Psychological flexibility prospectively predicts COVID-19 PPE use across a two-month interval.

Perceived susceptibility, psychological flexibility and health behaviors (PPE use, social distancing) were measured at two time points spaced 2 months apart during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown in the U.S.A (Time 1 April 2020; Time 2 June 2020). Demographic variables were also collected. Data from 151 Mturk workers indicated that Time 1 psychological flexibility significantly predicted PPE use and social distancing. The effect sizes were substantial. Perceived susceptibility was not a significant predictor. Psychological flexibility messaging and interventions could be an important way to increase the likelihood of people performing health protective behaviors to better constrain the continuing COVID-19 outbreak.

Coping with COVID-19: Survey data assessing psychological distress to COVID-19 and vaccine hesitancy with measures of theory of planned behavior, mindfulness, compassion, cultural orientation, and pandemic fatigue.

As the COVID-19 pandemic extends into another year, the causes and consequences of pandemic fatigue and vaccine hesitancy have become prominent concerns. This dataset contains MTurk survey responses from 658 vaccinated USA samples indicating: (a) pandemic fatigue and psychological distress (physical and trauma symptoms); (b) delays in receiving medical care due to COVID-19 restrictions; (c) vaccine-related behavior and beliefs (type of vaccine and vaccine hesitancy), and (d) COVID-19 preventive health behaviors. Several predictor variables were also collected including: (a) demographic variables; (b) COVID-19 health risk factors; (c) perceived susceptibility to disease and intolerance of uncertainty; (d) attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control about COVID-19 vaccine from the theory of planned behavior; (e) compassion for self and others; (f) psychological flexibility and inflexibility; (g) Buddhist mindfulness insight (impermanence, acceptance of suffering, nonself attachment, mindfulness); and (h) cultural orientation and authoritarianism. The data were collected between August 28th and October 18th of 2021. Out of the 746 MTurk workers who responded to the survey, 88 were removed from the dataset due to failing attention checks and problems with quality data. The responses from the remaining 658 allow an examination of the associations between fatigue and distress from COVID-19; COVID-19 vaccine related behaviors and beliefs; preventive health behaviors for COVID-19; COVID-19 susceptibility; intolerance of uncertainty; together with compassion, psychological flexibility, mindfulness, cultural orientation, as well as authoritarianism as possible moderators of COVID-19 fatigue, distress, and vaccine beliefs.

Stress, self-compassion, and school burnout in Thai high school students.

OBJECTIVES: High school has been recognized as a critical period for many students. With the upcoming competition for university admission, they tend to encounter significant stress. Exceeding its optimal level, stress became debilitating and could escalate into school burnout, which entailed various negative outcomes. The current study, hence, was aimed to identify a protective factor that helped mediate the relationship between stress and school burnout in Thai high school students. Self-compassion was selected here, given its relevant conceptual grounds and its cultural relevance (i.e., Thai individuals shown to be particularly oriented toward self-compassion). METHODS: Data were collected from 170 Thai high school students, who responded to measures of stress, self-compassion, and school burnout. A structural equation model (SEM) was used to test the hypothetical model where the positive association between stress and school burnout was mediated by self-compassion. RESULTS: All indices of the model fits were confirmed, and the proposed model explained 80% of the variance in school burnout. CONCLUSION: The role of self-compassion in alleviating the impact of stress on school burnout was shown and relevant implications were discussed.

Assessment of the Perceived Importance of Religion in Couple Relationships in Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and the Nonreligious.

Couple relationship standards (beliefs about what makes for a satisfying couple relationship) have not included standards held about religion, which is surprising given how important religion is in many parts of the world. In the current study, we developed the Importance of Religion in Couple Relationships Scale (IRCRS) with the aim of having a scale suitable for use across different cultural and religious groups. The IRCRS was administered to three samples: 354 Pakistani residents (178 females, 176 males) who identified as Muslim; 274 Thai residents (157 females, 117 males) who identified as Buddhist; and 165 Westerners (resident in Australia or the United States, 60 males, 105 females) who identified as either not religious (n = 74) or Christian (n = 91). We developed a 13-item measure with a two level structure yielding an overall importance of religion score. The items in the IRCRS had acceptable cross-cultural structural invariance in a multi-group confirmatory factor analysis of the Pakistani Muslims, Thai Buddhists, and Westerners. Pakistani Muslims endorsed IRCRS standards most strongly, Western Christians next most strongly, Thai Buddhists next, and Westerners with no religion least strongly. There were no gender differences, and only very small differences by relationship status. The IRCRS can be used in future research to investigate the association of religious relationship standards with couple relationship satisfaction and might be a useful clinical tool to assess the importance of religion to couples.

