Investigating COVID-19 stress and coping: Substance use and behavioural disengagement.

The purpose of this online empirical study was to examine the relationship between COVID-19 stress, coping including substance use and behavioural disengagement, and avoidance behaviour early on in the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants, recruited from Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk, N = 730), were adults from Canada, the United States, Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom. Results of path analysis showed that feeling threatened by the virus, predicted greater COVID-19 anxiety, which was related to greater substance use to cope with the virus, as well as more behavioural disengagement, which predicted less avoidance behaviour. Implications of the results are discussed, particularly the relationship between coping and avoidance behaviour during the pandemic.

The role of self-compassion during difficult economic times.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The negative effects of the financial crisis of 2007/2008 are still being felt today as seen in the relatively high levels of youth unemployment in many countries. As a result, many young people experience high stress levels when facing an uncertain and precarious job market. METHODS: Participants were 178 undergraduate students (79% female; Mage = 20.00, SD = 4.29) who were randomly assigned to read a news article that documented an uncertain financial future with limited job opportunities (the economic stress group), or an article that documented a tour of the Royal Canadian Mint (the control group). The role of self-compassion was explored in its relation to distress. RESULTS: Correlational and hierarchical regression analyses indicated that, in the economic stress group, self-compassion negatively predicted anxiety above and beyond self-esteem and familial support. In the control group, however, self-compassion did not negatively predict anxiety above and beyond self-esteem and familial support. Additionally, structural equation modeling indicated that self-compassion was directly associated with lower anxiety and indirectly related to anxiety through perceptions of financial threat. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that self-compassion may be an important resource that is associated with less distress during times of economic threat.

BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATERS? THE MOST "CENTRAL" MEMBERS OF PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY ASSOCIATIONS CA. 1900.

There are many different ways to assess the significance of historical figures. Often we look at the influence of their writings, or at the important offices they held with disciplinary institutions such as universities, journals, and scholarly societies. In this study, however, we took a novel approach: we took the complete memberships, ca. 1900, of four organizations-the American Psychological Association, the Western Philosophical Association, the American Philosophical Association, and the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology-and visualized them as a network. We then identified individuals who "bridged" between two or more of these groups and considered what might be termed their "centrality" to the psychological-philosophical community of their time. First, we examined these figures qualitatively, briefly describing their lives and careers. Then we approached the problem mathematically, considering several alternative technical realizations of "centrality" and then explaining our reasons for choosing eigenvector centrality as the best for our purposes. We found a great deal of overlap among the results of the qualitative and quantitative approaches, but also some telling differences. J. Mark Baldwin, Edward Buchner, Christine Ladd Franklin, and Frank Thilly consistently emerged as highly central figures. Some more marginal figures such as Max Meyer, and Frederick J. E. Woodbridge, Edward A. Pace, Edward H. Griffin played interesting roles as well.