Government move to reduce protection sees unaccompanied youngsters targeted by traffickers and criminals

Number of missing vulnerable children soars as safeguarding is cut during pandemic

Public debt has risen to unprecedented peacetime levels, due to policies put in to place to address the economic fallout from COVID-19. Nevertheless, the CfM panel was nearly unanimous that the Treasury should not take any action to decrease the deficit in the upcoming budget. The panel was split on when it would be wise to publically announce long-run plans to address the deficit and the debt. At that point, the majority of the panel supports a mix of financing options, with tax increases receiving strong support and not a single panellist supporting public spending cuts.

COVID-19 and UK Public Finances

Satisfaction levels across the continent have risen and fallen, but nowhere have they plunged as for Boris Johnson’s government

Merkel among winners as Europeans give verdict on anti-Covid battles

Degree assortativity characterizes the propensity for large-degree nodes to connect to other large-degree nodes and low-degree to low-degree. It is important to describe the forces forming the network and to predict the behavior of dynamic systems on the network. To understand the evolutionary dynamics of degree assortativity, we collect a variety of empirical temporal social networks, and find that there is a universal pattern that the degree assortativity increases at the beginning of evolution and then decreases to a long-lasting stable level. We develop a bidirectional selection model to re-construct the evolution dynamic. In our model, we assume each individual has a social status that—in analogy to Pareto’s wealth distribution —follows a power-law distribution. We assume the social status determines the probability of an interaction between two actors. By varying the ratio of link establishment from within the same status level to across different status levels, the simulated network can be tuned to be assortative or disassortative. This suggests that the rise-and-fall pattern of degree assortativity is a consequence of the different network-forming forces active at different mixing of status. Our simulations indicate that Pareto social status distribution in the population may drive the social evolution in a way of self-optimization to promote the social interaction among individuals and the status gap plays an important role for the assortativity of the social network.

10.1016/j.socnet.2020.04.004

Universal evolution patterns of degree assortativity in social networks

Racism is a health crisis. But poverty is too – yet progressives blithely accepted the costs of throwing millions of people like George Floyd out of work

We often accuse the right of distorting science. But the left changed the coronavirus narrative overnight

10.31234/osf.io/jmctv

This study explored how individuals living in the United States were experiencing and responding to stress related to the COVID-19 pandemic in May 2020. Participants (N = 408; 60% non-Hispanic White) completed an online survey regarding traumatic stress, functional impairment, and use of and perceived helpfulness of various coping strategies. Results showed that 37% of participants endorsed clinically-elevated PTSD symptoms. Approximately half of participants reported changes in their daily functioning from before the pandemic to present, most notably in their number of social interactions, physical activity, and time spent working. To cope, participants reported engaging in safety planning and behavioral activation, which they also perceived to be helpful in managing stress. Avoidance coping strategies involving use of alcohol, tobacco products, or recreational substances were infrequently endorsed and perceived to be minimally helpful. These findings offer an initial, data-based glimpse into the mental health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and shed light onto opportunities for promoting mental health and well-being during this unprecedented and multifaceted crisis.

Stress, functioning, and coping during the COVID-19 pandemic: Results from an online convenience sample

10.31234/osf.io/aqkpm

Conservative ideology is closely linked with pathogen prevalence, and adherence to conservative values increases under pathogen threat. To this day, few studies have demonstrated this effect using ecological data. For the first time, we analyse results from an election (the 2020 French local election) which was held during the growing COVID-19 spread in the country. Using mixed modelling on county-level data (N = 96), we show that perceived COVID-19 threat (search volume indices) but not real threat (prevalence rates) prior to the election are positively associated with an increase in conservative votes only. These results were robust to adjustment on several covariates including abstention rates, prior electoral scores for conservative parties and economic characteristics. Overall, a 1% increase in COVID-19 search volumes lead to an increase in conservative votes of .25%, 95%CI[.08,.41]. These results highlight the relevance of evolutionary theory for understanding real-life political behaviour and indicate that the current COVID-19 pandemic could have a substantial impact on electoral outcomes.

Pathogen Threat Increases Electoral Success for Conservative Parties: Results from a Natural Experiment with COVID-19 in France

We are all bombarded with the message that we should practice social distancing, but each of us has likely seen striking violations of the goal. What can behavioral sciences uniquely contribute? The recommendations detailed in the infographic and video below were made by the Behavioral Science Response to COVID-19 Working Group. The goal of the group is to disseminate evidence-based recommendations in areas where behavioral science can make a positive contribution.

