchimento de escalas padronizadas da literatura internacional (sobre personalidade, emoções, valores, crenças, espiritualidade e saúde mental). Para avaliar os desafios de implementação foram conduzidas entrevistas com protocolo think-aloud (N=16), cujos achados nutriram processos de desenvolvimento de uma nova versão. Essa nova versão foi avaliada por meio de grupos focais (N=9) e entrevistas qualitativas (N=6) que contribuíram para validar os ajustes implementados. Os pontos fortes encontrados com a jornada desenvolvida foram: alta aceitação conceitual, boas oportunidades terapêuticas, linguagem clara, confiabilidade e identificação pessoal com os feedbacks personalizados. Entre os desafios de implementação evidenciaram-se os ajustes de usabilidade e a necessidade de escalas menores, textos curtos e gráficos simples. Os ajustes foram incorporados e validados na nova versão de divulgação, a qual apresentou boa aceitação e perspectivas promissoras de uso junto a serviços do SUS. A ciência da implementação apresentou-se como recurso essencial para a obtenção de melhores encaixes digitais com a intervenção proposta. A solução apresenta boas oportunidades na área clínica, podendo ser um aparato tecnológico útil para complementar ações de promoção de saúde vinculadas aos serviços de saúde mental e de desenvolvimento pessoal.

Niche diversity effects on personality measurement - evidence from large national samples during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We report systematic variability in the psychometric properties of a brief personality inventory during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing upon recent discussions about the universality vs cultural relativism of personality measures, we review and comparatively test theories predicting systematic variability in personality measurement across cultures using an established brief personality measure applied to population samples in 16 nations during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (N = 35,052). We found systematic variation in factor replicability and effective dimensionality. In line with previous theorizing, factors replicated better in contexts with greater niche diversity. Examining possible drivers underlying this association, the investigation of the individual components in the niche construction index suggested that life expectancy and to a lesser degree economic complexity are associated with greater personality structure differentiation. Population-level indicators of acute threat due to COVID-19 did not show credible effects. These patterns suggest that a) investigation of personality structure in population samples can provide useful insights into personality dynamics, b) socioecological factors have a systematic impact on survey responses, but c) we also need better theorizing and research about both personality and culture to understand how niche construction dynamics operate.

Effective interventions to reduce loneliness in big cities.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Loneliness is a state of distress or discomfort between the desired and experienced level of connectedness to others. These feelings may be particular salient in urban environments that seemingly offer more opportunities for social contact, highlighting the discrepancy. The topic of loneliness has received increased attention because of its negative impact on mental and physical health combined with concerns of increased loneliness due to lockdowns and social distancing regulations during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. We provide a bibliometric and random-effects meta-analysis of clinical trials published since 2020 and available via PubMed. RECENT FINDINGS: Loneliness interventions have predominantly focused on elderly in the community. Adolescents and young adults as a second group at risk have received much less attention. On average across 44 effect sizes studied in 38 trials, interventions show moderate levels of effectiveness but are characterized by high heterogeneity and trials are often underpowered and use low quality designs. Multidimensional interventions show promise for alleviating loneliness, but the intervention context needs greater attention. SUMMARY: Scalable and effective interventions for the general population and at-risk groups of loneliness are still scarce. Some promising interventions have been trialled and merit further attention.

On the relationship between valence and arousal in samples across the globe.

Affect is involved in many psychological phenomena, but a descriptive structure, long sought, has been elusive. Valence and arousal are fundamental, and a key question-the focus of the present study-is the relationship between them. Valence is sometimes thought to be independent of arousal, but, in some studies (representing too few societies in the world) arousal was found to vary with valence. One common finding is that arousal is lowest at neutral valence and increases with both positive and negative valence: a symmetric V-shaped relationship. In the study reported here of self-reported affect during a remembered moment (N = 8,590), we tested the valence-arousal relationship in 33 societies with 25 different languages. The two most common hypotheses in the literature-independence and a symmetric V-shaped relationship-were not supported. With data of all samples pooled, arousal increased with positive but not negative valence. Valence accounted for between 5% (Finland) and 43% (China Beijing) of the variance in arousal. Although there is evidence for a structural relationship between the two, there is also a large amount of variability in this relation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Unraveling values and well-being-Disentangling within- and between-person dynamics via a psychometric network perspective.

