Doomsday Prepping During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

"Doomsday prepping" is a phenomenon which involves preparing for feared societal collapse by stockpiling resources and readying for self-sufficiency. While doomsday prepping has traditionally been reported in the context of extremists, during the COVID-19 pandemic, excessive stockpiling leading to supply shortages has been reported globally. It is unclear what psychological or demographic factors are associated with this stockpiling. This study investigated doomsday prepping beliefs and behaviors in relation to COVID-19 proximity, demographics, coping strategies, psychopathology, intolerance of uncertainty (IU), and personality in 384 participants (249 female) in an online study. Participants completed a number of questionnaires including the Post-Apocalyptic and Doomsday Prepping Beliefs Scale and a scale designed for the current study to measure prepping in the context of COVID-19. These were analyzed using ANOVAs, correlational, and mediation analyses to examine relationships between psychometric variables and stockpiling. Prepping beliefs and behaviors were higher in males than females and positively associated with anxiety, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, IU, and traditional masculinity traits. Older age, male gender, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, and traditional masculinity predicted unique variance in prepping. The relationship between gender and stockpiling was mediated by social learning (witnessing other people panic buying) and the perceived threat of COVID-19 (doomsday interpretations) while proximity and personal vulnerability to COVID-19 were non-significant. Results indicate that panic buying was influenced more by witnessing others stockpiling, personality, and catastrophic thinking rather than by proximity to danger. Education could target these factors in ongoing waves of the pandemic or future catastrophes.

Cognitive Distortions in Relation to Plasma Cortisol and Oxytocin Levels in Major Depressive Disorder.

Negative thinking is prominent in major depressive disorder (MDD). Cognitive models propose that negative thinking influences the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis and cortisol release. Oxytocin is also linked to MDD, social and affective processing, and stress buffering. Little research has examined direct relationships between negative cognitions, cortisol, and oxytocin. METHODS: Sixty-one unmedicated participants meeting DSM-5 criteria for MDD and 60 healthy controls completed measures of psychopathology, stress, and cognitions. Plasma samples were analyzed for cortisol and oxytocin. Between-group analyses of variance were conducted along with correlational, regression and mediation analyses. RESULTS: Depressed participants reported greater frequency and believability of negative thoughts than controls. Cortisol levels were positively, and oxytocin inversely, correlated with negative thinking. Cortisol and negative thinking accounted for unique variance in depression, and the relationship between stress and cortisol depended on the extent of negative cognitions. CONCLUSIONS: The results support long-standing cognitive models which propose that negative thoughts are important in the relationship between stress and cortisol levels.

Sequence effects in the Go/NoGo task: inhibition and facilitation.

Facilitation and inhibition are asymmetric aspects of attention that differentially affect response times (RTs), accuracy and neuroelectric activity in many experimental tasks. Both vary as a function of stimulus context, with stimulus repetitions, for example, often resulting in facilitation in terms of speed, accuracy or reduced neural activity. Although inhibition has been extensively studied in the Go/NoGo task, facilitation has been overlooked. Twenty healthy adults performed an adapted Go/NoGo task which manipulated levels of facilitation and inhibition. Event-related potential (ERP) and behavioural measures were averaged according to preceding stimulus sequences. Established Go/NoGo effects for N2 and P3 components were replicated. Behavioural and ERP measures, however, showed strong sequence effects. Correlates of facilitation included reduced P1 and N1 latencies, and topographic effects in P1, to Go stimulus repetitions. Manipulations of inhibitory load through increasing Go before NoGo stimuli resulted in incremental increases in N1, P2 and N2 latencies. Several additional ERP and RT measures showed quadratic effects, with indications of facilitation or inhibition which reversed towards the end of longer stimulus trains. The results suggest that both facilitatory and inhibitory processes underlie performance in the Go/NoGo task. As Go stimuli are typically more frequently repeated than NoGo stimuli, the two processes may be confounded when sequence effects are not considered. Additionally, analysing stimuli by context indicates that the timing of the Go-P3 latency is closely related to responses, and the prolongation of N1, P2 and N2 with increasing difficulty of inhibition supports a possible relation of these components to inhibition.