Nursing students' empathy in response to biological and psychosocial attributions of depression: A vignette-based cross-cultural study.

BACKGROUND: Empathy is vital for quality nursing care in acute mental health settings. Although different explanations of mental illnesses shape mental health clinicians' empathy towards people with mental illnesses, it is unclear how such findings translate to the culturally diverse nursing context. AIM: The study investigated nursing students' empathy towards people with depression and their perceived clinical utility of biological and psychosocial explanations of depression in Australia and Singapore, focusing on two factors of cultural difference: relational mobility and cultural tightness. DESIGN: We used a cross-sectional research design with a repeated-measures component. PARTICIPANTS: The sample included 211 nursing students from Australia and Singapore. Participants were predominantly female (81 %), with ages ranging from 18 to 57 years (M = 26.51, SD = 7.61). METHODS: Participants completed a vignette-based online questionnaire containing measures of empathy, perceived clinical utility, relational mobility, and cultural tightness. RESULTS: Nursing students' empathy in response to the biological and psychosocial explanations of depression differed in Australia (biological: M = 2.96, SD = 0.89, 95 % CI [2.80, 3.13]; psychosocial: M = 3.56, SD = 0.91, [3.39, 3.73]) but not in Singapore (biological: M = 3.05, SD = 0.91, [2.87, 3.23]; psychosocial: M = 3.25, SD = 0.93, [3.06, 3.43]). Relational mobility mediated cross-cultural variances in empathy, b = -0.16, SE = 0.06, 95 % CI [-0.29, -0.05], and perceptions of clinical utility, b = -0.08, SE = 0.05, [-0.20, -0.00], when depression was explained psychosocially. CONCLUSIONS: Nursing students' empathy and perceived clinical utility of explanations of depression are shaped differently across cultures in part due to relational mobility and cultural tightness. As such, embedding cultural awareness education in nursing curricula to address any culturally rooted biases towards people with mental illnesses may present a promising avenue to optimise nursing students' empathy towards people with mental illnesses.

Sea-level rise and mental health among coastal communities: A quantitative survey and conditional process analysis.

This is the first large-scale empirical study examining the impact of sea-level rise induced by climate change on mental health outcomes among coastal communities. The study focuses on Bangladesh, a country severely affected by salinity ingress, flood risks, and agricultural damage due to sea-level changes. Participants (n = 1,200) randomly selected from three coastal regions each having high, moderate, or low vulnerability to sea-level rise were surveyed during the pre-monsoon season in 2021. The cross-sectional survey included validated measures of psychological distress, depression, anxiety, stress, environmental stressors, resource loss, and demographics. The results indicated significantly higher levels of psychological distress, depression, anxiety, and stress in residents of high-vulnerability areas compared to moderate or low-vulnerability regions. Resource loss served as a mediating variable between environmental stressors and mental health outcomes. Furthermore, demographic analyses showed that older adults and women reported higher levels of psychological distress. These findings align with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, highlighting urgent need for targeted mental health interventions and sustainable models of care in coastal areas increasingly threatened by sea-level rise.

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.

Toward a better understanding of cultural change: Reply to Bao et al. (2022).

Bao et al. (2022) criticize the method, analysis, and conclusion of Hamamura et al. (2021). In this reply, we respond to their three critiques. We trust that this constructive exchange further facilitates our understanding of cultural changes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

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.

Not all bilinguals are the same: A meta-analysis of the moral foreign language effect.

Emerging evidence shows bilinguals employ different decision-making strategies in their foreign language compared to their native language (known as the Foreign Language Effect). When completing moral dilemmas, accumulating research findings indicate that bilinguals are more likely to endorse the utilitarian option. We conducted a meta-analysis to investigate whether linguistic variables (proficiency, immersion, and language similarity) moderate utilitarian responding to moral dilemmas in a foreign language. A systematic literature search extracted experiments comparing binary responses to moral dilemmas among bilingual participants. Analyses confirmed a moral Foreign Language Effect within personal dilemmas, though this effect was moderated by self-reported reading proficiency, whereby bilinguals with higher self-reported reading proficiency were less likely to make a utilitarian choice. Our findings suggest that not all bilinguals may experience a Foreign Language Effect, with low self-reported reading proficiency being the most likely indicator of whether their response tendencies to a moral dilemma change in the foreign language.