There have been long-standing debates on the relationships between values as important motivational goals and well-being. We used a longitudinal network perspective to examine how value states and well-being are related over time, separating within-person lagged, within-person contemporaneous, and between-person perspectives. A total of 227 young adults (1,007 observation points) participated in the study and rated their values states and well-being over a 6-day period. Value-well-being linkages varied across levels of analysis for participants who reported at least three times (N = 187). Momentary self-transcendence values predicted both simultaneous and subsequent well-being. The motivationally opposing self-enhancement values negatively related to well-being contemporaneously within person. This supports clinical research emphasizing that pursuing other-focused values increases well-being and highlights the importance of values for well-being. At the same time, individual differences in self-transcendence values were negatively related to well-being, supporting previous value models. In line with self-determination theory, openness to change values were related to well-being at both the within- and between-person level. These patterns unify diverging theoretical positions, and suggest that different dynamics operate across levels (within-person lagged or contemporaneous vs. between-person). We also provide new insights into value dynamics by describing how distributions of value states may give rise to more stable value differences between individuals. Overall, within- and between-person associations differed suggesting greater attention to person-level processes is needed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Social mindfulness predicts concern for nature and immigrants across 36 nations.

People cooperate every day in ways that range from largescale contributions that mitigate climate change to simple actions such as leaving another individual with choice - known as social mindfulness. It is not yet clear whether and how these complex and more simple forms of cooperation relate. Prior work has found that countries with individuals who made more socially mindful choices were linked to a higher country environmental performance - a proxy for complex cooperation. Here we replicated this initial finding in 41 samples around the world, demonstrating the robustness of the association between social mindfulness and environmental performance, and substantially built on it to show this relationship extended to a wide range of complex cooperative indices, tied closely to many current societal issues. We found that greater social mindfulness expressed by an individual was related to living in countries with more social capital, more community participation and reduced prejudice towards immigrants. Our findings speak to the symbiotic relationship between simple and more complex forms of cooperation in societies.

Family still matters: Human social motivation across 42 countries during a global pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused drastic social changes for many people, including separation from friends and coworkers, enforced close contact with family, and reductions in mobility. Here we assess the extent to which people's evolutionarily-relevant basic motivations and goals-fundamental social motives such as Affiliation and Kin Care-might have been affected. To address this question, we gathered data on fundamental social motives in 42 countries (N = 15,915) across two waves, including 19 countries (N = 10,907) for which data were gathered both before and during the pandemic (pre-pandemic wave: 32 countries, N = 8998; 3302 male, 5585 female; M age  = 24.43, SD = 7.91; mid-pandemic wave: 29 countries, N = 6917; 2249 male, 4218 female; M age  = 28.59, SD = 11.31). Samples include data collected online (e.g., Prolific, MTurk), at universities, and via community sampling. We found that Disease Avoidance motivation was substantially higher during the pandemic, and that most of the other fundamental social motives showed small, yet significant, differences across waves. Most sensibly, concern with caring for one's children was higher during the pandemic, and concerns with Mate Seeking and Status were lower. Earlier findings showing the prioritization of family motives over mating motives (and even over Disease Avoidance motives) were replicated during the pandemic. Finally, well-being remained positively associated with family-related motives and negatively associated with mating motives during the pandemic, as in the pre-pandemic samples. Our results provide further evidence for the robust primacy of family-related motivations even during this unique disruption of social life.

The Relationship Between Negative Affect, State Mindfulness, and the Role of Personality.

