Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted biopsychosocial health and wellbeing globally. Pre-pandemic studies suggest a high prevalence of common mental disorders, including anxiety and depression in South Asian countries, which may aggravate during this pandemic. This systematic meta-analytic review was conducted to estimate the pooled prevalence of anxiety and depression in South Asian countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. Method: We systematically searched for cross-sectional studies on eight major bibliographic databases and additional sources up to October 12, 2020, that reported the prevalence of anxiety or depression in any of the eight South Asian countries. A random-effects model was used to calculate the pooled proportion of anxiety and depression. Results: A total of 35 studies representing 41,402 participants were included in this review. The pooled prevalence of anxiety in 31 studies with a pooled sample of 28,877 was 41.3% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 34.7-48.1, I2 = 99.18%). Moreover, the pooled prevalence of depression was 34.1% (95% CI: 28.9-39.4, I2 = 99%) among 37,437 participants in 28 studies. Among the South Asian countries, India had a higher number of studies, whereas Bangladesh and Pakistan had a higher pooled prevalence of anxiety and depression. No studies were identified from Afghanistan, Bhutan, and Maldives. Studies in this review had high heterogeneity and varying prevalence across sub-groups. Conclusion: South Asian countries have high prevalence rates of anxiety and depression, suggesting a heavy psychosocial burden during this pandemic. Clinical and public mental health interventions should be prioritized alongside improving the social determinants of mental health in these countries. Lastly, a low number of studies with high heterogeneity requires further research exploring the psychosocial epidemiology during COVID-19, which may inform better mental health policymaking and practice in South Asia.

Prevalence of anxiety and depression in South Asia during COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis

10.31234/osf.io/jbh4w

For over two centuries researchers have been criticized for using research practices that makes it easier to present data in line with what they wish to be true. With the rise of the internet it has become easier to preregister the theoretical and empirical basis for predictions, the experimental design, the materials, and the analysis code. Whether the practice of preregistration is valuable depends on your philosophy of science. Here, I provide a conceptual analysis of the value of preregistration for psychological science from an error statistical philosophy (Mayo, 2018). Preregistration has the goal to allow others to transparently evaluate the capacity of a test to falsify a prediction, or the severity of a test. Researchers who aim to test predictions with severity should find value in the practice of preregistration. I differentiate the goal of preregistration from positive externalities, discuss how preregistration itself does not make a study better or worse compared to a non-preregistered study, and highlight the importance of evaluating the usefulness of a tool such as preregistration based on an explicit consideration of your philosophy of science.gister the theoretical and empirical basis for predictions, the experimental design, the materials, and the analysis code

The Value of Preregistration for Psychological Science: A Conceptual Analysis

10.31234/osf.io/q5d48

In recent times, many alarm bells have begun to sound: the metaphorical presentation of the COVID-19 emergency as a war might be dangerous, because it could affect the way people conceptualize the pandemic, and react to it, leading citizens to endorse authoritarianism and limitations to civil liberties. The idea that conceptual metaphors actually influence reasoning has been corroborated by Thibodeau and Boroditsky, who showed that when crime is metaphorically presented as a beast, readers become more enforcement-oriented than when crime is metaphorically framed as a virus. Recently, Steen, Reijnierse and Burgers replied that this metaphorical framing effect does not seem to occur and suggested that the question should be rephrased about the conditions under which metaphors do or do not influence our reasoning. In this paper, we investigate whether presenting the COVID-19 pandemic as a war has an effect on people’s reasoning about the pandemic. Data collected suggest that when the metaphorical framing effect occurs, it is mediated by socio-political individual variables such as speakers’ political orientation and their kind of source of information: right wings participants and those relying on independent sources of information are those more conditioned by the COVID-19 war metaphor in reasoning and opinion formation.

