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.

The Evolution of Job Insecurity in Spatial Contexts in Europe During COVID-19 Pandemic

Unemployment caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is of the utmost importance for governing bodies worldwide. Its constant increase during the last months is subject of major concern for both citizens and policy makers, as individuals might experience increased feelings of job insecurity due to the pandemic context and to the latest developments on the job market. Job insecurity refers to a perceived threat to the continuity and stability of employment as it is currently experienced and has a negative impact on the individuals' quality of life. Many researches have linked job insecurity with low levels of well-being and high levels of stress, as well as local or national measures taken in job creation and job retention. Aside from individual factors, there are other critical influences that should be considered in order to better understand the dynamics of job insecurity against the COVID-19 pandemic. Such influences can come from regional features such as spatial, economic, or demographic characteristics, like gender, age, or education. The aim of the paper is to identify and spatially represent the variations and evolution of job insecurity during the on-going pandemic. Our analyses are based on the PsyCorona database (15.311 participants), a study with self-reported data deployed in countries all around the world, that monitored various psychological variables during the first pandemic waves. For the purpose of this research, data related to the first wave (March-July 2020) was selected. In order to get a better understanding of the spatial distribution of self-reported job insecurity, we chose to focus on eight European countries (France, Germany, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Greece, Romania, Spain, and Italy). Respondents from Western Europe countries expressed lower scores on self-reported job insecurity and less variance over time while those from Southern and Eastern Europe displayed higher scores for job insecurity and more variance. Moreover, we found that the higher the overall job insecurity is perceived in a country, the higher the discrepancies between age, gender, and education categories tend to be.

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).

The regional evolution of job insecurity during the first COVID-19 wave in relation to the pandemic intensity.

As the COVID-19 pandemic hit the European continent at the beginning of 2020, one of the most significant socio-economic effects that immediately become the central focus of media and governing bodies was the unemployment and the sudden transformations suffered by the job market. This effect created major concerns for citizens and governing structures, as the pandemic generated a new and unparalleled economic context, where the short and medium-term future of several sectors seemed unpredictable. The concern acted upon the job insecurity of individuals, a perceived threat to the continuity and stability of their employment. Based on a self-reported survey covering the first pandemic wave, our study classifies the regions (NUTS2 level) from six EU countries according to their performance in terms of job insecurity, but also the shock intensity (death rates and case fatality ratio), and identifies the overall over and under performers. The results show that the regional evolution of the job insecurity could be linked to the pandemic evolution, especially in the stronger economies. However, the model does not follow a classic economic core-periphery pattern. The model is challenged especially by a stronger performance of several less performant regions from Italy, Romania, or France. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12076-023-00337-9.

Trust in government regarding COVID-19 and its associations with preventive health behaviour and prosocial behaviour during the pandemic: a cross-sectional and longitudinal study.

BACKGROUND: The effective implementation of government policies and measures for controlling the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic requires compliance from the public. This study aimed to examine cross-sectional and longitudinal associations of trust in government regarding COVID-19 control with the adoption of recommended health behaviours and prosocial behaviours, and potential determinants of trust in government during the pandemic. METHODS: This study analysed data from the PsyCorona Survey, an international project on COVID-19 that included 23 733 participants from 23 countries (representative in age and gender distributions by country) at baseline survey and 7785 participants who also completed follow-up surveys. Specification curve analysis was used to examine concurrent associations between trust in government and self-reported behaviours. We further used structural equation model to explore potential determinants of trust in government. Multilevel linear regressions were used to examine associations between baseline trust and longitudinal behavioural changes. RESULTS: Higher trust in government regarding COVID-19 control was significantly associated with higher adoption of health behaviours (handwashing, avoiding crowded space, self-quarantine) and prosocial behaviours in specification curve analyses (median standardised ß = 0.173 and 0.229, p < 0.001). Government perceived as well organised, disseminating clear messages and knowledge on COVID-19, and perceived fairness were positively associated with trust in government (standardised ß = 0.358, 0.230, 0.056, and 0.249, p < 0.01). Higher trust at baseline survey was significantly associated with lower rate of decline in health behaviours over time (p for interaction = 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: These results highlighted the importance of trust in government in the control of COVID-19.

Students' Perceptions of Online Learning during COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Approach

In this study, we conducted a thematic analysis of the views and perspectives of university students about online learning, specifically regarding their interpretations and experiences of the transition from traditional face-to-face courses to online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. The sample included 209 undergraduate and postgraduate students who were invited to complete five tasks, i.e., a free association task, answering open questions about the advantages and disadvantages of online learning, providing suggestions for improving online learning, and sharing a personal experience lived during this period. Some of the main themes extracted from the data refer to the negative aspects of online learning mentioned by participants in relation to its disadvantages, such as health and psychosocial problems (e.g., stress, anxiety, decreased motivation, isolation/loneliness, and apathy) and learning process problems (e.g., misunderstandings, a lack of feedback, additional academical requirements, a lack of challenge, and disengagement). Other recurrent themes refer to the positive aspects of online learning associated with its benefits: comfort and accessibility, economy (saving time and money), and psychological and medical safety. The personal experiences during COVID-19 shared by our respondents were organised around four main themes (positive, negative, ambivalent, and transformative experiences) related to students' adaptation to the educational context generated by the pandemic. Based on these findings, practical recommendations for universities and researchers are discussed.

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.].

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

'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.

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.

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.