The Behavioral science response to COVID-19 Working Group: Recommendations to increase social distancing

10.31234/osf.io/pcj4f

During the current global pandemic (Coronavirus/COVID-19), policy-makers and citizens in numerous countries have been unprepared to respond, or been responding too late. Why are so many people hesitant to take precautionary action? In three experiments on health risk prediction (N = 2,300 Americans), we identified two kinds of relative optimism. Participants reported their "most realistic" prediction of infection risk for themselves and the average person, and then made similar predictions either in a best-case scenario or a worst-case scenario. Consistent with a best-case heuristic, Study 1 showed that participants made "realistic" predictions that were closer to their own best-case scenario than to their worst-case scenario. The infection risk was also rated as lower for oneself than for the average person in all three scenarios, extending classic findings of comparative optimism to a broader space of possible outcomes. Study 2 was a pre-registered direct replication, in which both kinds of optimism were successfully replicated in a large representative sample. Correlational analyses revealed that higher risk predictions were associated with higher levels of emotional distress, but also with pro-social intentions and stronger support of public health lockdown policies. Although a clear (bipartisan) majority supported the lockdown policies, right-leaning conservatives made lower risk predictions and expressed lower policy support than left-leaning liberals. Resistance to lockdown policies was also associated with the belief in national superiority in pandemic preparedness. Study 3 was a pre-registered conceptual replication, finding that the best-case heuristic generalized to predicted waiting time for a COVID-19 vaccine and predicted relationship satisfaction.

The best-case heuristic in risk prediction: Hopes and fears in a global health pandemic (COVID-19)

10.31234/osf.io/qyk58

This is a commentary on a forthcoming essay by Paul Schoemaker entitled, "How Historical Analysis Can Enrich Scenario Planning."

Studies Past and Future of the Past and Future

10.31234/osf.io/5zfcs

Within the present manuscript, I outline transformational leadership as a concept, identify gaps in our current empirical understanding of the concept, clarify a host of conceptual issues, and suggest some initial ideas around how we as a field may attend to measurement problems that have hampered the advancement of research examining transformational leadership at more than a behavioural level. Specifically, I critically challenge (1) use of the term authentic transformational leadership, and (2) definitions of transformational leaders. It is hoped that in clarifying these misconceptions, the field may be able to advance more clearly in its collective use of language.

Authentic Arseholes and the Problem with Transformational Leaders

Survey data from Facebook users on self-reported COVID-19-related symptoms, conducted in partnership with the University of Maryland and Carnegie Mellon University. Aggregated data are available publicly; non-aggregated data are available upon request to eligible academic and nonprofit institution researchers.

Facebook COVID-19 Symptom Survey

10.1371/journal.pone.0052961

Metaphors pervade discussions of social issues like climate change, the economy, and crime. We ask how natural language metaphors shape the way people reason about such social issues. In previous work, we showed that describing crime metaphorically as a beast or a virus, led people to generate different solutions to a city’s crime problem. In the current series of studies, instead of asking people to generate a solution on their own, we provided them with a selection of possible solutions and asked them to choose the best ones. We found that metaphors influenced people’s reasoning even when they had a set of options available to compare and select among. These findings suggest that metaphors can influence not just what solution comes to mind first, but also which solution people think is best, even when given the opportunity to explicitly compare alternatives. Further, we tested whether participants were aware of the metaphor. We found that very few participants thought the metaphor played an important part in their decision. Further, participants who had no explicit memory of the metaphor were just as much affected by the metaphor as participants who were able to remember the metaphorical frame. These findings suggest that metaphors can act covertly in reasoning. Finally, we examined the role of political affiliation on reasoning about crime. The results confirm our previous findings that Republicans are more likely to generate enforcement and punishment solutions for dealing with crime, and are less swayed by metaphor than are Democrats or Independents.

Natural Language Metaphors Covertly Influence Reasoning

Covid-19 has put the science of rapid review centre stage. It is only just over six months ago that the world began to grapple with an entirely new disease whose natural history, prevention, treatment and wider management were completely unknown. Since then, tens of thousands of scientific papers and preprints have been published, and a new industry has emerged to summarise and synthesise these primary studies as quickly as possible. 