Does the COVID-19 war metaphor influence reasoning? Socio-political factors mediate the framing effect

10.31234/osf.io/ah528

Could fear and anxiety play a functional role during the COVID-19 pandemic by driving greater information sharing about the viral threat? To explore whether anxiety may serve as a unique emotional indicator of sharing information in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we used a representative sample of the United States from the American Trends Panel (N=9,188) conducted April 20th-26th, 2020. Participants reported how they have felt in the past week, where they got their news about the outbreak from, and whether they had posted COVID-19 news on social media or discussed the pandemic with others. Even after controlling for other emotions, news sources, and a range of demographic measures, feeling anxious—more so that other negative emotions, such as feeling depressed—predicted greater information sharing on social media (𝛽 = .05, p < .001) and beyond (𝛽 = .14, p < .001). These findings are consistent with functionalist theories of emotion, which predict that fear and anxiety play a unique role in both identifying and communicating threats to oneself and to others.

Anxiety Talking: Does Anxiety Predict Sharing Information about COVID-19?

A defining feature of liberal democracy is the respect for and protection of core civil liberties. Yet, major crises, such as wars, natural disasters and pandemics, can provide a pretext to undermine liberal democratic norms. This raises questions of whether citizens are willing to support policies that violate their civil liberties in a crisis and whether some individuals are more likely to a support such encroachments. We conducted a series well-powered preregistered conjoint and vignette experiments in the US and UK during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that people’s attitudes are relatively malleable and that endorsements by an in-group party and trusted experts can shift support for measures that erode civil liberties. However, the evidence also reveals resistance to certain illiberal policy measures, including banning protests and indefinitely postponing elections. This indicates the presence of liberal democratic norms, even when partisan elites promote illiberal policies.

10.31234/osf.io/8e4pa

Is COVID-19 a Threat to Liberal Democracy?

10.31234/osf.io/2zgv6

Machine Learning Models Predicting Daily Affective Dynamics Via Personality and Psychopathology Traits

10.31234/osf.io/8ht2j

The manuscript presents a summary of the results of the linguistic semantics study of Covid-19 related quarantine. Research conducted on a sample of Russian speaking Ukrainians. Found content and structure of the respective discursive field. Described features of inter-discourse connections. Established that the actualization of some discourses is accompanied by the deactivation of others, what makes quarantine semantics biased. Also, it was suggested that some of the discourses are indirectly positively associated and form the semantic core of the quarantine concept.

Short communication: Linguistic Semantics of the Covid-19 Quarantine Concept Perceived by Ukrainians

10.31234/osf.io/8nvm3

Objectives: To examine the subjective wellbeing of Australian parents raising children and adolescents (0-18 years) during ‘stage three’ COVID-19 restrictions (April 2020), in comparison with subjective wellbeing in parents assessed over an 18-year period prior to the pandemic. We also aimed to examine socio-demographic and COVID-19 predictors of subjective wellbeing during the pandemic. Methods: Cross-sectional data were from: (1) the COVID-19 Pandemic Adjustment Survey (CPAS, N=2,365 parents of a child 0-18 years, 8-28th April, 2020); and, (2) a pre-pandemic database bringing together over 18-years of national data on subjective wellbeing (N=17,529 adults living with children, collected in annual surveys over 2002-2019). Results: Levels of subjective wellbeing during the pandemic were considerably lower than ratings prior to the pandemic (Personal Wellbeing Index, mean [SD]=65.3 [17.0]; compared to [SD]=75.8 [11.9], p<0.001). Within the pandemic data, subjective wellbeing was lower in parents with low education, language other-than-English, receiving income assistance (i.e., a government benefit), single parents, and young parents. Subjective wellbeing was also lower in fathers, parents raising a child with a neurodevelopmental condition, parents with physical or mental health problems, and parents reporting COVID-related stressors, such as employment changes, financial strain, negative feelings/attributions about COVID-19, and supervising children while working-from-home. Unexpectedly, parent engagement with news media about the pandemic was associated with higher subjective wellbeing. Conclusion: Subjective wellbeing in parents raising children aged 0-18 years appears to be disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and associated social restrictions in Australia. Specific at-risk groups, for which government intervention may be warranted, include parents in socially disadvantaged contexts, parents with pre-existing mental health difficulties, and parents facing significant COVID-19 related work changes.

