Addressing the effect of concern with COVID-19 threat on prejudice towards immigrants: The sequential mediating role of need for cognitive closure and desire for cultural tightness.

The link between threat and anti-immigrant prejudice is well-established. Relatedly, recent research has also shown that situational threats (such as concern with COVID-19 threat) increase anti-immigrant prejudice through the mediating role of desire for cultural tightness. This study aims to further our understanding of the psychological processes underlying the relation between concern with COVID-19 threat and increased negative attitudes towards immigrants by considering the mediational role of an individual epistemic motivation (i.e., the need for cognitive closure). A study was conducted on a large sample of Italian respondents covering all the Italian regions. Findings revealed that high concern with COVID-19 threat led to increased negative attitudes towards immigrants through the sequential mediating role of higher need for cognitive closure, leading in turn to higher desire for cultural tightness. Implications of these findings for a timely contextualized study of anti-immigrant prejudice will be highlighted.

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.

'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.

The Mediational Role of Desire for Cultural Tightness on Concern With COVID-19 and Perceived Self-Control.

When ecological threats are more severe or prevalent, societies are more likely to tighten their social norms and punishments. Moreover, when people follow clear and tight rules, they are more prone to regulate their behavior (i.e., self-control) in order to avoid punishment. Therefore, we examined the mediating role of people's endorsement of cultural tightness (i.e., support and desire) on the relationship between concern with COVID-19 threat and personal self-control. Our hypothesis was tested through a mediation model in two studies with a sample of (N=315, 77.1% females, M age=23.71) university students (Study 1) and with a heterogeneous sample of (N=239, 65.7% females, M age=36.55) participants (Study 2). Empirical support for the proposed model was found in both studies. Implications of this research will be discussed. The main implication is related to the possibility that people's desire for strong norms to cope with the COVID-19 threat could promote greater self-regulated preventive behavior in order to protect their health.