Social axioms and psychological toll: A study of emotional, behavioral, and cognitive responses across 35 cultures during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected the psychological well-being of individuals worldwide. Previous research has indicated that values and beliefs, particularly social axioms, are associated with psychological responses during crises. However, most of the studies have focused on specific regions; the impact of social axioms on a global scale remains unclear. We conducted a multinational study comprising stratified samples of 18,171 participants from 35 cultures. Using multilevel modeling, we examined the associations between social axioms, personal worry, normative concerns, trust, and individuals' psychological responses to the pandemic. The results showed that greater personal worry and normative concerns predicted more negative psychological responses. Furthermore, the study also identified significant buffering effects at the societal level, as cultures with higher overall levels of fate control, religiosity, or reward for application exhibited weaker associations between personal worry and negative responses. Our findings reveal the influence of social axioms on psychological responses during the pandemic, with varying effects across cultures. The buffering effects of fate control, religiosity, and reward for application underscore the importance of considering cultural differences and individual variability when examining the impact of social axioms on psychological outcomes.

Social media trust predicts lower COVID-19 vaccination rates and higher excess mortality over 2 years.

Trust plays a crucial role in implementing public health interventions against the COVID-19 pandemic. We examined the prospective associations of interpersonal, institutional, and media trust with vaccination rates and excess mortality over time in two multinational studies. In study 1, we investigated the country-level relationships between interpersonal trust, vaccination rates, and excess mortality across 54 countries. Interpersonal trust at the country level was calculated by aggregating data of 80,317 participants from the World Values Survey in 2017-20. Data on vaccination rates and excess mortality were obtained from the World Health Organization. Our findings indicated that higher levels of interpersonal trust were linked to higher vaccination rates and lower excess mortality rates in both 2020 and 2021. In study 2, we collected data from 18,171 adults in 35 countries/societies, stratified by age, gender, and region of residence. At the country/society level, interpersonal trust and trust in local healthcare facilities, local healthcare services, and healthcare professionals were associated with higher vaccination rates and lower excess mortality, whereas social media trust was associated with lower vaccination rates and higher excess mortality across three time points over 2 years. Our findings are robust when controlling for country-level covariates of the government stringency index, population density, and medical resources (i.e. critical care beds) in both studies.

Who do we trust and how do we cope with COVID-19? A mixed-methods sequential exploratory approach to understanding supportive messages across 35 cultures.

Based upon a mixed-methods follow-up exploratory model, we examined the link between trust and coping during the early outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic at the society level. Qualitative data were collected from the supportive messages written by 10,072 community adults across 35 societies. Trust and coping were used as the two pre-defined themes in the conceptual content analysis. Five subthemes emerged from the theme trust, depicting five distinct trusted targets: God, a larger us, country/government, science/healthcare, and the affected. Six subthemes emerged from the theme coping, depicting six distinct coping strategies: interpersonal/social coping, religious/spiritual coping, acceptance, blame, wishful thinking, and strength-based coping. A follow-up quantitative investigation also showed that four society-level factors (viz., individualism, cultural tightness, globalization, and severity of pandemic) had differential effects on people's trusted targets and ways of coping with the pandemic. Our study made both methodological and practical contributions to cross-cultural research on COVID-19 by using a mixed-methods approach in a multinational study and demonstrating the importance of making meaningful virtual connection during a time of physical distancing.

Global Consciousness Predicts Behavioral Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Empirical Evidence From 35 Cultures.

COVID-19 has drastically changed human behaviors and posed a threat to globalism by spurring a resurgence of nationalism. Promoting prosocial behavior within and across borders is of paramount importance for global cooperation to combat pandemics. To examine both self-report and actual prosocial behavior, we conducted the first empirical test of global consciousness theory in a multinational study of 35 cultures (N = 18,171 community adults stratified by age, gender, and region of residence). Global consciousness encompassed cosmopolitan orientation, identification with all humanity, and multicultural acquisition, whereas national consciousness reflected ethnic protection. Both global consciousness and national consciousness positively predicted perceived risk of coronavirus and concern about coronavirus, after controlling for interdependent self-construal. While global consciousness positively predicted prosocial behavior in response to COVID-19, national consciousness positively predicted defensive behavior. These findings shed light on overcoming national parochialism and provide a theoretical framework for the study of global unity and cooperation.