Subjective wellbeing in parents during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Australia

10.31234/osf.io/457em

A crucial question in the governance of infectious disease outbreaks is how to ensure that people continue to adhere to mitigation measures for the longer duration of the pandemic. The present paper examines this question by means of a nationally representative cross-sectional set of studies conducted in the United States in May, June, and July 2020. It seeks to understand to what extent Americans continued to adhere to social distancing measures in the period after the first lockdown ended during the first wave of COVID-19. Moreover, it seeks to uncover which situational and motivational variables sustained (or undermined) adherence. Our findings reveal a mix of situational and motivational variables that contributed to adherence in the period after the first lockdown: individuals’ knowledge of social distancing measures, their practical capacity to adhere to them, their opportunities for not doing so, and their impulsivity (situational influences), as well as their moral alignment with mitigation measures against the virus, perceptions of its health threat, and perceived norms for adherence in their community (motivational influences). The results also reveal, however, that adherence among Americans declined during this period, as did important situational and motivational processes that sustained this. The findings show that adherence does not just originate in motivations and that situational variables play a central role. Moreover, they show that adherence is dynamic, as the core variables that sustain can change over a short period of time. These insights help to advance understanding of pandemic governance, as well as illuminating the interaction between rules and human conduct and compliance more generally. Moreover, they identify important avenues for policy to promote and sustain adherence to mitigation measures during the COVID-19 pandemic and in future outbreaks.

Social Distancing in America: Understanding Long-term Adherence to Covid-19 Mitigation Recommendations

10.31234/osf.io/cakq3

Our study aimed to assess the change in the sleep patterns during the Coronavirus lockdown in five regions (Austria/Germany, Ukraine, Greece, Cuba and Brazil), using online surveys, translated in each language. Part of the cohort was collected directly during lockdown, to which retrospective cross-sectional data from and after lockdown (retrospective) questionnaires ware added. We investigated sleep times and sleep quality changes from before to during lockdown and found that, during lockdown, participants had (i) worse perceived sleep quality for those who reported to be worried by COVID-19, (ii) a shift of bedtimes to later hours during workdays, and (iii) a sleep loss on free days (resulting from more overall sleep during workdays), leading to (iv) a marked reduction of social jetlag across all cultures. For further analyses we then split the participants by job (system relevant or not) because it was assumed that the nature of the lockdown’s consequences is dependent upon system relevance. System relevant jobs were found to have earlier wake-up times as well as shorter total sleep times on workdays, leading to a higher social jetlag for people in system relevant jobs. Cultural differences revealed a general effect that participants from Greece and Ukraine had later bedtimes (on both work and free days) and wake-up times (on workdays) than Cuba, Brazil and Austria, irrespective of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions.

Sleep during COVID-19 lockdown: a cross-cultural pilot study

10.31234/osf.io/rveh3

Publishing studies using standardized, machine-readable formats will enable machines to perform meta-analyses on-demand. To build a semantically-enhanced technology that embodies these functions, we developed the Cooperation Databank (CoDa) – a databank that contains 2,641 studies on human cooperation (1958-2017) conducted in 78 countries involving 356,680 participants. Experts annotated these studies for 312 variables, including the quantitative results (13, 959 effect sizes). We designed an ontology that defines and relates concepts in cooperation research and that can represent the relationships between individual study results. We have created a research platform that, based on the dataset, enables users to retrieve studies that test the relation of variables with cooperation, visualize these study results, and perform (1) metaanalyses, (2) meta-regressions, (3) estimates of publication bias, and (4) statistical power analyses for future studies. We leveraged the dataset with visualization tools that allow users to explore the ontology of concepts in cooperation research and to plot a citation network of the history of studies. CoDa offers a vision of how publishing studies in a machine-readable format can establish institutions and tools that improve scientific practices and knowledge.