Objectives: Are affective states influencing state mindfulness and can this explain the link between personality and mindfulness? Mindfulness is commonly thought to decrease negative affect, but a number of studies have reported reductions in mindfulness in negative affect situations. This highlights a potential mechanism explaining previously observed negative relationships between individual differences such as Neuroticism and mindfulness, via their shared relationship with negative affect. Methods: In an experiment, 331 participants were exposed to a negative affect stimulus to investigate whether previously established relationships between Neuroticism, Behavioral Inhibition, and Mindfulness are due to differences in negative affect reactivity. It was expected that participants high on Neuroticism and Behavioral Inhibition to show greater negative affect reactivity which in turn would reduce their state Non-Judgmental Acceptance and Acting with Awareness. Results: While change in negative affect was related to lower Non-Judgmental Acceptance and Acting with Awareness, negative affect reactivity did not mediate the relationship between Neuroticism/BIS and these state mindfulness facets. Importantly, only Non-Judgmental Acceptance and Acting with Awareness facets of mindfulness were affected by negative affect change, but not Attention. This indicates that greater negative affect might require allocation of cognitive resources to stress-related processes such as threat monitoring, reducing mindful emotion processing but not attention. Conclusions: The current study found that situational mindfulness might be influenced by state affect highlighting the need to more strongly consider the environmental factors which can shape affect in mindfulness interventions. Trial Registration: Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/kmyh2).

Unpackaging cultural variability in behavioral phenotypes.

We need better understanding of functional differences of behavioral phenotypes across cultures because cultural evolution (e.g., temporal changes in innovation within populations) is less important than culturally molded phenotypes (e.g., differences across populations) for understanding gene effects. Furthermore, changes in one behavioral domain likely have complex downstream effects in other domains, requiring careful parsing of phenotypic variability and functions.

Fundamental social motives measured across forty-two cultures in two waves.

How does psychology vary across human societies? The fundamental social motives framework adopts an evolutionary approach to capture the broad range of human social goals within a taxonomy of ancestrally recurring threats and opportunities. These motives-self-protection, disease avoidance, affiliation, status, mate acquisition, mate retention, and kin care-are high in fitness relevance and everyday salience, yet understudied cross-culturally. Here, we gathered data on these motives in 42 countries (N = 15,915) in two cross-sectional waves, including 19 countries (N = 10,907) for which data were gathered in both waves. Wave 1 was collected from mid-2016 through late 2019 (32 countries, N = 8,998; 3,302 male, 5,585 female; Mage = 24.43, SD = 7.91). Wave 2 was collected from April through November 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic (29 countries, N = 6,917; 2,249 male, 4,218 female; Mage = 28.59, SD = 11.31). These data can be used to assess differences and similarities in people's fundamental social motives both across and within cultures, at different time points, and in relation to other commonly studied cultural indicators and outcomes.

Opportunities and Challenges of Extracting Values in Autobiographical Narratives.

We report three studies in which we applied a value dictionary to narratives. Our objective was to test a theory-driven value dictionary for extracting valuable information from autobiographical and narrative texts. In Studies 1 (N = 106) and 2 (N = 152), participants wrote short autobiographical narratives and in Study 3 (N = 150), participants wrote narratives based on ambiguous stimuli. Participants in all three studies also completed the Portrait Value Questionnaire as a self-report measure of values. Overall, our results demonstrate that it is possible to extract value-relevant information from these narratives. Extracted values from autobiographical narratives showed average correlations of 0.07 (Study 1) and 0.12 (Study 2) with self-reports compared to an average correlation of 0.01 for the extracted values from implicit motive tasks (Study 3). The correlations with self-reports were in line with previous validation studies. The most salient values in narratives diverged somewhat, with a stronger emphasis on achievement values compared to self-reports, probably due to the nature of salient episodes within one's life that require demonstrating success according to social standards. Benevolence values were consistently most important in both self-ratings and text-based scoring. The value structure emerging from narratives diverged from the theoretically predicted structure, yet broad personally vs. socially focused value dimensions were qualitatively discernible. We highlight opportunities and challenges for future value research using autobiographical stories.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on environmental values.

