The Pandemic Health Intelligence Plan provides a framework for collecting the information required to support decision making about COVID-19.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Australia – Pandemic Health Intelligence Plan

This paper provides an overview of the Ministry of Health’s approach to testing for COVID-19 throughout Alert Level 3 and into Alert Level 2. The four objectives of this testing approach are:1.Quickly identifying all cases of COVID-19, in order isolate them and trace and quarantine their contacts, including as part of managing cluster outbreaks.2.Ensuring that access to testing is equitable –for Māori and Pacific people and other priority groups, as well as across the country. 3.Identifying any undetected community spread in New Zealand4.Monitoring for anyCOVID-19 in people at higher riskof exposure to help ensure the safety systems in place are working.In order to achieve the objectives above, District Health Boards (DHBs) will beasked to:•Ensure that any people fitting the case definition are tested. •Ensure all cases and contacts in high-risk settings (for example aged residential care (ARC)) are tested and isolated or quarantined to prevent further spread.•Test all contacts where the source of infection is unknown regardless of symptoms•Undertaketargeted testing of asymptomatic people at high-risk of exposureDHBs are asked to develop and submit plans on how they will carry out the above actions, with a particular focus on ensuring equity. Plans for testing during Alert Level 3 should be submitted by Thursday 30 April. For Alert Level 2, the Ministry of Healthwill ensure that any sampling frameworks for targeted testing of asymptomatic people are statistically robust. This testing approach is part of the broader surveillance plan for COVID-19 thatthe Ministry of Health, DHBs and the All-Of-Government group are implementing to both address and monitor our progress in eliminating COVID-19.

1COVID-19 testing in Alert Levels 3 and 2 to support New Zealand’selimination strategy

Physical distancing reduces transmission risks and slows the spread of COVID-19. Local and regional governments in the United States have issued shelter-in-place policies to mandate physical distancing. Yet compliance with these policies is uneven and may be influenced by beliefs about science and topics of scientific consensus. We theorize that individuals skeptical about the human causes of climate change are less likely to comply with physical distancing orders. Using county-day measures of physical distancing derived from cellphone location data, we demonstrate that the proportion of people who stay at home after lockdown policies go into effect is significantly lower in counties with a high concentration of climate change skeptics. These results are consistent when we study how belief in science influences physical distancing across as well as within Democratic and Republican counties. Our findings suggest public health interventions and messaging about risks associated with COVID-19 that take into account local attitudes towards science may be more effective.

Belief in Science Influences Physical Distancing in Response to COVID-19 Lockdown Policies

The dangerous spread of disinformation about COVID-19 must be tackled alongside the virus itself. New research from the National University of Singapore reveals the most successful strategies used to do so by three Asian countries. What makes the current pandemic more dangerous than any before is that the spread of rumours and false information on the internet is even faster than that of the coronavirus itself. Sylvie Briand, director of the WHO's Infectious Hazard Management department, could not have better emphasized the need for governments to battle this parallel yet more vicious outbreak – that of the "infodemic", or information epidemic.

How to fight the COVID-19 infodemic: lessons from 3 Asian countries

This daily paper brings together news articles with a focus on eLeadership research in the UK and world-wide. __________________________________________________ There's also room for interesting articles on other issues on the Twitterstream. Enjoy reading and welcome!

#eLeadership

District leaders have a lot to think about when it comes to implementing and navigating remote learning during school closures. But they must not forget about how crucial it is to have cybersecurity measures in place before rolling out their e-learning plans.

4 Cyberhygiene Practices for Secure Remote Learning

A tale in two parts:

Isolation, anxiety, and doubt are part of the daily lives of communities that humanitarian organizations support. Now these emotions describe the biggest challenge for business leaders managing displaced teams working from home for an extended period, amidst the fear and uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic. While many companies have been adept at rapidly establishing the tools and processes required for remote work, discovering ways to build and strengthen high performing teams during this period of open-ended high-stress will take longer. One approach is to adapt some of the same practices used by humanitarian organizations to empower people displaced by tragedies to guide your team through the pandemic’s exceptional circumstances:

Empowering Displaced Teams in the Time of COVID

Virologist Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, fell ill with COVID-19 in mid-March. He spent a week in a hospital and has been recovering at his home in London since. Climbing a flight of stairs still leaves him breathless. Piot, who grew up in Belgium, was one of the discoverers of the Ebola virus in 1976 and spent his career fighting infectious diseases. He headed the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS between 1995 and 2008 and is currently a coronavirus adviser to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. But his personal confrontation with the new coronavirus was a life-changing experience, Piot says. This interview took place on 2 May. Piot’s answers have been edited and translated from Dutch: 

‘Finally, a virus got me.’ Scientist who fought Ebola and HIV reflects on facing death from COVID-19

Fake news, deliberately inaccurate and often biased information that is presented as accurate reporting, is perceived as a serious threat. Recent research on fake news has documented a high general susceptibility to the phenomenon and has focused on investigating potential explanatory factors. The present study examined how features of news headlines affected their perceived accuracy. Across four experiments (total N = 659), we examined the effects of pictures, perceptual clarity, and repeated exposure on the perceived accuracy of news headlines. In all experiments, participants received a set of true and false news headlines and rated their accuracy. The presence of pictures and repeated exposure increased perceived accuracy, whereas manipulations of perceptual clarity did not show the predicted effects. The effects of pictures and repeated exposure were similar for true and false headlines. These results demonstrate that accompanying pictures and repeated exposure can affect evaluations of truth of news headlines.

