Medical Students' Empathy During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A crosssectional study

Several authors have underlined the negative consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health in several populations, including medical students, such as increases in anxiety, depression and burnout symptoms. Furthermore, previous studies showed that anxiety and depressive symptoms are positively associated with affective empathy and negatively associated with cognitive empathy. Given the adverse pandemic effects highlighted by several authors, the present study sought to determine whether medical students' empathy has been potentially impacted, with higher affective empathy and lower cognitive empathy score in the pandemic cohort compared to pre-pandemic cohorts. Medical students (n = 395) were recruited during the COVID-19 pandemic and completed the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) and the Basic Empathy Scale (BES). This cohort was then compared with two pre-pandemic cohorts (one used the BES [n = 1168], and the other used the IRI [n = 342]). Similar results were found on both scales: the pandemic cohort displayed significantly higher scores in affective empathy and personal distress (affective empathy domain) and, surprisingly, significant higher scores in cognitive empathy, fantasy, and perspective-taking (cognitive empathy domains). As stressed by previous studies, we posited that the higher scores in affective empathy, personal distress, and fantasy might indicate emotional difficulties. The paper concludes with the identification of empathy components that should be promoted in the curriculum of medical students.

Well-being and experiences of adults in German federal states under pandemic conditions.

Research on people's experiences during the Covid-19-pandemic provides growing evidence on subjective well-being and distress under pandemic conditions, however mainly at a country, not state level. The relationship between positive and negative experiences is described in Diener's conceptualization of subjective well-being. We assumed that people who experience well-being and positive affect through connectedness with nature, and social support during the pandemic feel relatively less alone, distressed, depressed, self-focused, and thoughtless. We further assumed changes in these constructs during the pandemic. The aim of this research was to examine the concurrent relationships between these positive and negative experiences of German adults simultaneously as well as their changes over 3 weeks in 2020. Owing to German federalism, we expected these changes to differ between German states. A sample of 1,038 adults responded to an online questionnaire twice (April and May 2020). A structural equation model including 16 factors and 12 covariates yielded the expected negative relationships and different mild change effects between the German states. For example, adults' connectedness with nature increased while loneliness and distress decreased in Saxony, whereas thoughtlessness increased in Bavaria. The results imply a new finding that different changes in adults' positive and negative experiences during the pandemic exist.

Black American experiences in healthcare: Past, present, and (improving the) future

Black Americans presently and have historically faced disproportionately negative experiences in the U.S. healthcare system, as spotlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In my dissertation, I employ diverse methodologies, including quantitative analyses of nationally representative data, qualitative analyses of focus groups, and experimental methods aiming to understand and illuminate potential ways to address Black Americans' experiences of injustice in healthcare. The introduction (Chapter 1) builds upon previous research to illustrate a model which emphasizes the importance of individuals and systems (and the histories of individuals and systems) to better understand racial injustice in healthcare. In Chapter 2, I provide a narrative review of the present and historical experiences of Black Americans in the healthcare system. Next, in Chapter 3, across two studies (N=13,054), including a nationally representative sample of Black and White Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic, Black (relative to White) Americans reported less positive experiences in healthcare, which explained early COVID-19 vaccination hesitancy and lower medical system trust. Current knowledge of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study was not related significantly to medical trust or vaccination intention, however. In Chapter 4, qualitative data and thematic analysis were used to interrogate the quality of healthcare provider-Black patient interactions in a sample of 37 Black American women who had been diagnosed with breast cancer. In a community-academic collaboration, three focus groups were conducted across California. Results demonstrated that participants experienced discrimination, stereotyping, and hostility from healthcare providers and within the healthcare system which undermined their medical trust. Further, participants offered suggestions for improving the healthcare experiences of Black women diagnosed with breast cancer. A critical step toward dismantling racial injustice is acknowledging its existence. Thus, in Chapter 5, I tested specific ways to shift dominant group members' perceptions to recognize both individual and systemic racism and how to increase behavioral intentions to combat injustice in healthcare. Results from this online experiment conducted with 1853 adults suggested that when White Americans learned about critical Black history in healthcare (i.e., history of injustice) vs. celebratory Black history (i.e., history of achievement) or control information, they reported significantly more perspective-taking with Black Americans, which in turn predicted more individual and systemic racism recognition and support for anti-racist policies in healthcare. Ultimately, my dissertation studies highlight specific experiences of injustice that Black Americans face in healthcare and identifies a mechanism to increase White Americans' recognition of and support for addressing injustices toward Black Americans. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Supporting perspective taking across chasms of thinking: Do real-time analytics hold the key?