Relationships between global orientations and attitudes toward integration policies: A sequential explanatory mixed methods approach.

OBJECTIVES: Based upon a mixed methods follow-up explanation model, the present research examined the relationships between global orientations and the attitudes toward integration policies among both locals (majority group) and South Asians (minority group) in Hong Kong. METHODS: In Study 1, quantitative data were collected from a community sample of 1,614 adults comprising 1,007 locals and 607 South Asians in three minority groups (Indians, Nepalese, and Pakistanis). In Study 2, a follow-up explanation phase of qualitative investigation was conducted, with 12 in-depth semistructured focus group discussions among seven locals and 49 South Asians, generating three main themes and six subthemes. RESULTS: Quantitative results showed that the positive link between multicultural acquisition and instrumental integration policies was significantly stronger for South Asians than for locals, and that ethnic protection was negatively associated with a positive attitude toward symbolic integration policies in the majority group but had no effects in the minority group. The three main themes generated from the qualitative results include alleviating minority disadvantage, preserving majority privilege, and embracing diversity for the common good. CONCLUSIONS: The combined quantitative and qualitative results suggest that the differential relationships of multicultural acquisition and ethnic protection with support for specific integration policies can be understood with the underlying structural power asymmetry between the majority and minority groups. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Dual impacts of coronavirus anxiety on mental health in 35 societies.

The spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has affected both physical health and mental well-being around the world. Stress-related reactions, if prolonged, may result in mental health problems. We examined the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health in a multinational study and explored the effects of government responses to the outbreak. We sampled 18,171 community adults from 35 countries/societies, stratified by age, gender, and region of residence. Across the 35 societies, 26.6% of participants reported moderate to extremely severe depression symptoms, 28.2% moderate to extremely severe anxiety symptoms, and 18.3% moderate to extremely severe stress symptoms. Coronavirus anxiety comprises two factors, namely Perceived Vulnerability and Threat Response. After controlling for age, gender, and education level, perceived vulnerability predicted higher levels of negative emotional symptoms and psychological distress, whereas threat response predicted higher levels of self-rated health and subjective well-being. People in societies with more stringent control policies had more threat response and reported better subjective health. Coronavirus anxiety exerts detrimental effects on subjective health and well-being, but also has the adaptive function in mobilizing safety behaviors, providing support for an evolutionary perspective on psychological adaptation.

Does Believing in Fate Facilitate Active or Avoidant Coping? The Effects of Fate Control on Coping Strategies and Mental Well-Being.

The development of control-related constructs has involved different approaches over time, and yet internal and external locus of control are conceptualized as dichotomous factors influencing active versus avoidant coping strategies. While external control is associated with avoidance, a similar belief construct fate control, which denotes that life events are pre-determined and influenced by external forces but predictable and alterable, challenges the assumption of incompatibility between fate and agency. To develop a dynamic model of control, we suggest that external control would affect avoidant coping, which in turn would affect psychological distress, whereas fate control would affect both active and avoidant coping when dealing with stress. The model was supported among Hong Kong Chinese using a cross-sectional approach in Study 1 (n = 251) and hypothetical stressful scenarios in Study 2 (n = 294). The moderating effect of perceived controllability was observed in coping behaviors using a diary approach in Study 3 (n = 188). Our findings offer an alternative perspective to the dichotomous view of control and provide implications for coping strategies and mental well-being.

Predicting Gambling Propensity and Behavior: The Role of Social Axioms and Distortive Beliefs.