The Cooperation Databank

10.31234/osf.io/4anhr

In this commentary, we argue that Fried's article, "Lack of theory building and testing impedes progress in the factor and network literature," provides a number of insights that will be very useful for psychologists, but also that he is wishing for psychology to focus on a kind of theory that it cannot generally be expected to produce at this time. As we will explain, Fried asks too much of our models and our theories. In part, this stems from a failure to consistently heed his own warnings about the limitations of statistical models, but it also reflects an overestimation of the kind of evidence and reasoning necessary to develop and test theory. We too believe that psychological research on individual differences should pay attention to theory, but we are more optimistic than Fried about the progress that can be made through a focus on the kind of theory that psychology is actually capable of producing. In order to justify our optimism, we first develop our perspective on the nature of latent variables and then consider how individual-difference researchers should approach theory that has the potential to explain them.

To wish impossible things: On the ontological status of latent variables and the prospects for theory in psychology

10.31234/osf.io/7dm4p

Messaging from authorities about COVID-19 has been widely divergent. This research aims to clarify popular perceptions of the threat of COVID-19 and its effects on victims. In four studies with over 4,100 U.S. participants, we consistently found that people perceive the threat of COVID-19 to be substantially greater than that of several other causes of death to which it has recently been compared, including the seasonal flu and automobile accidents. Participants were less willing to help COVID-19 victims, who they considered riskier to help, more contaminated, and more responsible for their condition. Additionally, politics and demographic factors predicted attitudes about victims of COVID-19 above and beyond moral values; whereas attitudes about the other kinds of victims were primarily predicted by moral values. The results indicate that people perceive COVID-19 as an exceptionally severe disease threat, and despite prosocial inclinations, do not feel safe offering assistance to COVID-19 sufferers.

It’s Not the Flu: Popular perceptions of the impact of COVID-19

10.31234/osf.io/g69ha

Coincident with the global rise in concern about the spread of misinformation on social media, there has been influx of behavioural research on so-called “fake news” (fabricated or false news headlines that are presented as if legitimate) and other forms of misinformation. These studies often present participants with news content that varies on relevant dimensions (e.g., true v. false, politically consistent v. inconsistent, etc.) and ask participants to make judgments (e.g., accuracy) or choices (e.g., whether they would share it on social media). This guide is intended to help researchers navigate the unique challenges that come with this type of research. Principle among these issues is that the nature of news content that is being spread on social media (whether it is false, misleading, or true) is a moving target that reflects current affairs in the context of interest. Steps are required if one wishes to present stimuli that allow generalization from the study to the real-world phenomenon. Furthermore, the selection of content to include can be highly consequential for the study’s outcome, and researcher biases can easily result in biases in a stimulus set. As such, we advocate for pretesting materials and, to this end, report our own pretest of 225 recent true and false news headlines, both relating to U.S. political issues and the COVID-19 pandemic. These headlines may be of use in the short term, but, more importantly, the pretest is intended to serve as an example of best practices in a quickly evolving area of research.

A practical guide to doing behavioural research on fake news and misinformation

10.31234/osf.io/9qdza

Misinformation on social media has become a major focus of research and concern in recent years. Perhaps the most prominent approach to combating misinformation is the use of professional fact-checkers. This approach, however, is not scalable: Professional fact-checkers cannot possibly keep up with the volume of misinformation produced every day. Furthermore, many people see fact-checkers as having a liberal bias and thus distrust them. Here, we explore a potential solution to both of these problems: leveraging the “wisdom of crowds'' to identify misinformation at scale using politically-balanced groups of laypeople. Using a set of 207 news articles flagged for fact-checking by an internal Facebook algorithm, we compare the accuracy ratings given by (i) three professional fact-checkers after researching each article and (ii) 1,128 Americans from Amazon Mechanical Turk after simply reading the headline and lede sentence. We find that the average rating of a politically-balanced crowd of 10 laypeople is as correlated with the average fact-checker rating as the fact-checkers’ ratings are correlated with each other. Furthermore, the layperson ratings can predict whether the majority of fact-checkers rated a headline as “true” with high accuracy, particularly for headlines where all three fact-checkers agree. We also find that layperson cognitive reflection, political knowledge, and Democratic Party preference are positively related to agreement with fact-checker ratings; and that informing laypeople of each headline’s publisher leads to a small increase in agreement with fact-checkers. Our results indicate that crowdsourcing is a promising approach for helping to identify misinformation at scale.