This edition of the International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning comes just as many of us are about to or have recently begun a new academic year. Though COVID continues to be a force to contend with, this Fall brings a marked change from the past few Falls in terms of the ability to gather and enjoy community. This September issue comprises four full articles with three interrelated themes, namely, the ability to grow, assessments to measure growth, and real time assessment through analytics to prompt growth. These topics are contextualized within challenging contexts where growth occurs as individuals reach beyond the comfort zone of their own perspective, culture, and history, and reach out for others different from themselves. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Mental Health among Young Adults during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Two-Wave Longitudinal Investigation.

This study aimed to assess changes in COVID-19 related factors (i.e. risk perception, knowledge about the virus, preventive behaviors and perceived efficacy) and mental health (i.e. psychological distress and positive mental health), in a sample of Romanian young adults attending college, assessed immediately after the national COVID-19 lockdown ended (Time 1) and six months after the end of the lockdown (Time 2). We also evaluated the longitudinal relations between COVID-19 related factors and mental health. The sample consisted of 289 undergraduate students (89.3% female, Mage = 20.74, SD = 1.06), who completed questionnaires assessing mental health and COVID-19-related factors via two online surveys, six months apart. The results showed that perceived efficacy and preventive behaviors, as well as positive mental health, but not psychological distress, decreased significantly over the six months period. Risk perception and perceived efficacy of preventive behaviors at Time 1 were positively related with the number of preventive behaviors measured six months later. Risk perception at Time 1 and fear of COVID-19 at Time 2 predicted the mental health indicators at Time 2. Public-health strategies should find the right balance in cultivating proper levels of risk perception that would be most beneficial for prevention of COVID-19 spread and mental health problems due to pandemic.

The Power of Empathy: Experimental Evidence of the Impact of Perspective-Focused Interventions on Support for Prison Reform.

As a result of COVID-19, individuals have experienced situations that may help them relate to others, including more limited ability to interact with their environment. Thus, this survey experiment (N = 2,229) tests whether perspective-focused interventions can help increase support for prison reform. Findings suggest that perspective-getting (providing the perspective of an incarcerated individual via a narrative description of dealing with confinement) increased self-reported support for prison reform initiatives, compared with information only. In addition, a perspective-taking prompt-nudging participants to put themselves in the shoes of the incarcerated individual when reading their narrative-may help boost intention to take action in support of prison reform. Future avenues for research and implications are discussed.

The Mitigating Influence of Perspective Taking on Attitude Polarization: An Analysis of Mediation and Transfer Effect