Learning about covid-19 outbreaks from non-viral tweets

I'm getting asked more about the 'k' parameter that describes variation in the reproduction number, R (i.e. describes superspreading). But what does this parameter actually mean? A short statistical thread... 1/

As 'k' is a bit hard to interpret directly, we can also use it to calculate what proportion of infections generate a given amount of transmission, e.g. does transmission follow something like a '20/80 rule'? Here's a conversion table for R=3... 8/8

lternatively, we can estimate k from the distribution of outbreak sizes after infections are introduced to a new location, using a simple transmission model: https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/5-67 7/

So how do we calculate k? One way is to estimate directly from transmission chains reconstructed from contact tracing data, e.g. https://researchsquare.com/article/rs-29548/v1… 6/

If k is smaller, then there is more variability - some cases generate a lot of new infections, while most generate very few. Here's the negative binomial distribution when R=3, k=0.2 (plausible for COVID, SARS). Note x-scale is cropped at 20, but can obviously go higher 5/

If k is very large, every case generates transmission randomly at constant rate with mean=R (i.e. equivalent to a Poisson process as k->infinity). Here's what the distribution of transmission looks like when R=3, k=1000 (dashed line shows R). 4/

We can do this by fitting a curve to the distribution of secondary infections, and see how much variation there is. A commonly used tool is the negative binomial distribution, which has mean=R and variation captured by a dispersion parameter 'k' https://nature.com/articles/nature04153… 3/Superspreading and the effect of individual variation on disease emergFrom Typhoid Mary to SARS, it has long been known that some people spread disease more than others. But for diseases transmitted via casual contact, contagiousness arises from a plethora of social...nature.com

R measures average transmission per case, but in reality some cases may generate more infection than others, e.g. because of events/places they visit while infectious. So we need a way to estimate variation in R at the individual-level... 2/

I'm getting asked more about the 'k' parameter that describes variation in the reproduction number, R (i.e. describes superspreading). But what does this parameter actually mean? A short statistical thread... 1/

10.1007/s11606-020-05889-w

Given the rapidly changing nature of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, real-time monitoring of COVID-19 cases and deaths has been widely embraced.1 The pandemic has also been accompanied by an “infodemic,” an overabundance of information and misinformation.2 Public response to the pandemic and infodemic is important, but undermeasured.3 Real-time analysis of public response could lead to earlier recognition of changing public priorities, fluctuations in wellness, and uptake of public health measures, all of which carry implications for individual- and population-level health.3 To test this hypothesis, we measured daily changes in the frequency of topics of discussion across 94,467 COVID-19-related comments on an online public forum in March, 2020.

Public Priorities and Concerns Regarding COVID-19 in an Online Discussion Forum: Longitudinal Topic Modeling

The Lancet presents a Series of five papers about research. In the first report Iain Chalmers et al discuss how decisions about which research to fund should be based on issues relevant to users of research. Next, John Ioannidis et al consider improvements in the appropriateness of research design, methods, and analysis. Rustam Al-Shahi Salman et al then turn to issues of efficient research regulation and management. Next, An-Wen Chan et al examine the role of fully accessible research information. Finally, Paul Glasziou et al discuss the importance of unbiased and usable research reports. These papers set out some of the most pressing issues, recommend how to increase value and reduce waste in biomedical research, and propose metrics for stakeholders to monitor the implementation of these recommendations.