Scaling Up Fact-Checking Using the Wisdom of Crowds

10.31234/osf.io/qeap8

A popular view, supported by several studies, is that liberals are more concerned than conservatives about COVID-19. This is puzzling given the strong pandemic responses from some conservative nations, and the well-established link between conservatism and threat-sensitivity. We argue a resolution is provided by the dual evolutionary foundations of political ideology, which track trade-offs between: (1) threat-driven group conformity (social conservatism or right-wing authoritarianism [RWA]) vs. individual autonomy (social progressivism); and (2) a competitive motivation for hierarchy (economic conservatism or social dominance orientation [SDO]) vs. cooperation (economic progressivism). Using longitudinal data from a UK sample (n=433), we show that social (RWA), but not economic (SDO), conservatism significantly increased following the pandemic, and self-reported worry about the pandemic predicts this effect. Moreover, both social conservatives and economic progressives display strong responses to COVID-19, but for different reasons. While social conservatives generally display more worried and conformist/norm-enforcing responses, economic progressives display more cooperative, empathic responses and only worried or conformist/norm-enforcing responses related to empathy. These findings provide an explanation for apparently inconsistent results of prior work, support the dual foundations model of political ideology, and offer insight into divergent motives across the ideological landscape that may be useful for managing pandemic response.

Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic reflect the dual evolutionary foundations of political ideology

10.31234/osf.io/efa8u

In this article, the authors identify the cultural and spiritual assessments needed to conduct counseling with Muslim Americans and Muslim immigrants to the United States. Assessment processes are outlined that include cultural identity (which subsumes several variables); worldview; spiritual assessment along with acculturation level and migration concerns; impact of languages spoken; social, occupational, and educational status of the client in host culture and in home culture (if the client is an immigrant); and family composition and social supports.

Counseling Muslim Americans: Cultural and Spiritual Assessments

10.31234/osf.io/fn9j4

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has altered learning environments. These changes have shed light on several factors that make assessing oral language skill, a foundational component of reading development, even more challenging under current conditions. Oral language is the way that we communicate our thoughts and ideas. Three factors related to ways in which we can raise our oral language assessment LITeracy by considering children’s: 1) Language variation, 2) Individual differences, and 3) the Technological considerations of the school environment during the upcoming year are discussed. Taking account of these three factors is a first step in ensuring equitable assessment. In order to make strides in preventing inequitable assessment practices we provide general recommendations to help overcome the challenges faced in the current climate and future learning environments. Choosing the right oral language assessment means: 1) being inclusive of the language, dialect, and individual variation that is reflected in your classroom. 2) embracing all of the oral language 3) anticipating how the data from an assessment can be linked to instructional practice and 4) making time to do your due diligence.

Oral Language Assessment LITeracy: Choosing the Right Assessment in the Time of COVID

10.31234/osf.io/nyd8a

This study examined the Big Five personality traits as predictors of individual differences and changes in the perceived stressfulness of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany between early April 2020 and early September 2020. This timeframe includes the first national “lockdown,” the period of “easing” of restrictions, and the summer vacation period. Data were collected from n = 588 full-time employees, who provided baseline data on their personality traits in early December 2019, and then later provided data on perceived stressfulness of the COVID-19 pandemic at five time points, spanning six months. Consistent with expectations based on event and transition theories, results showed that, on average, perceived stressfulness declined between early April 2020 and early September 2020. Moreover, this effect was stronger between early April 2020 and early July 2020. Hypotheses based on the differential reactivity model of personality and stress were partially supported. Emotional stability was associated with lower, and extraversion associated with higher, average levels of perceived stressfulness. Finally, extraversion was associated with increases (i.e., positive trajectories) in perceived stressfulness between early April 2020 and early July 2020 and decreases (i.e., negative trajectories) in perceived stressfulness between early July 2020 and early September 2020.