Citizens in modern society are faced with complex and controversial public issues. For example, Taiwanese referenda in 2018 and 2021 involved 10 and 4 proposals, respectively. These proposals covered a range of controversial topics such as whether to resume the construction of a nuclear power plant and whether to legalize same-sex marriage. Discussions of these multifaceted topics often caused heated debates and resulted in attitude polarization. People often became more opinionated and believed more firmly in their initial stances on the issues. As attitude polarization is a major cause of interpersonal and intergroup conflicts and even social unrest, this research investigated how to mitigate the polarization of attitudes toward social issues. This study drew upon the theory of perspective taking for insights into the mitigation of attitude polarization. Perspective taking refers to one's attempt or ability to consider something from someone else's perspective. Perspective taking has been studied by psychologists as a means of reducing prejudice, fostering cooperation, and lowering reasoning biases that were found to be responsible for attitude polarization. Attitude polarization is, at least partially, a result of biased information processing. For example, people may become more entrenched in their opinions after engaging in biased assimilation, which entails, for instance, evaluating information supporting their opinions as more convincing than that opposing their opinions. Per the dual process theory, the reasoning biases that cause attitude polarization often reflect the influence of Type 1 processing, which usually involves responding to information intuitively and generating outcomes consistent with existing beliefs. Such outcomes can be either reinforced or overridden by Type 2 processing, which involves deliberation and evidence-based consideration. If an intuitive response is reinforced, an individual's attitude is likely to become entrenched, leading to polarization;if overridden, attitude polarization may be inhibited or attenuated. We proposed that perspective taking may serve as an overriding mechanism to mitigate attitude polarization. Perspective taking enables individuals to undertake a form of Type 2 processing called decontextualized reasoning, which features a type of self-distancing that allows individuals to decouple existing beliefs from reasoning processes. Such a reasoning style can arguably be triggered by perspective taking because this requires individuals to examine information by considering their own thinking with increased psychological distance and adopting alternative perspectives. Although research has suggested a link between perspective taking and decontextualized reasoning, how decontextualized reasoning can be measured and whether it indeed serves as a mediator between perspective taking and attitude polarization have yet to be deeply investigated. Integrating studies on perspective taking, information processing, and attitude change, this study proposed three hypotheses and tested them by conducting an experiment involving a writing task focused on social issues. First, we hypothesized that perspective taking would mitigate attitude polarization. We measured attitude polarization by calculating the difference in attitude toward an issue before and after the writing task. Second, we proposed that the mitigation of attitude polarization would be mediated by decontextualized reasoning induced by perspective taking. To investigate this hypothesis, we used a text analysis tool, namely Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC). Research on LIWC has shown that the frequency with which people use words in their writing reflects psychological features and cognitive styles. Because decontextualized reasoning features a shift of attention from the self to others, we argued that it can be detected in the difference between the frequency of using third-person plural and first-person singular pronouns. The greater this difference is, the greater the extent to which decontextualized reaso ing is likely to have been adopted by a writer. Finally, we drew upon the secondary transfer effect of intergroup contact theory and proposed that the mitigating effect outlined in the first hypothesis would influence people's attitudes even when not directly instructed to engage in perspective taking. To test this transfer effect, the writing task included two sessions, and perspective taking instructions were only given in