Research: increasing value, reducing waste

Watch Watch the full video of our June 1 Conference

COVID + AI: The Road Ahead

The emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes COVID-19, poses a tremendous threat to human health.1Chan JFW Yuan S Kok KH et al.A familial cluster of pneumonia associated with the 2019 novel coronavirus indicating person-to-person transmission: a study of a family cluster.Lancet. 2020; 395: 514-523Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (663) Google Scholar,  2Huang C Wang Y Li X et al.Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China.Lancet. 2020; 395: 497-506Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (1926) Google Scholar,  3Wu JT Leung K Leung GM Nowcasting and forecasting the potential domestic and international spread of the 2019-nCoV outbreak originating in Wuhan, China: a modelling study.Lancet. 2020; 395: 689-697Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (254) Google Scholar There were more than 4 million confirmed cases and 300 000 reported deaths worldwide as of May 11, 2020. There have been warnings of a major coronavirus pandemic since the SARS outbreak in 2002–04, and in 2020 that threat has been realised. Now we need to consider the challenges ahead; the current prevalence, the incidence of asymptomatic infections, and the true mortality remains unclear. We also need to ascertain the probable effectiveness of current control measures so future strategies can be prioritised accordingly.At the end of 2019, the COVID-19 outbreak was first reported in the city of Wuhan, China, and has since spread worldwide.4Tian H Liu Y Li Y et al.An investigation of transmission control measures during the first 50 days of the COVID-19 epidemic in China.Science. 2020; 368: 638-642Crossref PubMed Scopus (18) Google Scholar To contain the spread of the disease, a cordon sanitaire was imposed on Wuhan city on Jan 23, 2020, and travel restrictions were subsequently imposed on other cities across Hubei province the next day.5Kraemer MUG Yang C-H Gutierrez B et al.The effect of human mobility and control measures on the COVID-19 epidemic in China.Science. 2020; 368: 493-497Crossref PubMed Scopus (21) Google Scholar After 61 days of lockdown in Hubei province, the province reopened again on March 25, 2020, and after 76 days of lockdown in Wuhan, the city reopened again on April 8, 2020. The screening of individuals in these areas provides essential information on how immunity, and potentially herd immunity, is shaped in the community that has so far had the longest chain of community transmission but also some of the strongest physical distancing measures.During early-2020, many studies attempted to estimate the reporting rate (or ascertainment rate) of COVID-19 in Wuhan.6Li R Pei S Chen B et al.Substantial undocumented infection facilitates the rapid dissemination of novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2).Science. 2020; 368: 489-493Crossref PubMed Scopus (107) Google Scholar,  7Pan A Liu L Wang C et al.Association of public health interventions with the epidemiology of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, China.JAMA. 2020; (published online April 10.)DOI: 10.1001/jama.2020.6130Crossref Scopus (18) Google Scholar,  8Wu JT Leung K Bushman M et al.Estimating clinical severity of COVID-19 from the transmission dynamics in Wuhan, China.Nat Med. 2020; 26: 506-510Crossref PubMed Scopus (38) Google Scholar Seroprevalence surveys of the general population are key to understanding reporting rates, the underlying number of infections, the build-up of immunity, and to reconstruct chains of transmission of SARS-CoV-2. In The Lancet Microbe, Kelvin To and colleagues9To KK-W Cheng VC-C Cai J-P et al.Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in Hong Kong and in residents evacuated from Hubei province, China: a multicohort study.Lancet Microbe. 2020; (published online June 3.)https://doi.org/10.1016/S2666-5247(20)30053-7Google Scholar present the results of a seroepidemiological survey of SARS-CoV-2 in the general population in Hong Kong and returnees evacuated from Hubei, China. The investigators enrolled 1938 individuals before and after the COVID-19 pandemic between 2018 and 2020, and 452 asymptomatic Hubei returnees in March, 2020. The study showed that as an emergent virus, SARS-CoV-2 had a seroprevalence of 3·8% among Hubei returnees (17 of 452 returnees); very far from any plausible level of herd immunity.Although the study assessed a small sample—452 of approximately 60 million people in Hubei province—it provides an essential baseline for public health authorities when evaluating the effect of current and future interventions. Judging by patterns of circulation of endemic coronaviruses (HCoV-NL63, HCoV-HKU1, HCoV-229E, and HCoV-OC4),10Killerby ME Biggs HM Haynes A et al.Human coronavirus circulation in the United States 2014–2017.J Clin Virol. 2018; 101: 52-56Crossref PubMed Scopus (0) Google Scholar it is probable that broader immunity might build up in the years ahead. However, To and colleagues' study shows that the current level of immunity is far below the herd immunity threshold and will not appreciably slow future spread, so testing, screening, and contact tracing from symptomatic and asymptomatic infections are still key to stopping further infections.We declare no competing interests.