Individualism with Chinese characteristics? Discerning cultural shifts in China using 50 years of printed texts.

This project examined cultural changes in terms of individualism-collectivism in China between 1950 and 1999 focusing on cultural associations that are discernible through analysis of language use. Drawing on algorithms in natural language processing (NLP) that numerically represent word meanings in a high-dimensional space, we examined patterns of word similarity for words indicating individualism and collectivism in Chinese. This methodology enables researchers of cultural change to investigate questions that were difficult to examine before. We examined four such questions pertaining to individualism-collectivism cultural change in China. The data spanning five decades found no evidence of Chinese culture becoming more positively disposed to individualism over time. Another finding suggested a continuing cultural association between collectivism and some life domains, work in particular. These findings suggest that rising individualism is not a universal consequence of societal modernization and that collectivism in China may be self-sustaining. The data also indicate that the Chinese language might have become more differentiated and complex in its discourse on individualism and collectivism. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Time-dependent association between mass protests and psychological distress on social media: A text mining study during the 2019 anti-government social unrest in Hong Kong.

BACKGROUND & AIMS: Social media are increasingly pivotal as the platform where activists and observers plan, promote, and respond to collective actions. To examine how mass protests influence psychological wellbeing and distress, this study analyzed their time-dependent association during the 2019 anti-government social unrest in Hong Kong. METHODS: Consecutive day-by-day users-generated content on online forums and social network sites (SNS) from June to November 2019 was obtained. A Cantonese term-list was created to identify terms related to mass protests and psychological distress. The frequency of comments containing such terms was analyzed using time series models. RESULTS: There were 3,572,665 social media comments in the investigation period. As hypothesized, the frequency of comments with mass protest terms was higher on days with mass protests than on days without. Frequency of comments with both mass protest- and psychological distress-terms was also higher on days with protests than days without. Time-lagged effect (responses on the following day) of protest-terms was found on online forums but not on SNS. Our results suggest a positive association between offline protest activities and online psychological reactions. CONCLUSIONS: Social media content reveals discussions of psychological distress stemming from, or exacerbated by, social unrest. The potential mutual influences between mass protests and online reactions, as well as the functional differences between online forums and SNS in this regard are discussed. Street protests and their associated psychological distress can be readily detected on popular online forums. Mental health services should consider, and even make use of, such dynamic relationship between on- and offline activities.

Cross-temporal changes in people's ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving.

Are people's ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving changing, reflecting transformative changes in our ways of living? If so, are these changes evident globally? There is a large and evolving research literature that attempts to answer these questions. The current review takes stock of this development to provide a brief summary of the literature and also to overview this research field's methodological challenges and innovations, disputed findings, remaining questions, and future directions.

Is positive emotion an amplifier or a buffer? It depends: Dialectical thinking moderates the impact of positive emotion on intergroup conflicts.

Positive emotions have been shown to shape individuals' reactions to intergroup conflicts, but the exact mechanism remains unknown. The current research hypothesizes that the impact of positive emotions would be moderated by dialectical thinking: beliefs about accepting contradiction and change. Experiencing positive emotions in an intergroup conflict may be perceived as unacceptable and evokes discomfort among nondialectical individuals, amplifying the negative reactions toward outgroup members. In contrast, because dialectical thinkers accept contradictory emotions, positive emotions may buffer against the adverse consequences of intergroup provocations. Study 1 confirmed this hypothesis by examining Chinese emotions in a real-life and a lab-induced intergroup conflict. Study 2 recruited Western participants and demonstrated that the moderating effect of dialectical thinking was evident only under a conflict-related context. Study 3 confirmed the causality by manipulating dialectical thinking in a historically enduring conflict. These findings suggest that enhancing dialectical thinking maximized the buffering effect of positive emotion against intergroup conflict. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Anxious? Just Google it: Social ecological factors of internet search records on anxiety.