one of the sessions. The experimental procedure was as follows. We recruited 95 participants (50 female;mean age = 23.7 years, SD = 3.4) for the writing task experiment. Participants first indicated their attitude toward two issues that are controversial in Taiwan (making Taiwan nuclear-free and abolishing the death penalty) on a 7-point Likert scale with responses ranging from absolutely disagree to absolutely agree and then wrote arguments supporting or opposing the issues in two writing sessions. When writing about one of the issues in the first session, all participants wrote arguments from their own perspective;when writing about the other issue in the second session, half of the participants continued to write from their own perspective (control condition) while the other half wrote from the perspective of someone holding the view opposite of their own (perspective-taking condition). Participants then again indicated their attitude toward both issues using the same 7-point scale. The whole experiment took approximately 30 minutes to complete. Analysis of attitude polarization between the two conditions showed that compared with the control group (M = 0.77, SD = 1.09), for the essays written in the second session, participants in the perspective-taking group (M = −0.02, SD = 1.74) displayed weaker attitude polarization, t(93) = 2.63, p = .010, d = 0.540. Based on LIWC output for the second essay for the decontextualized reasoning indicator (frequency of use of third-person plural pronouns minus that of first-person singular pronouns), compared with the control group (M = −1.04, SD = 1.20), the perspective-taking group (M = −0.08, SD = 0.95) engaged in decontextualized reasoning to a greater extent, t(93) = 4.34, p < .001, d = 0.890. Mediation analysis using the SPSS Process Macro further revealed that this difference mediated the mitigating effect found during analysis, and thus, participants in the perspective-taking group engaged in more decontextualized reasoning and exhibited weaker attitude polarization than those in the control group: indirect effect = −0.28, 95% confidence interval: [−0.54, −0.07];direct effect = −0.50, p = .122. Because all participants wrote from their own perspective in the first session, the difference in attitude polarization resulting from the first essay allowed us to examine the transfer effect. Compared with participants in the control group (M = 0.79, SD = 1.56), those in the perspective-taking group (M = 0.10, SD = 1.37) again displayed weaker attitude polarization, t(93) = 2.27, p = .026, d = 0.465. Taken together, the results revealed that perspective taking mitigated polarization of attitudes toward social issues due to greater engagement in decontextualized reasoning, a form of Type 2 processing that involves self-distancing. This mitigating effect was evident for issues where the perspective-taking manipulation was not applied, thus indicating a transfer effect. These findings can have valuable implications for areas where controversies and conflicts abound. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, disputes occurred over issues such as the necessity of vaccines, legitimacy of lockdown measures, and the distribution of supplies. These issues fall into the category of socioscientific issues (SSIs), which have been defined as crucial real-world scientific issues with social significance. Other examples of SSIs include issues pertaining to climate change, genetically modified products, and genetic testing. As were the issues used in our writing tasks, SSIs are often controversial in nature, and information relating to them is often p ocessed through an ideological lens, which can lead to attitude polarization and conflict. Helping students develop the ability to approach SSIs with scientific and fact-based reasoning has become a key objective of science and citizenship education. The manipulation used in our study can be integrated into course materials to help students analyze SSIs from multiple perspectives and avoid becoming entrenched in their opinions. Furthermore, such a practice may even affect perspectives on issues not discussed in class due to the transfer effect of perspective taking. Whether the mitigating effect of perspective taking on attitude polarization can be replicated in the classroom or other real-world settings warrants further exploration. Future research directions and other implications are also discussed. © 2022, National Taiwan Normal University. All rights reserved.