10.1016/S2666-5247(20)30055-0

Population serology for SARS-CoV-2 is essential to regional and global preparedness

10.31234/osf.io/67dcb

JASP, Jeffrey’s Amazing Statistics Program (official webpage: https://jasp-stats.org/), version 0.12.2, is an open-source, free statistical software package available on Windows, MacOS, and Linux platforms. It was developed by a group of quantitative methodologists who are interested in improving statistical testing and analysis methods used in the fields of psychological sciences. It implements various analysis methods, particularly those in Bayesian analysis and data science. The implemented methods include t-tests, ANOVA, regression analysis, factor analysis, machine learning, meta-analysis, network analysis, and SEM. JASP also includes a data editor for visual inspection and pre-processing. It supports data importing and exporting from/to various data sources. The statistical analysis program R constitutes the basis of JASP, but for users who are not familiar with programming, JASP is featured with a graphical user interface (GUI) so that the users can select analysis modules and modify options conveniently. To support users in academia, especially those in psychology, JASP provides functionalities for visualizing analysis results in tables and figures according to the American Psychological Association (APA) convention and presents options for modification once they are created.

JASP (Software)

The Article by Nan Yu and colleagues1Yu N Li W Kang Q et al.Clinical features and obstetric and neonatal outcomes of pregnant patients with COVID-19 in Wuhan, China: a retrospective, single-centre, descriptive study.Lancet Infect Dis. 2020; 20: 559-564Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (20) Google Scholar provides timely information to inform policies concerning essential pregnant workers. In past epidemics (eg, H1N1 influenza, Middle East respiratory syndrome, and severe acute respiratory syndrome), pregnant women and their offspring have been at increased risk of morbidity and mortality.2Louie JK Acosta M Jamieson DJ Honein MA California Pandemic Working GroupSevere 2009 H1N1 influenza in pregnant and postpartum women in California.N Engl J Med. 2010; 362: 27-35Crossref PubMed Scopus (489) Google Scholar By contrast, the maternal, fetal, and neonatal outcomes reported by Yu and colleagues were surprisingly good. When considering this study, it is important to note that all of the women were full-term (≥37 weeks) and underwent caesarean section within 3 days of presentation. Prompt delivery allowed for experimental treatment in all women; all patients received antiviral treatment, including ganciclovir, oseltamivir, interferon, and Arbidol (ie, umifenovir) tablets. Traditional Chinese medicine, such as Jinye Baidu granules or Lianhuaqingwen capsules, or both, was also administered to four of seven women, and five of seven received the steroid methylprednisolone. Because the safety of these interventions during pregnancy is not established, infection in the first, second, or early third trimester, without immediate delivery, might not lead to similar favourable outcomes. For example, in a case series on nine pregnant women with a larger range of gestational ages and severe cardiopulmonary disease attributed to COVID-19, seven of nine died.3Hantoushzadeh S Shamshirsaz AA Aleyasin A et al.Maternal death due to COVID-19 disease.Am J Obstet Gynecol. 2020; (published online April 28.)DOI:10.1016/j.ajog.2020.04.030Summary Full Text Full Text PDF Google Scholar Although the worse outcomes of this non-systematic series do not establish risk, they do highlight that low risk should not be assumed in the absence of multicentre databases to study pregnancy-related outcomes.

10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30446-1

COVID-19 and essential pregnant worker policies

10.31234/osf.io/gj3e5

The present study aimed to investigate the predictors of work stress in elementary and upper-secondary school teachers and school counsellors in the initial period of online education in schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 964 school professionals (90.7% teachers; 9.3% school counsellors) participated in the study. The results indicated that school professionals who reported higher ICT self-efficacy, had more positive attitudes toward distance education and perceived higher level of supervisor support experienced less stress. In addition, the participants that reported taking care of their own preschool or younger school children during the schools' closure reported higher levels of stress.

Predictors of perceived teachers' and school counsellors’ work stress in the transition period of online education in schools during the COVID-19 pandemic

10.31234/osf.io/vktqu

On March 16 2020, President Trump introduced strict social distancing guidelines for the United States, in an effort to stem the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. This had an immediate major effect on the job market, with millions of Americans forced to find alternative ways to make a living from home. Here, we investigate the possibility that this policy also changed the pool of MTurk workers available to take part in academic studies – either by influencing which existing MTurk workers participate, or by causing an influx of new workers. Specifically, we look at 10,510 responses gathered in 16 studies run between February 25, 2020, and May 14, 2020, examining the distribution of gender, age, ethnicity, political preferences, and analytic cognitive style. We find important changes on all measures following the imposition of nationwide social distancing: participants are more non-white, more Republican, less experienced with MTurk, and less reflective (as measured by the Cognitive Reflection Test). Most of these differences are explained by an influx of new participants who are demographically different from previous participants

Turking in the time of COVID

10.31234/osf.io/ytkx9

The coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) outbreak has dramatically altered people’s social lives due to strict distancing policies. Increased loneliness has been publicly discussed as a harmful psychological side effect of these policies. However, empirical evidence was lacking. This large scale daily diary study assessed daily loneliness in N = 4,850 German adults from March 16, 2020 until April 12, 2020. Daily loneliness increased during the first two weeks of the Covid 19 lockdown and decreased thereafter. We identified subgroups that are at a higher risk for changes in daily loneliness during the Covid-19 pandemic (i.e., older adults, parents). It is important to evaluate if and how established knowledge about psychological functioning applies to extraordinary times and events such as the Covid-19 pandemic.

Changes in daily loneliness during the first four weeks of the Covid-19 lockdown in Germany

Mehra MR, Desai SS, Ruschitzka F, Patel AN. Hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine with or without a macrolide for treatment of COVID-19: a multinational registry analysis. Lancet 2020; published online May 22. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31180-6—In this Article, in the first paragraph of the Results section, the numbers of participants from Asia and Australia should have been 8101 (8·4%) and 63 (0·1%), respectively. One hospital self-designated as belonging to the Australasia continental designation should have been assigned to the Asian continental designation. The appendix has also been corrected. An incorrect appendix table S3 was included, originally derived from a propensity score matched and weighted table developed during a preliminary analysis. The unadjusted raw summary data are now included. There have been no changes to the findings of the paper. These corrections have been made to the online version as of May 29, 2020, and will be made to the printed version.

10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31249-6

Department of Error

“Is it safe to re-open schools?”  “How can it be safe to re-open car show rooms when it’s not safe for me to see my family?”  Questions like these have been on the front of several newspapers, asked repeatedly at the daily press briefings, and no doubt chewed over on many more Facebook pages and WhatsApp groups around the country. The answers from politicians and scientists alike always seem to be unsatisfactory and fail to bring people together. The reason for this lies not only with the answers given, but the fact that people are asking the wrong questions—for three fundamental reasons:

Sebastian Walsh: We are asking the wrong questions about easing lockdown

Scott Galloway predicts a handful of elite cyborg universities will soon monopolize higher education.

The Coming Disruption

Here are @CaulfieldTim's top tips for effective debunking! #COVID19andData

Erarbeitet im Rahmen eines Projektes der Digitalstadt Darmstadt GmbH, Digital für alle und dem Profilbereich Internet und Digitalisierung der TU Darmstadt.

COVID-19 Aktuelle, wissenschaftliche Informationen finden Sie bei der Bundeszentrale für gesundheitliche Aufklärung. WEITERE INFORMATIONEN

10.31234/osf.io/qd5z7

Objective To examine longitudinal changes in the prevalence of mental health problems before and during the COVID-19 crisis in a large-scale population-based study and to identify population subgroups that are psychologically vulnerable during the pandemic. Design and setting Longitudinal observational population study using data from the 2017 – 2019 and April 2020 waves of Understanding Society, the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS), a nationally representative sample of adults in the United Kingdom. Participants 12,090 men and women with a mean age of 49.9 (range 18 – 92) living in private households in the United Kingdom were drawn from the representative wave 9 (2017 – 2019) sample of the UKHLS and followed up between the 24th and 30th of April 2020. Main outcome measure Mental health problems were measured using the General Health Questionnaire 12 (GHQ-12), a validated and widely used measure of common mental health symptoms in population studies. The GHQ-12 score cut-off (score of 3 or more) for “psychiatric caseness” (i.e. likely to present with psychiatric disorder) was used to estimate prevalence of mental health problems. Results The percentage of participants classified as experiencing mental health problems increased from 23.3% in 2017-2019 to 36.8% in April 2020. In a multivariate mixed effects logistic regression model all population subgroups examined showed statistically significant increases in mental health problems. Increases were most pronounced among young adults, females, and those with a higher level of education. The rise in mental health difficulties was 8.6 percentage points (95% CI: 4.1 to 13.2) greater among those aged 18-34 compared to those aged 50 – 64, 6.9 points (95% CI: 4.0 to 9.8) greater in females compared to males and 4 points (95% CI: 1.2, 6.9) greater amongst those with a university degree compared to others. Additional analyses of the full UKHLS dataset from 2009-2020 showed that the substantial increase in mental health problems observed in April 2020 was unlikely to be due to seasonality effects or year-to-year variation. Conclusion This study contributes to a rapidly growing evidence base suggesting that mental health problems may have risen substantially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Longitudinal changes in mental health and the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from the UK Household Longitudinal Study

10.31234/osf.io/wfcbv

Overconfident people should be surprised that they are so often wrong. Are they? Three studies examined the relationship between confidence and surprise in order to shed light on the psychology of overprecision in judgment. Participants reported ex-ante confidence in their beliefs, and after receiving accuracy feedback, they then reported ex-post surprise. Results show that more ex-ante confidence produces less ex-post surprise for correct answers; this relationship reverses for incorrect answers. However, this sensible pattern only holds for some measures of confidence; it fails for confidence-interval measures. The results can help explain the robust durability of overprecision in judgment.

Overprecision increases subsequent surprise

10.31234/osf.io/jbswq

Predicting behavior of other people is vital for successful social interactions. We tested whether a stress-induced cortisol increase affects healthy young men’s prediction of another individual’s behavior. Forty-two participants were randomly assigned to a stress or a control condition. Afterwards they participated in a modified false-belief task that not only tests false-belief understanding but also the tendency to predict another person’s future behavior based on his former behavior. Subjective ratings and salivary cortisol concentrations revealed a successful stress induction. Stress did not affect participants’ attribution of false beliefs but it increased the probability to predict that a protagonist would act according to his former behavior. Recognizing that stress fosters the interpretation of others’ behavior following their former behavior and not their current goals extends previous research showing that stress fosters our own habitual behavior.

Stress affects the prediction of others’ behavior

10.31234/osf.io/v7cep

This N=173,426 social science dataset was collected through the collaborative COVIDiSTRESS Global Survey – an open science effort to improve understandings of the human experiences of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic between 30th March and 30th May, 2020. The dataset allows a cross-cultural study of psychological and behavioural responses to the Coronavirus pandemic and associated government measures like cancellation of public functions and stay at home orders implemented in many countries. The dataset contains demographic background variables as well as measures of perceived stress (PSS-10), availability of social provisions (SPS-10), trust in various authorities, trust in governmental measures to contain the virus (OECD trust), personality traits (BFF-15), information behaviours, agreement with the level of government intervention, and compliance with preventive measures, along with a rich pool of exploratory variables and written experiences. A global consortium from 44 countries worked together to build and translate a survey with variables of shared interests, and recruited participants in 49 languages and dialects. Raw plus cleaned the data and dynamic visualizations are available.

COVIDiSTRESS Global Survey dataset on psychological and behavioural consequences of the COVID-19 outbreak

10.31234/osf.io/qwmzj

According to expectancy-value models of achievement motivation, a core component of increasing student motivation is utility value. Utility value refers to the importance that a task has in one’s future goals. Utility value interventions provide an opportunity for students to make explicit connections between course content and their own lives. A large body of literature suggests that utility value interventions are effective for a wide range of students (e.g., both adolescent and adult learners) in a variety of courses (e.g., introductory psychology, introductory biology, and physics). This review provides (1) an overview of an expectancy value model of achievement motivation, (2) a comprehensive review of the experimental studies of utility value interventions in psychology, (3) concrete pedagogical recommendations based on the evidence from over thirty studies of the utility value intervention, and (4) suggestions for future research directions. After reading this review, college-level psychology instructors should be able to decide whether the utility value intervention is appropriate for their own course and, if so, implement the intervention effectively.

Utility value interventions: Why and how instructors should use them in college psychology courses.

10.31234/osf.io/qmtn6

The current study explores various individual difference factors known to predict epistemically suspect beliefs across Western and Eastern cultures. While Western individuals scoring higher on measures of analytic thinking endorsed less epistemically suspect beliefs, this association was not observed in our Japanese samples, suggesting that the often observed negative association between analytic thinking and epistemically suspect beliefs may be exclusive to Western samples. Additionally, we demonstrate that a tendency to think holistically (specifically with regards to causality) was positively associated with the endorsement of epistemically suspect beliefs, both within Western and Eastern samples.

Culture and Epistemically Suspect Beliefs