Environmental values emphasize protection of the natural environment and promote behaviors that express this broad motivational goal. Thus, changes in these values at the community and individual levels are likely to have significant consequences for sustainability efforts. We examined the relative importance of environmental values in Australian adults at five time points over 4 years, including a period of stability (2017-2019) and a period of crisis (early and late in the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic). We found that the relative importance of environmental values increased from 2017 to 2019 and decreased during the pandemic. Importantly, the decrease in 2020 was lessened by individuals' connection with nature. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11625-022-01151-w.

Cultural Syndromes in a Changing World: A Longitudinal Investigation of Brazilian Jeitinho Social Problem-Solving Strategies.

We report a longitudinal study of Jeitinho brasileiro (salient cultural characteristic of Brazil) during a period of significant political instability. Previous historical and anthropological sources have pointed to the importance of political instability for cultural changes in behaviors such as jeitinho. We are the first to examine possible individual-level dynamics over time, reporting a 3-year longitudinal study (N = 205) of two dimensions that differentiate keeping a socially pleasant social climate (simpatia) from trickery and breaking social norms. Using longitudinal network analysis, we found (a) reinforcing links between behavioral nodes within each of these two jeitinho clusters over time, (b) few between-cluster links, (c) within-person and between-person components were distinct, and (d) only the between-person structure resembled the overall factor structure. Overall, our data show that cultural behaviors are systematically changing during a political crisis, offering first insights how cultural systems may change via shifts in individual behavior.

Values and COVID-19 worries: The importance of emotional stability traits.

We examined the relationship between emotional stability as a more stable personality trait and COVID-related worries with basic human values in a Brazilian sample (N = 578) that is strongly affected by COVID-19. We tested whether emotional stability would moderate the effect of infection and economic worries on personal values. In line with predictions, we found that infection worries were more strongly related to Security values, especially among individuals with less emotional stability, whereas economic worries were more strongly correlated with Power values, in particular among individuals with less emotional stability. Findings for Achievement values suggested perceived behavioral control effects for individuals high in Emotional Stability. Our findings provide insights into possible longer-term psychological effects of the current pandemic. Emotional dynamics in connection with worries created by the pandemic could influence values of importance for societal functioning in the short to medium term.

Striatal and septo-hypothalamic responses to anticipation and outcome of affiliative rewards.

Humans are intrinsically motivated to bond with others. The ability to experience affiliative emotions (such as affection/tenderness, sexual attraction, and admiration/awe) may incentivize and promote these affiliative bonds. Here, we interrogate the role of the critical reward circuitry, especially the Nucleus Accumbens (NAcc) and the septo-hypothalamic region, in the anticipation of and response to affiliative rewards using a novel incentive delay task. During Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI), participants (n = 23 healthy humans; 14 female) anticipated and watched videos involving affiliative (tenderness, erotic desire, and awe) and nonaffiliative (i.e., food) rewards, as well as neutral scenes. On the one hand, anticipation of both affiliative and nonaffiliative rewards increased activity in the NAcc, anterior insula, and supplementary motor cortex, but activity in the amygdala and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) increased in response to reward outcomes. On the other hand, affiliative rewards more specifically increased activity in the septo-hypothalamic area. Moreover, NAcc activity during anticipation correlated with positive arousal for all rewards, whereas septo-hypothalamic activity during the outcome correlated with positive arousal and motivation for subsequent re-exposure only for affiliative rewards. Together, these findings implicate a general appetitive response in the NAcc to different types of rewards but suggests a more specific response in the septo-hypothalamic region in response to affiliative rewards outcomes. This work also presents a new task for distinguishing between neural responses to affiliative and non-affiliative rewards.