Thinking with Doors and Perspectives: Reimagining Early Childhood Spaces

This paper explores, through a posthumanist lens, child care as a communal responsibility, taking into account varied partial perspectives produced through human and more-than-human intra-actions. Multiple narratives illustrate embodied and experienced complexities within child care spaces allowing us to reflect on uncomfortable truths to enact affirmative ethics as a way to transform the ways we care for children, their families, each other, and the spaces of child care. Specifically, we think with actual and virtual doors as producers and enablers to create spaces where early childhood educators might collaboratively interrogate how materiality and socially constructed hierarchies are embedded in the inequities that separate us, inequities further exposed and exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Supporting perspective taking across chasms of thinking: Do real-time analytics hold the key?

This edition of the International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning comes just as many of us are about to or have recently begun a new academic year. Though COVID continues to be a force to contend with, this Fall brings a marked change from the past few Falls in terms of the ability to gather and enjoy community. This September issue comprises four full articles with three interrelated themes, namely, the ability to grow, assessments to measure growth, and real time assessment through analytics to prompt growth. These topics are contextualized within challenging contexts where growth occurs as individuals reach beyond the comfort zone of their own perspective, culture, and history, and reach out for others different from themselves. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Black American experiences in healthcare: Past, present, and (improving the) future

Black Americans presently and have historically faced disproportionately negative experiences in the U.S. healthcare system, as spotlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In my dissertation, I employ diverse methodologies, including quantitative analyses of nationally representative data, qualitative analyses of focus groups, and experimental methods aiming to understand and illuminate potential ways to address Black Americans' experiences of injustice in healthcare. The introduction (Chapter 1) builds upon previous research to illustrate a model which emphasizes the importance of individuals and systems (and the histories of individuals and systems) to better understand racial injustice in healthcare. In Chapter 2, I provide a narrative review of the present and historical experiences of Black Americans in the healthcare system. Next, in Chapter 3, across two studies (N=13,054), including a nationally representative sample of Black and White Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic, Black (relative to White) Americans reported less positive experiences in healthcare, which explained early COVID-19 vaccination hesitancy and lower medical system trust. Current knowledge of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study was not related significantly to medical trust or vaccination intention, however. In Chapter 4, qualitative data and thematic analysis were used to interrogate the quality of healthcare provider-Black patient interactions in a sample of 37 Black American women who had been diagnosed with breast cancer. In a community-academic collaboration, three focus groups were conducted across California. Results demonstrated that participants experienced discrimination, stereotyping, and hostility from healthcare providers and within the healthcare system which undermined their medical trust. Further, participants offered suggestions for improving the healthcare experiences of Black women diagnosed with breast cancer. A critical step toward dismantling racial injustice is acknowledging its existence. Thus, in Chapter 5, I tested specific ways to shift dominant group members' perceptions to recognize both individual and systemic racism and how to increase behavioral intentions to combat injustice in healthcare. Results from this online experiment conducted with 1853 adults suggested that when White Americans learned about critical Black history in healthcare (i.e., history of injustice) vs. celebratory Black history (i.e., history of achievement) or control information, they reported significantly more perspective-taking with Black Americans, which in turn predicted more individual and systemic racism recognition and support for anti-racist policies in healthcare. Ultimately, my dissertation studies highlight specific experiences of injustice that Black Americans face in healthcare and identifies a mechanism to increase White Americans' recognition of and support for addressing injustices toward Black Americans. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Enhancing Students' Global Perspective-Taking to Improve Virtual Team Performance: A Swift Trust Theory Perspective

Context: Contemporary organizations rely on global virtual teams. This trend, exasperated due to the Covid-19 pandemic, aligns with ongoing globalization and digital transformation efforts. The information system (IS) scholarship has a strong interest in studying groups that develop digital technologies with a frequent focus on global virtual teams. Such teams, which frequently form ad hoc, require a swift formation of trust to be effective. Global-perspective taking overcomes intercultural trust barriers and presents an opportunity for more effective teams. Problem: However, academic IS programs traditionally do not teach or assess concepts such as global-perspective in their students. Our study assesses whether university IS educators can impart global perspective-taking through online intercultural exchanges (OIEs). Theoretical reference: We examine the effects of global perspective-taking (comprising cultural intelligence, global citizenship, and civic-mindedness) on the effectiveness of global virtual teams through the lens of swift trust theory. Method: We conducted an exploratory study by creating OIEs in the context of web development coursework between students in the United States and Brazil (N=131). Results: We found that an OIE environment led to enhanced global perspective-taking and improved student outcomes. The swift trust theory suggests that such outcomes would ultimately enhance virtual team performance. Impact on the IS area: We contribute to the IS scholarship by extending the swift trust theory to include global perspective-taking and provide practical suggestions to academic IS programs on implementing effective OIE practices. We also report the benefits of global perspective-taking on international virtual team performance, which is of interest to hiring organizations. © 2022 ACM.

Perspective-taking and hindsight bias: When the target is oneself and/or a peer.

President Trump reacted to a reporter's query about the coronavirus outbreak by stating that the reporter was a "lousy journalist", underscoring the importance of perspective-taking in social exchanges. Egocentrism is the belief that others share the same perspective as your own and hampers the perspective-taking of another naive person. An issue is whether it is seen in hindsight bias where we overestimate what we knew beforehand. Via a foreseeability-inevitability platform, participants were randomly assigned to make self-judgments for problem-solving from a foresight (no answers) or three hindsight (answers) conditions. In two hindsight conditions, participants were asked to ignore or not to ignore the answers. In the last condition, participants predicted for an unfamiliar peer asked to ignore the answers. Next, all participants made judgments again from the perspective of the peer. Predominately in hindsight, participants showed significant changes responding but with an appropriate baseline comparison showed essentially the same hindsight bias in judgments for themselves and the peer. Ignoring or not ignoring the answers produced the same outcome. This sharing of perspective-taking dovetails with individuals' believing their hindsight knowledge is commonly present among others. Although participants in hindsight believed their foreseeable predictions for the peer were more accurate or realistic, it was more challenging to predict for the peer than themselves. Implications for individuals' judgments about Donald Trump 's decision-making for COVID-19 are discussed. Researchers should examine perspective-taking in hindsight bias as everyday social interaction involves reasoning about others.

Alien Intelligence Research Institute: a Perspective-Taking Activity for a Nuanced View on Traits and a Growth Mindset.

Instructors can foster equitable learning environments when they communicate that they value growth and diversity and by providing opportunities for students to reflect and to engage in cross-group interactions with diverse others. Additionally, perspective-taking activities engage empathy and have been used to reduce racial bias. An activity was introduced at the start of the semester to promote a more scientifically informed view of traits and intelligence, while also encouraging creativity, evidence-based thinking, and teamwork in an introductory biology course that was taught in an online synchronous format due to the COVID pandemic. Student groups worked in breakout rooms to create a slide in a shared file describing a research plan to test for human intelligence from the perspective of an alien life form. Students had the freedom to choose their alien to have whatever abilities and intelligence they wanted. The activity was highly student-centered, with students showing through their work that an understanding of intelligence is closely linked to the methods used to measure it. In this way, the activity promoted a more nuanced understanding of traits. This COVID-era invention resulted in a successful strategy that can be used in a variety of course delivery formats to support the teaching of content, as well as to promote a growth learning mindset and inclusive education.

Building Emotionally Stable, Inclusive, and Healthy Communities with ICT: From State of the Art to PSsmile App

There is an increasing interest in Social and Emotional learning (SEL) of youth across the world as testified by many international organizations and institutions. Research clearly shows that higher SEL is linked to successful participation in school life, better health, positive youth development. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the essential role of SEL into focus and has drawn attention to the need to take a more holistic approach to contrast unexpected and challenging situations. To pursue these goals, it is mandatory that adults acquire and apply knowledge, skills, and attitudes enhancing Social and Emotional competences. To enhance their contribution to social goods, ICTs applications should align with this perspectives’ taking. After providing a picture of main currently available tools, the paper presents the Erasmus+ PSsmile project, aimed at developing Social and Emotional competencies and contribute to building emotionally stable, inclusive, and healthy communities. PSsmile is also the name of the mobile application described in the paper with its five weeks program. It is based on the most relevant outcome within SEL studies, and recent theoretical approaches. It is aimed at raising parents and teachers’ awareness, promoting and strengthening their personal Social-Emotional competences making them more effective agents of positive growth for children and for their communities. © 2021, ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering.

The effect of felt trust from patients among nurses on attitudes towards nursing service delivery.

AIMS: To examine how felt trust motivates nurses to desire to deliver better nursing services and how perspective taking makes nurses feel trusted by their patients. By introducing the concept of prosocial motivation into nursing research, this study further explored a boundary condition that influences the positive relationship between felt trust from patients and attitudes towards nursing service delivery. DESIGN: This study used a cross-sectional and survey design. METHOD: This study was conducted among 339 nurses on medical teams sent to support Hubei, China, during the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020. RESULTS: The results indicate that felt trust from patients mediated the positive relationship between perspective taking and attitudes towards nursing service delivery. In addition, prosocial motivation moderated the relationship between felt trust from patients and attitudes towards nursing service delivery, such that the relationship was stronger when prosocial motivation was high (vs. low). Prosocial motivation also moderated the indirect effects of perspective taking on attitudes towards nursing service delivery via felt trust from patients. CONCLUSION: This study shows that despite the challenges posed by COVID-19, nurses who experience a high level of trust from patients are still eager to deliver high-quality nursing services, and this finding is especially salient among those with high prosocial motivation. IMPACT: This study introduces felt trust from patients as a new motivational mechanism that can induce nurses' willingness to deliver better nursing services. We suggest that nurses and nurse leaders should be aware of the significance of the trust relationship between nurses and patients. Nurses need to be trained to take patients' perspectives in the interaction process, which can make them feel trusted by patients and can consequently be motivated to deliver better nursing services.