Big Five Traits as Predictors of Stressfulness During the COVID-19 Pandemic

10.31234/osf.io/h4jn5

The pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has forced the world into social isolation and confinement for health and safety reasons. Such changes affected the way people connect with each other, which had repercussions on health and well-being. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, researchers have been striving to understand the effects of the pandemic at social, personal and relational levels. Some people have experienced heightened sexual desire and made new additions to their sexual repertoire. We extended these findings by examining the personal and relational outcomes of joint and solitary online pornography use. Results from a cross-sectional study (N = 301 participants; 56.5% men; Mage = 31.36, SD = 10.57) showed that participants indicated adherence to confinement policies, changes in lifestyle, and fear of becoming infected with COVID-19. Participants also indicated decreased sexual desire since the outbreak, but also increased willingness to have sex. Results also showed that joint pornography use was associated with more sex quality and more satisfaction and intimacy with their partners, which in turn was associated with better perceived physical health and better sleep quality. The reverse pattern was found for solitary pornography use. Lastly, overall results were consistent for single and pattered people. These findings show the personal and relational benefits of using online pornography with partners use during the pandemic.

Personal and Relational Outcomes of Online Pornography Use During the COVID-19 Pandemic

10.31234/osf.io/7brp6

The Spring term 2020 saw a global switch to emergency remote teaching in higher education due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Alongside asynchronous online learning activities, students were called to participate in synchronous videoconferencing sessions, substituting the traditional on-campus face-to-face courses. Given the preponderance of students to avoid using webcams, this study sought to investigate usage behavior, as well as potentially related course variables and individual characteristics. 3,527 students from across all institutional faculties of a comprehensive German university took part in an online survey. Students’ webcam usage behavior was related to personal thoughts and feelings (e.g., privacy), to course characteristics (e.g., group cohesion), and it differed due to specific groups (gender, study degree). Results of this research shed light on a globally present phenomenon and provide a foundation for further investigation.

“Generation invisible“. Higher education students’ (non)use of webcams in synchronous online learnin

Building common ground: Quantifying the interplay of mechanisms that promote understanding in conversations

10.31234/osf.io/a5r74

Humans readily engage in idle chat, heated discussions, and negotiate tough joint decisions without ever having to think twice about the different mechanisms they use to keep the conversation grounded in mutual understanding. However, current attempts at identifying and assessing the grounding mechanisms that make this possible are fragmented across disciplines and investigate single mechanisms within single contexts. We present a comprehensive conceptual framework to investigate and quantify conversational grounding mechanisms, and how they adjust to contextual demands. In three corpus studies, we systematically test the role of three grounding mechanisms, backchannels, repair, and interactive alignment. Contrasting affiliative (AC) and task-oriented (TOC) conversations between and within participants, we find that grounding mechanisms adaptively adjust to the increased need for precision in the latter: Across Study 1 and Study 2, we show that low-precision mechanisms such as backchannels are more frequent in AC, while more costly but higher-precision mechanisms, such as specific repairs, are more frequent in TOC. Further, TOC involve higher complementarity of contributions in terms of the content and perspective: lower semantic alignment, and less frequent (but richer) lexical and syntactic alignment. Crucially, in Study 3, these variations in the use of grounding mechanisms are shown to be adaptive: pairs of interlocutors that show stronger linguistic complementarity perform better across the two tasks. By combining motivated comparisons of several conversational contexts, and theoretically informed computational analyses of empirical and experimental data, the present work lays the foundations for a comprehensive conceptual framework of grounding mechanisms in conversation.