Los estándares de las relaciones de pareja (las creencias acerca de lo que conduce a una relación de pareja satisfactoria) no han incluido los estándares relacionados con la religión, lo cual es sorprendente teniendo en cuenta cuán importante es la religión en muchas partes del mundo. En el presente estudio desarrollamos la Escala de la Importancia de la Religión en las Relaciones de Pareja (IRCRS, por sus siglas en inglés) con el objetivo de tener una escala apta para el uso en diferentes grupos religiosos y culturales. Se administró la IRCRS a tres muestras: 354 residentes pakistaníes (178 mujeres, 176 hombres) que se identificaron como musulmanes; 274 residentes tailandeses (157 mujeres, 117 hombres) que se identificaron como budistas; y 165 occidentales (residentes en Australia o en EE. UU., 60 hombres, 105 mujeres) que se identificaron como irreligiosos (n = 74) o como cristianos (n = 91). Desarrollamos una escala de 13 ítems con una estructura de dos niveles que da un puntaje de la importancia general de la religión. Los ítems de la IRCRS tuvieron una invarianza estructural intercultural aceptable en un análisis factorial confirmatorio multigrupo de los musulmanes pakistaníes, los budistas tailandeses y los occidentales. Los musulmanes pakistaníes confirmaron los estándares de la IRCRS más marcadamente, luego le siguieron los cristianos occidentales, los budistas tailandeses y finalmente los occidentales irreligiosos. No hubo diferencias de género y solo muy pequeñas diferencias según el estado civil. La IRCRS puede utilizarse en investigaciones futuras para averiguar la asociación de los estándares religiosos de las relaciones con la satisfacción con la relación de pareja, y podría ser una herramienta clínica útil para evaluar la importancia de la religión para las parejas.

Unlocking collective cooperation in the midst of COVID-19: The role of social support in predicting the social class disparity in cooperation.

We examined whether (the lack of) social support can explain why researchers have found lower rates of adherence to follow public health guidelines amongst people who perceived themselves as coming from lower social class backgrounds during the COVID-19 pandemic. To do this, we surveyed 5818 participants from 10 countries during the first wave of lock-down. Contrary to previous findings, social class was not related to general adherence to COVID-19 regulations or desire to engage in citizenship behaviours (e.g., showing initiatives to help others during the pandemic). However, we found evidence of an indirect effect whereby those who perceived themselves as higher social class were more likely to be both the recipient and provider of social support which in turn predicted greater adherence and desire to engage in citizenship behaviours during the earlier wave of the pandemic. Our findings highlight the importance of social support in unlocking potential for collective cooperation (i.e., adherence to COVID-19 rules and desire to engage in citizenship behaviours). They suggest that instead of enforcing strict regulations, government authorities need to address existing social support barriers within lower income communities to facilitate cooperation from everyone in the community.

Mindfulness and eudaimonic well-being: the mediating roles of rumination and emotion dysregulation.

Mindfulness has been widely studied in Western psychology for reducing psychological distress. However, several scholars noted that in the East, where the concept originated, mindfulness may be understood differently. In Eastern cultures such as Thailand, mindfulness is not only employed to deal with suffering but also to promote well-being. To the best of our knowledge, no studies have been undertaken to evaluate the relationship between traditional mindfulness and eudaimonic well-being in Eastern contexts. In the present study, we investigated the relationships between mindfulness and eudaimonic well-being in Thai contexts. We also explored the mediating roles of rumination and emotion dysregulation on this relationship. Data were collected from 312 Thai undergraduates who completed a measure of Eudaimonic Well-Being, the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory, the Rumination-Reflection Questionnaire, and the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale. Results largely supported our hypotheses. Mindfulness was found to have a positive and direct association with eudaimonic well-being. Rumination and emotion dysregulation partially mediated this association. Additionally, both rumination and emotion dysregulation had negative and direct association with eudaimonic well-being. The findings highlight the positive influences of mindfulness on well-being. The benefits of mindfulness for improvement of eudaimonic well-being through reducing rumination and emotion dysfunction are discussed.

To which world regions does the valence-dominance model of social perception apply?

Over the past 10 years, Oosterhof and Todorov's valence-dominance model has emerged as the most prominent account of how people evaluate faces on social dimensions. In this model, two dimensions (valence and dominance) underpin social judgements of faces. Because this model has primarily been developed and tested in Western regions, it is unclear whether these findings apply to other regions. We addressed this question by replicating Oosterhof and Todorov's methodology across 11 world regions, 41 countries and 11,570 participants. When we used Oosterhof and Todorov's original analysis strategy, the valence-dominance model generalized across regions. When we used an alternative methodology to allow for correlated dimensions, we observed much less generalization. Collectively, these results suggest that, while the valence-dominance model generalizes very well across regions when dimensions are forced to be orthogonal, regional differences are revealed when we use different extraction methods and correlate and rotate the dimension reduction solution. PROTOCOL REGISTRATION: The stage 1 protocol for this Registered Report was accepted in principle on 5 November 2018. The protocol, as accepted by the journal, can be found at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.7611443.v1 .