Records of Internet search are increasingly used in social science research. Three studies reported here tested (a) whether population-level anxiety is reflected in Internet search data and (b) the socioecological and cultural factors of anxiety. Using data from Japan, we found that the Google search rates of anxiety are associated with self-reported anxiety (Study 1), and that the anxiety search rates increased following a major disaster (Study 2). These findings suggest that anxiety is searched more often on the Internet when and where people are feeling anxious. However, while search rates of anxiety increased since 2010, there was no sign of worsening anxiety among Japanese in 2 large national collections of data on self-reported anxiety (Study 1). Study 3 used search data to examine an anxiety-related cultural phenomenon. Consistent with a lay belief that is rarely empirically examined, we found that anxiety among Japanese increases in spring when millions in the country make school and career transitions. Together, these findings add to psychologists' understanding of anxiety, particularly its vulnerability to environmental threat and social disconnection. These findings also demonstrate the potential of Internet search data in advancing psychological research, particularly in examining mental processes' socioecological, cultural, and temporal factors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Family Matters: Rethinking the Psychology of Human Social Motivation.

What motives do people prioritize in their social lives? Historically, social psychologists, especially those adopting an evolutionary perspective, have devoted a great deal of research attention to sexual attraction and romantic-partner choice (mate seeking). Research on long-term familial bonds (mate retention and kin care) has been less thoroughly connected to relevant comparative and evolutionary work on other species, and in the case of kin care, these bonds have been less well researched. Examining varied sources of data from 27 societies around the world, we found that people generally view familial motives as primary in importance and mate-seeking motives as relatively low in importance. Compared with other groups, college students, single people, and men place relatively higher emphasis on mate seeking, but even those samples rated kin-care motives as more important. Furthermore, motives linked to long-term familial bonds are positively associated with psychological well-being, but mate-seeking motives are associated with anxiety and depression. We address theoretical and empirical reasons why there has been extensive research on mate seeking and why people prioritize goals related to long-term familial bonds over mating goals. Reallocating relatively greater research effort toward long-term familial relationships would likely yield many interesting new findings relevant to everyday people's highest social priorities.

Overconfidence is universal? Elicitation of Genuine Overconfidence (EGO) procedure reveals systematic differences across domain, task knowledge, and incentives in four populations.

Overconfidence is sometimes assumed to be a human universal, but there remains a dearth of data systematically measuring overconfidence across populations and contexts. Moreover, cross-cultural experiments often fail to distinguish between placement and precision and worse still, often compare population-mean placement estimates rather than individual performance subtracted from placement. Here we introduce a procedure for concurrently capturing both placement and precision at an individual level based on individual performance: The Elicitation of Genuine Overconfidence (EGO) procedure. We conducted experiments using the EGO procedure, manipulating domain, task knowledge, and incentives across four populations-Japanese, Hong Kong Chinese, Euro Canadians, and East Asian Canadians. We find that previous measures of population-level overconfidence may have been misleading; rather than universal, overconfidence is highly context dependent. Our results reveal cross-cultural differences in sensitivity to incentives and differences in overconfidence strategies, with underconfidence, accuracy, and overconfidence. Comparing sexes, we find inconsistent results for overplacement, but that males are consistently more confident in their placement. These findings have implications for our understanding of the adaptive value of overconfidence and its role in explaining population-level and individual-level differences in economic and psychological behavior.

Corrigendum: Marital Satisfaction, Sex, Age, Marriage Duration, Religion, Number of Children, Economic Status, Education, and Collectivistic Values: Data from 33 Countries.

[This corrects the article on p. 1199 in vol. 8, PMID: 28785230.].

Culture and group-based emotions: could group-based emotions be dialectical?

Group-based emotions are experienced when individuals are engaged in emotion-provoking events that implicate the in-group. This research examines the complexity of group-based emotions, specifically a concurrence of positive and negative emotions, focusing on the role of dialecticism, or a set of folk beliefs prevalent in Asian cultures that views nature and objects as constantly changing, inherently contradictory, and fundamentally interconnected. Study 1 found that dialecticism is positively associated with the complexity of Chinese participants' group-based emotions after reading a scenario depicting a positive intergroup experience. Study 2 found that Chinese participants experienced more complex group-based emotions compared with Dutch participants in an intergroup situation and that this cultural difference was mediated by dialecticism. Study 3 manipulated dialecticism and confirmed its causal effect on complex group-based emotions. These studies also suggested the role of a balanced appraisal of an intergroup situation as a mediating factor.