10.31234/osf.io/kb53h

The prediction of everyday human behavior is a central goal in the behavioral sciences. However, efforts in this direction have been limited, as (1) the behaviors studied in most surveys and experiments represent only a small fraction of all possible behaviors, and (2) it has been difficult to generalize data from existing studies to predict arbitrary behaviors, owing to the difficulty in adequately representing such behaviors. Our paper addresses each of these problems. First, by sampling frequent verb phrases in natural language and refining these through human coding, we compile a dataset of nearly 4,000 common human behaviors. Second, we use distributed semantic models to obtain vector representations for our behaviors, and combine these with demographic and psychographic data, to build supervised, deep neural network models of behavioral propensities for a representative sample of the US population. Our best models achieve high accuracy rates when predicting propensities for novel (out-of-sample) participants as well as novel behaviors. This work lays the foundation for new predictive theories of everyday behavior, improving the generality and naturalism of research in the behavioral sciences

Representing and Predicting Everyday Behavior

I:10.21203/rs.3.rs-84751/v1

AbstractBackground: Risk communication during pandemics is an element of paramount importance. Understanding the level of public concern implicates expensive and time-consuming surveys. We hypothesize that the relative search volume from Google Trends could be used as an indicator of public concern towards prevention measures as well as of the adequacy of the official messages spread. Methods: The search terms ‘RKI’, ‘corona’ and ‘protective mask’ in German language were shortlisted. Cross-correlations between these terms and the reported cases from February 15th to April 27th were conducted for each German federal state. The findings were contrasted against a timeline of official communications concerning COVID-19.Results: The highest correlations of the term ‘RKI’ (Robert Koch Institute, national public health authority in Germany) with reported COVID-19 cases were found between lags of -2 and -12 days, meaning web searches were already performed two to twelve days before case numbers increased. A similar pattern was seen for the term ‘corona’. Cross-correlations indicated that most searches on ‘protective mask’ were performed six to twelve days after the increase of cases. Conclusions: The results for the term ‘protective mask’ indicate some degree of confusion in the population, which is supported by the contradictory recommendations on the wearing of face masks over time. In addition, the relative search volumes could be a useful tool to provide timely information on location-based risk communication strategies.

10.31234/osf.io/wksqj

COVID-19 Poll

Our latest Faunalytics poll looks at COVID-19, and what the general public knows about its relationship to animals. The results show there is room for education — and backlash.

doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.589892

In some countries, government policies to combat Covid-19 have been based on the notion that behavioral fatigue prevents people maintaining self-isolation and other restrictions to their life styles for more than a short time. By 16 March 2020, 681 United Kingdom behavioral scientists had signed an open letter to their government asking it to reveal the evidence that shows that behavioral fatigue exists. Nothing was forthcoming. The provenance of concept remains a mystery but modelers have argued that the delay in implementing lockdown policies, for which it was at least partly responsible, led to the loss of at least 20,000 lives. Here, I consider whether behavioral fatigue is a real phenomenon by assessing (a) direct evidence consistent and inconsistent with its existence and (b) indirect evidence drawn from other domains. I conclude that evidence for it is not sufficient to constrain policy. It is reasonable to conclude that behavioral fatigue is either a naïve construct or a myth that arose during the development of policy designed to tackle the Covid-19 crisis.

Behavioral Fatigue: Real Phenomenon, Naïve Construct, or Policy Contrivance?

Pseudoscientific Content on YouTube: Assessing the Effects of Watch History on the Recommendation Algorithm. (arXiv:2010.11638v1 [http://cs.CY]) http://arxiv.org/abs/2010.11638

new post on Scibeh's meta-science reddit describing the new rubric for peer review of preprints aimed at broadening the pool of potential 'reviewers' so that students could provide evaluations as well! https://reddit.com/r/BehSciMeta/comments/l64y1l/reviewing_peer_review_does_the_process_need_to/… please take a look and provide feedback!

the rubric was developed in a hackathon from SciBeh's November 2020 conference (which you can revisit in videos and summaries here: https://scibeh.org/events/workshop2020/…) 2/3

new post on Scibeh's meta-science reddit describing the new rubric for peer review of preprints aimed at broadening the pool of potential 'reviewers' so that students could provide evaluations as well! https://reddit.com/r/BehSciMeta/comments/l64y1l/reviewing_peer_review_does_the_process_need_to/… please take a look and provide feedback! 1/3

When this is over, the 100,000 deaths wil be revised down, by tens of thousands.