Psychological reactions to COVID-19: Survey data assessing perceived susceptibility, distress, mindfulness, and preventive health behaviors.

The COVID-19 pandemic created a complex psychological environment for persons in America. A total of 450 USA MTurk workers completed measures of: (a) basic demographic characteristics; (b) health risk factors for COVID-19; (c) perceived susceptibility variables related to COVID-19; (d) COVID-19 preventive health behaviors; and (e) distress, physical symptoms, and quality of life measures. The surveys were completed between April 9, 2020 and April 18, 2020. This recruitment period corresponded to the first 2-3 weeks of lockdown in most of the USA. Follow-up surveys were completed by 151 of the USA participants between June 19, 2020 and July 11, 2020 (approximately 2 months after the first measurement). These data permit evaluation of relationships among demographic variables, COVID-19 stress and coping, COVID-19 preventive health behavior, and the role of mindfulness as a possible moderator of distress as well as a predictor of preventive health behavior. The availability of follow-up data permit longitudinal analyses that provide a stronger basis for causal inference.

A Cross-National Analysis of the Psychometric Properties of the Geriatric Anxiety Inventory.

OBJECTIVES: Assessing late-life anxiety using an instrument with sound psychometric properties including cross-cultural invariance is essential for cross-national aging research and clinical assessment. To date, no cross-national research studies have examined the psychometric properties of the frequently used Geriatric Anxiety Inventory (GAI) in depth. METHOD: Using data from 3,731 older adults from 10 national samples (Australia, Brazil, Canada, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Singapore, Thailand, and United States), this study used bifactor modeling to analyze the dimensionality of the GAI. We evaluated the "fitness" of individual items based on the explained common variance for each item across all nations. In addition, a multigroup confirmatory factor analysis was applied, testing for measurement invariance across the samples. RESULTS: Across samples, the presence of a strong G factor provides support that a general factor is of primary importance, rather than subfactors. That is, the data support a primarily unidimensional representation of the GAI, still acknowledging the presence of multidimensional factors. A GAI score in one of the countries would be directly comparable to a GAI score in any of the other countries tested, perhaps with the exception of Singapore. DISCUSSION: Although several items demonstrated relatively weak common variance with the general factor, the unidimensional structure remained strong even with these items retained. Thus, it is recommended that the GAI be administered using all items.

Mechanisms of change of traditional mindfulness practice in Thai adolescent students: a cross-sectional mediation study.

Given the substantial evidence for the efficacy of secular mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) for reducing psychological distress and increasing wellbeing, research attention has more recently turned to investigating the mechanisms by which this is achieved and has revealed that MBI works not only directly on reducing distress, but also indirectly through a reduction in mediating problems such as rumination and emotional regulation difficulty. However, to the best of the authors' knowledge, no studies have yet been undertaken to evaluate the effect on such mediating conditions, of traditional Buddhist mindfulness meditation, as practiced in Eastern cultures and increasingly in the West, from which MBIs have been derived but remain distinctly different. The current study was therefore designed to examine the effect of traditional mindfulness on mediating conditions in participants who were born into and were experienced in this approach. Specifically, the study examines the relationship between traditional mindfulness and distress, and between traditional mindfulness and the mediating conditions of rumination and emotional regulation difficulty, in Thai adolescent students experienced in Buddhist meditation practices. The results resonate well with the findings from MBI studies, showing significant negative correlations between rumination and distress and emotional regulation difficulty and distress, and significant positive correlations between mindfulness and the mediators. The implications of the benefits of traditional mindfulness for reducing non-clinical distress, rumination and difficulties in emotion regulation are discussed.

Math anxiety in Thai early adolescents: a cognitive-behavioral perspective.

With its high prevalence and debilitating impact on students, math anxiety is well studied within the educational context. However, the problem has yet to be examined from the psychological perspective, which is necessary in order to produce a more comprehensive perspective and to pave the way for therapeutic intervention. The current study, therefore, was conducted to identify cognitive and behavioral factors relevant to the occurrence and maintenance of math anxiety. Data were collected from 300 grade 9 students (150 females and 150 males) from public and private schools in Bangkok, Thailand. Participants responded to the measures of math anxiety, negative math beliefs, negative math appraisals and math avoidance. Structural equation modeling was conducted. Model fit indices obtained consistently suggested the good fitness of the model to the data [e.g. χ2/df = 0.42, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.00]. Negative math beliefs, negative math appraisals and math avoidance had a significant direct effect on math anxiety. Additionally, the indirect effect of negative math appraisal was observed between negative math beliefs and math anxiety. In summary, the proposed model accounted for 84.5% of the variance in the anxiety. The findings are discussed with particular focus on implications for therapeutic intervention for math anxiety.