Emotional Intelligence, Pain Knowledge, and Attitudes of Nursing Students in Hong Kong.

Research on nursing students' pain knowledge and attitudes is limited. Although emotions play a role in pain assessment, no study has examined the associations between emotional intelligence and pain knowledge and the attitudes of nursing students. This cross-sectional quantitative study aimed to address this research gap by assessing the pain knowledge and attitudes of nursing students in Hong Kong and examining associations between emotional intelligence and the pain knowledge and attitudes of nursing students. A total of 104 postgraduate nursing students (45 Year 1 students and 59 Year 3 students) completed a questionnaire that included demographic information, the Schutte Emotional Intelligence Scale (SEIS) and the Knowledge and Attitudes Survey Regarding Pain (KASRP). Data analyses included descriptive statistics, correlational analyses, chi-square test and t-tests. The pain knowledge and attitudes of both Year 1 students (M = 20.40, SD = 3.78) and Year 3 students (M = 21.36, SD = 3.15) were suboptimal, t(102) = -1.41, p = .16. Year 1 students had higher emotional intelligence (M = 122.44, SD = 8.90) than Year 3 students (M = 117.71, SD = 14.34), t(98.35) = 2.07, p = .04. For Year 1 students, emotional intelligence was negatively correlated with pain knowledge and attitudes, but the correlation was not significant (r = -.15, p = .33). For Year 3 students, emotional intelligence, pain knowledge and attitudes were negatively correlated, but the correlation was significant (r = -.31, p = .02). These results suggest that nursing students' pain knowledge and attitudes could be improved. Implications for nurse educators to enhance emotional intelligence and pain education for nursing students are discussed.

Contextual Effect of Wealth on Independence: An Examination through Regional Differences in China.

The current study disentangled two different effects of wealth on psychological tendency toward independence: one is an effect exerted at the individual level (i.e., being rich) and the other one is a contextual effect (i.e., being surrounded by rich individuals). Past research has found a stronger tendency toward independence among people in economically developed societies. This association has often been explained as a result of a greater amount of choices, and thus more opportunities to express individuality that wealth affords individuals. In addition to this individual-level process, theories in cultural psychology imply that the wealth-independence link also reflects social processes-living in a rich society, regardless of one's own wealth, promotes independence (contextual effect of wealth on independence). Through a large-scale survey in China, using multilevel analyses, we found that wealth had both the individual-level effect and contextual effect on independence as well as related psychological tendencies (influence orientation and generalized trust), suggesting that individuals are more likely to be independent with greater personal wealth and when surrounded by wealthy others. Possible processes through which independence is promoted by liing in a wealthy area are discussed.

Nursing students' assessment of pain and decision of triage for different ethnic groups: An experimental study.

BACKGROUND: Pain management is a priority in nursing care but little is known about the factors that affect nursing students' assessment of pain expressed by patients of different ethnic backgrounds. OBJECTIVES: This study examined undergraduate nursing students' assessment of pain and decision of triage when pain was expressed in different languages and their relation to students' empathy and social identity. Comparison between students with and without clinical experience was also carried out. DESIGN: This is a cross-sectional quantitative design. SETTING: This study took place at a university in Hong Kong. PARTICIPANTS: 74 female undergraduate nursing students. METHODS: Students listened to eight audio recordings in which an individual expressed pain in one of the two dialects of Chinese, either Cantonese or Putonghua. For each dialect, two recordings depicted mild pain and two depicted severe pain. After listening to each recording, students rated the pain level and indicated their decision of triage. Subsequently, students completed a questionnaire that measured their empathy and social identity and reported their demographics. The data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, correlational analyses, and t-tests. RESULTS: Severe pain described in Putonghua was rated as more intense than that described in Cantonese but it was not classified as more urgent. Students with clinical experience tended to perceive mild pain as less painful and less urgent than those without clinical experience. For mild pain described in Cantonese, students with clinical experience evaluated it as more urgent than those without such experience. The empathy level of students with and without clinical experience was comparable. Students with more empathy, especially those without clinical experience, reported heightened perceived intensity of severe pain described in Putonghua. CONCLUSIONS: Nurse educators should note that empathy, social identity, and clinical experience may alter students' pain assessment of patients from different ethnicities. Pain education needs to be reinforced.