Don Dokken and his good friend infectious disease epidemiologist Dr. Anne Rimoin discuss Covid-19, getting vaccinated, what’s happening now and when we can expect to return to concerts! 1/2021

Don Dokken discusses Covid-19 with Dr. Anne Rimoin

With Covid, if we are looking at survey responses to guide policy, isn't there a danger that the behaviours of those missed by surveys is disproportionately influential to the outcome we care about with those surveys i.e. spread of Covid? So by missing 10% of the population you could be missing 80% (completely made up numbers but you get the point) of spreading behaviours? i.e. if there is a correlation between those least likely to respond to surveys and those who are most likely to be part of (super)spreader events then by basing behavioural understanding on survey evidence we may very materially misunderstand appropriate actions? Is there any evidence to support this concern i.e. do we know what the features are of people most likely to (not) reply to surveys, and/or the features of people who are most likely to be part of (super)spreader events?

Surveys in a time of Covid

ow the Coronavirus Recovery Is Changing Cities

The dynamics of network social contagion processes such as opinion formation and epidemic spreading are often mediated by interactions between multiple nodes. Previous results have shown that these higher-order interactions can profoundly modify the dynamics of contagion processes, resulting in bistability, hysteresis, and explosive transitions. In this paper, we present and analyze a hyperdegree-based mean-field description of the dynamics of the SIS model on hypergraphs, i.e. networks with higher-order interactions, and illustrate its applicability with the example of a hypergraph where contagion is mediated by both links (pairwise interactions) and triangles (three-way interactions). We consider various models for the organization of link and triangle structure, and different mechanisms of higher-order contagion and healing. We find that explosive transitions can be suppressed by heterogeneity in the link degree distribution, when links and triangles are chosen independently, or when link and triangle connections are positively correlated when compared to the uncorrelated case. We verify these results with microscopic simulations of the contagion process and with analytic predictions derived from the mean-field model. Our results show that the structure of higher-order interactions can have important effects on contagion processes on hypergraphs.

Picking up on a suggestion by Dawn Liu Xiaodan at the University of Essex, I'd like to raise the following question:What do we know (either from theory, experiment, but probably more importantly from actual experience in real world contexts, including this pandemic) about when compulsion helps, or undercuts, protective behaviour (e.g., social distancing, mask wearing, remote working, etc)?

Behavioural Policy challenge: when does compulsion help?

Coronavirus will cost global tourism at least $1.2 trillion

UNCTAD estimates that for every $1 million lost in international tourism revenue, a country’s national income could drop by up to $3 million. The effects on employment could be dramatic.

Coronavirus will cost global tourism at least $1.2 trillion

Lockdown rules: What Covid tier is your area in and what are the restrictions?

As Covid-19 spreads across the world, governments turn a hopeful eye towards research and development of a vaccine against this new disease. But it is one thing to make a vaccine available, and it is quite another to convince the public to take the shot, as the precedent of the 2009 H1N1 flu illustrated. In this paper, we present the results of four online surveys conducted in April 2020 in representative samples of the French population 18 years of age and over (N=5,018). These surveys were conducted during a period when the French population was on lockdown and the daily number of deaths attributed to the virus reached its peak. We found that if a vaccine against the new coronavirus became available, almost a quarter of respondents would not use it. We also found that attitudes to this vaccine were correlated significantly with political partisanship and engagement with the political system. Attitudes towards this future vaccine did not follow the traditional mapping of political attitudes along a Left-Right axis but oppose people who feel close to governing parties (Centre, Left and Right) on the one hand, and, on the other, people who feel close to Far-Left and Far-Right parties as well as people who do not feel close to any party. We draw on the French sociological literature on ordinary attitudes to politics to discuss our results as well as the cultural pathways via which political beliefs can affect perceptions of vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic.