Collective remembering and future forecasting during the COVID-19 pandemic: How the impact of COVID-19 affected the themes and phenomenology of global and national memories across 15 countries.

The COVID-19 pandemic created a unique set of circumstances in which to investigate collective memory and future simulations of events reported during the onset of a potentially historic event. Between early April and late June 2020, we asked over 4,000 individuals from 15 countries across four continents to report on remarkable (a) national and (b) global events that (i) had happened since the first cases of COVID-19 were reported, and (ii) they expected to happen in the future. Whereas themes of infections, lockdown, and politics dominated global and national past events in most countries, themes of economy, a second wave, and lockdown dominated future events. The themes and phenomenological characteristics of the events differed based on contextual group factors. First, across all conditions, the event themes differed to a small yet significant degree depending on the severity of the pandemic and stringency of governmental response at the national level. Second, participants reported national events as less negative and more vivid than global events, and group differences in emotional valence were largest for future events. This research demonstrates that even during the early stages of the pandemic, themes relating to its onset and course were shared across many countries, thus providing preliminary evidence for the emergence of collective memories of this event as it was occurring. Current findings provide a profile of past and future collective events from the early stages of the ongoing pandemic, and factors accounting for the consistencies and differences in event representations across 15 countries are discussed.

Contextual factors predicting compliance behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic: A machine learning analysis on survey data from 16 countries.

Voluntary isolation is one of the most effective methods for individuals to help prevent the transmission of diseases such as COVID-19. Understanding why people leave their homes when advised not to do so and identifying what contextual factors predict this non-compliant behavior is essential for policymakers and public health officials. To provide insight on these factors, we collected data from 42,169 individuals across 16 countries. Participants responded to items inquiring about their socio-cultural environment, such as the adherence of fellow citizens, as well as their mental states, such as their level of loneliness and boredom. We trained random forest models to predict whether someone had left their home during a one week period during which they were asked to voluntarily isolate themselves. The analyses indicated that overall, an increase in the feeling of being caged leads to an increased probability of leaving home. In addition, an increased feeling of responsibility and an increased fear of getting infected decreased the probability of leaving home. The models predicted compliance behavior with between 54% and 91% accuracy within each country's sample. In addition, we modeled factors leading to risky behavior in the pandemic context. We observed an increased probability of visiting risky places as both the anticipated number of people and the importance of the activity increased. Conversely, the probability of visiting risky places increased as the perceived putative effectiveness of social distancing decreased. The variance explained in our models predicting risk ranged from < .01 to .54 by country. Together, our findings can inform behavioral interventions to increase adherence to lockdown recommendations in pandemic conditions.

Spontaneous past and future thinking about the COVID-19 pandemic across 14 countries: Effects of individual and country-level COVID-19 impact indicators

In 2020, the world was amid a global health crisis-the COVID-19 pandemic. Nations had varying levels of morbidity and mortality and adopted different measures to prevent the spread of infection. Effects of the pandemic on spontaneous (rather than voluntary) past and future thoughts remain unexplored. Here, we report data from a multicountry online study examining how both country- and individual-level factors are associated with this core aspect of human cognition. Results showed that national (stringency of measures) and individual (attention to COVID-related information and worry) factors separately and jointly predicted the frequency of people's pandemic-related spontaneous thoughts. Additionally, no typical positivity biases were found, as both past and future spontaneous thoughts had a negative emotional valence. This large-scale multinational study provides novel insights toward better understanding the emergence and qualities of spontaneous past and future thoughts. Findings are discussed in terms of the determinants and functions of spontaneous thought. General Audience Summary The COVID-19 pandemic was a global phenomenon;people in countries across the world experienced the pandemic similarly, but did it affect the way we perceived the past and future? This study reports whether and how people experienced spontaneous thoughts about the past and future of the pandemic-that is, images of the past or future that appear in mind without warning and with little effort (e.g., remembering a recent lockdown or imagining a future announcement)-during the pandemic's first wave. Spontaneous past and future thoughts are important in daily life and can indicate poor mental health when negative in nature. Here, for the first time, we asked people from 14 different countries across four continents to report the frequency and emotional characteristics of their spontaneous past and future pandemic-related thoughts in the first wave of the pandemic. The study showed that the national context (in particular, COVID regulations) predicted the frequency of people's spontaneous thoughts about the pandemic. Emotional aspects of these thoughts were predicted by individual factors such as isolation, worry, attention to COVID-related information, and impact of COVID-19 on everyday life, in addition to national factors. Finally, in contrast to previous research showing a "positive bias," which is thought to be beneficial, past and future spontaneous pandemic-related thoughts had a negative emotional tone. This study allowed us to demonstrate that the tendency to experience spontaneous thoughts about an ongoing international event can be predicted by societal context, which may be valuable for examining the social predictors of spontaneous emotional thoughts about the past and future. The study also characterized the negative tone of past and future spontaneous thoughts about the pandemic, and future studies will be needed to examine the longer term consequences of these effects.

Cultural Competence and Cultural Intelligence of Healthcare Professionals Providing Emergency Medical Services.

BACKGROUND: There are more and more foreigners in Poland who become clients of the Polish healthcare system. They use, among others, emergency medical services provided by healthcare professionals: doctors, nurses, and paramedics. Skillful care for culturally different patients requires cultural competencies and cultural intelligence to ensure good quality of care and cultural safety. The study aimed to measure and assess the cultural competencies and cultural intelligence of medical professionals working in hospital emergency departments (HEDs) and hospital emergency rooms (HERs) in Malopolska, a region in southern Poland. METHODS: The following questionnaires were used in the study: the Cross-Cultural Competence Inventory (CCCI), the Cultural Intelligence Scale (CQS), and Questionnaire on Attitudes Towards Culturally Divergent People. In total, 709 medical professionals participated in the study, including 363 nurses, 223 paramedics, and 123 doctors. RESULTS: Cultural intelligence-the overall score and the scores on the metacognitive, cognitive, motivational, and behavioral subscales were significantly higher among HED and HER doctors. Cultural competencies-the overall score and the score on the cultural adaptation subscale were also significantly higher among HED and HER doctors. The CCCI and CQS scores were influenced by selected variables: taking care of and close interactions with representatives of other cultural circles; staying outside Poland for more than a month. Doctors were the group of medical professionals that were most tolerant and most positive towards people from other cultures. CONCLUSIONS: The research results confirm the positive impact of contact of medical professionals with people from other cultures on their cultural competencies and cultural intelligence. They indicate the need for training in acquiring cultural competencies and developing cultural intelligence, especially among nurses. They demonstrate the need to raise awareness among HED and HER medical professionals about issues in intercultural care and to increase diversity efforts, especially among nurses.