Theory and research have revealed the impact of cognitive factors on propensity for gambling, but the role of generalized beliefs and their underlying mechanisms receive little attention. In the present research, we operationalized generalized beliefs as social axioms (Leung et al. in J Cross Cult Psychol 33:286-302, 2002) and tested how the axiom factors of fate control and social cynicism affected the likelihood to gamble in hypothetical scenarios (Study 1) and the actual behaviour of gambling (Study 2). In Study 1, we found that both fate control and social cynicism positively predicted the propensity to participate in horse betting and casino gambling among university students (n = 184). The effect of fate control was mediated by perceived benefit of gambling, whereas social cynicism affected gambling propensity directly. In Study 2, we showed the same effects of fate control and social cynicism on gambling frequency among at-risk adolescents (n = 547), and identified two types of gambling-related cognition (i.e., distortive gambling cognitions and attitudes towards money) as mediators. Overall, this research provided evidence for the importance of social beliefs in formulating specific gambling cognitions and gambling behaviours, shedding light on intervention strategies for helping frequent gamblers through altering their worldviews in general and risk-taking beliefs in particular.

Do people's world views matter? The why and how.

Over the past decades, personality and social psychologists have extensively investigated the role of self-views in individual functioning. Research on world views, however, has been less well studied due to overly specific conceptualizations, and little research about how and why they impact life outcomes. To answer why and how world views matter, we conducted 7 studies to examine the functions, antecedents, and consequences of generalized beliefs about the world, operationalized as social axioms (Leung et al., 2002). This research focused on 2 axiom factors, namely, social cynicism and reward for application. These axioms were found to explain individual differences in self-views over and above personality traits in Hong Kong and U.S. samples (Study 1) and to explain cultural differences in self-views in addition to self-construals among Mainland Chinese, Hong Kong Chinese, East Asian Canadians, and European Canadians (Study 2). Endorsement of social axioms by participants, their parents, and close friends was collected from Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Canada to infer parental and peer influences on world views (Study 3). World views affected psychological well-being through the mediation of positive self-views across 3 age groups, including children, adolescents, and young adults (Study 4) and over time (Study 5). The mediation of negative self-views was through comparative self-criticism rather than internalized self-criticism (Study 6). Holistic thinking moderated the effect of social cynicism on self-views and psychological well-being (Study 7). These results converge to show that world views as a distal force and self-views as a proximal force matter in people's subjective evaluation of their lives. (PsycINFO Database Record

The role of dialectical self and bicultural identity integration in psychological adjustment.

OBJECTIVE: We applied the concept of naïve dialecticism (Peng & Nisbett, ), which characterizes East Asians' greater tendency to encompass contradictory, ever-changing, and interrelated features of an entity, to bicultural contexts and examined its effects on psychological well-being across various acculturating groups. METHOD: We administered questionnaire measures of the dialectical self, bicultural identity integration (BII; Benet-Martínez & Haritatos, 2005), and well-being to Hong Kong Chinese (N = 213) in Study 1 and Mainland Chinese (N = 239) in Study 2. In Study 3, a 4-week longitudinal study was conducted among Hong Kong Chinese (N = 173) to test the relationships of these variables over time. We then extended similar measures to new immigrants from Mainland China (N = 67) in Study 4 and Filipino domestic workers in Hong Kong (N = 153) in Study 5. RESULTS: Five studies converged to show that psychological adjustment was positively related to BII, but negatively related to the dialectical self. In Studies 1-3, dialecticism mediated the effect of BII on psychological adjustment among Hong Kong and Mainland Chinese bicultural individuals. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings reveal the deleterious effects of tolerance for contradiction on well-being and differentiate biculturalism patterns of immigration-based and globalization-based acculturation.

National differences in predictors of suicide among young and elderly citizens: linking societal predictors to psychological factors.

Suicide is usually conceptualized as arising either because of social phenomena or individual dynamics. In this study, these approaches were combined by analyzing suicide rates of younger people aged 15-24 and elderly aged 65-74 from 54 nations using societal variables in conjunction with psychological measures of citizen characteristics as mediators. A mediated analysis showed that psychological citizen factors, like home satisfaction and happiness, mediated the impact of societal variables, like the sex ratio, in predicting suicide rates. We found different psychological and societal predictors for young and elderly suicides, with elderly suicide rates being much more predictable. An age-responsive Durkheimian framework focusing on the dynamics of social integration at different ages was used to interpret these results.