Protect Others to Protect Myself: A Weakness of Western Countries in the Face of Current and Future Pandemics? Psychological and Neuroscientific Perspectives.

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated a large number of publications in the medical and biological fields concerning the virus and its treatments, as well as in psychology, social sciences, and data sciences with regard to the spread of the virus. Surprisingly, far fewer neuroscientific articles have been published in this field of research and one might well ask whether the cognitive neurosciences have anything to say at all about this vital topic. In this article, we highlight a research perspective relating to differences in the individual perception of the pandemic in Western compared to Eastern countries. Although this problem is complex, multifaceted and subsumes many other social variables, we suggest that the cognitive neurosciences do have important and fundamental insights to contribute concerning the collective response observed within these populations. More precisely, we propose the hypothesis that differences in the propensity to adopt a holistic perception of contamination processes at the group level, involving brain structures that are also associated with perspective-taking and empathy such as, in particular, the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), could help explain the differences in the perception of the pandemic observed between Western and Eastern countries.

Feelings of Culpability: Just Following Orders Versus Making the Decision Oneself.

In five experiments (N = 1,490), participants were asked to imagine themselves as programmers of self-driving cars who had to decide how to program the car to respond in a potential accident: spare the driver or spare pedestrians. Alternatively, participants imagined that they were a mayor grappling with difficult moral dilemmas concerning COVID-19. Either they, themselves, had to decide how to program the car or which COVID-19 policy to implement (high-agency condition) or they were told by their superior how to act (low-agency condition). After learning that a tragic outcome occurred because of their action, participants reported their felt culpability. Although we expected people to feel less culpable about the outcome if they acted in accordance with their superior's injunction than if they made the decision themselves, participants actually felt more culpable when they followed their superior's order. Some possible reasons for this counterintuitive finding are discussed.

Differential Susceptibility to the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Working Memory, Empathy, and Perceived Stress: The Role of Cortisol and Resilience.

There are important individual differences in adaptation and reactivity to stressful challenges. Being subjected to strict social confinement is a distressful psychological experience leading to reduced emotional well-being, but it is not known how it can affect the cognitive and empathic tendencies of different individuals. Cortisol, a key glucocorticoid in humans, is a strong modulator of brain function, behavior, and cognition, and the diurnal cortisol rhythm has been postulated to interact with environmental stressors to predict stress adaptation. The present study investigates in 45 young adults (21.09 years old, SD = 6.42) whether pre-pandemic diurnal cortisol indices, overall diurnal cortisol secretion (AUCg) and cortisol awakening response (CAR) can predict individuals' differential susceptibility to the impact of strict social confinement during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on working memory, empathy, and perceived stress. We observed that, following long-term home confinement, there was an increase in subjects' perceived stress and cognitive empathy scores, as well as an improvement in visuospatial working memory. Moreover, during confinement, resilient coping moderated the relationship between perceived stress scores and pre-pandemic AUCg and CAR. In addition, in mediation models, we observed a direct effect of AUCg and an indirect effect of both CAR and AUCg, on change in perceived self-efficacy. These effects were parallelly mediated by the increase in working memory span and cognitive empathy. In summary, our findings reveal the role of the diurnal pattern of cortisol in predicting the emotional impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting a potential biomarker for the identification of at-risk groups following public health crises.