Pictures and repeated exposure increase perceived accuracy of news headlines

The Schengen Area consists of 26 countries that have agreed to remove regular checks at their internal borders in order to facilitate the free and unrestricted movement of people. The countries include 22 EU Member States (Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Finland and Sweden) and 4 associated countries (Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. The Schengen Code lays down the common rules governing the management of internal and external EU borders, including rules and procedures concerning the exceptional introduction of border checks at internal borders. According to the Code, Member States can introduce temporary border checks at their internal borders in cases of a foreseeable threat (e.g. a special event), an immediate threat or in the situation of persistent serious deficiencies relating to external borders.

The impact of coronavirus on Schengen borders

Income inequality has been shown to have a detrimental impact on a wide range of psychological, economic, and social outcomes. In this study, we focus on the role of income inequality in reducing civic honesty. Study 1 reanalyzed data of a “lost wallet” experiment conducted by Cohn, Maréchal, Tannenbaum, and Zünd (2019) in 355 cities spread across 40 countries. Multi-level analyses indicated that citizens in countries with higher income inequality were less likely to return a lost wallet. Study 2 examined the causal effects of income inequality by utilizing an experimental design. We found that income inequality reduced one’s personal desire to return a lost wallet. Convergent findings from two studies indicate the crucial role played by income inequality in reducing civic honesty.

Income Inequality Reduces Civic Honesty

We examined whether the extent of perceived variability (i.e., consensus) among group members’ shared leadership ratings polarize group performances. Through using data from 39 classes in school settings, we explored the relationship between students’ shared leadership behavior and group performance as moderated by the extent of variability among group members’ shared leadership ratings. Study results, based on hierarchical multiple regression analyses, were consistent with the hypothesized conceptual scheme of moderation in that the slope of the relationship between shared leadership and group performance was stronger (and positive) for classes with high consensus than ones with low consensus. This indicates consensus among group members’ shared leadership ratings polarizing group performance.

Consensus among group members’ shared leadership ratings polarizes group performance

The mental health consequences of COVID-19 are predicted to have a disproportionate impact on certain groups. We aimed to develop a brief measure, the Pandemic Anxiety Scale, to capture the specific aspects of the pandemic that are provoking anxiety, and explore how these vary by health and demographic factors. Design Data were from a convenience sample of parents (N=4,793) and adolescents (N=698) recruited in the first 6 weeks of lockdown. Methods Factor analytic and IRT methods were used to validate the new measure in both parent and adolescent samples. Associations between scores on the new measure and age, gender, household income, and physical health status were explored using structural equation modelling (SEM). Results Two factors were identified in both samples: disease-anxiety (e.g. catching, transmitting the virus) and consequence anxiety (e.g. impact on economic prospects), and unique associations with health and demographic factors were observed. Conclusions Anxieties due to the COVID-19 are multifaceted, and the PAS is a short, reliable and valid measure of these concerns. These anxieties are differentially associated with demographic, social and health factors, which should be considered when developing strategies to mitigate the mental health impact of the pandemic.

Demographic and health factors associated with pandemic anxiety in the context of COVID-19

The field of behavioural design, combining design led approaches with insights which are deeply rooted in human behaviour, has emerged as an influential playground for innovations through the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the core behavioural science frameworks proposes that if you want to change behaviour, you need to make a service or action more attractive. Making something more attractive is about getting the right attention and making it more appealing. Think about all the instances that you go to purchase something from the supermarket and end up with several items that you did not plan to buy. ‍In this article, we highlight the insights underpinning five innovative behavioural designs for making physical distancing more attractive in public spaces.

5 Innovations in Behavioural Design for Physical Distancing

Whowe areWe are a collaborative of health psychology professionalsand each of us isvolunteeringto assist the health, public health and social care systems in theirresponse to COVID-19.We have a variety of backgrounds and roles: some are academics employed by Universities, some are HCPC registered practitioner psychologists working for the NHS and some are both; we span early, mid and senior career stages.

What is the Health Psychology Exchange and what can it do?

Face masks could offer an important tool for contributing to the management of community transmission of Covid-19 within the general population, according to Data Evaluation and Learning for Viral Epidemics (DELVE). The multi-disciplinary group convened by the Royal Society supports a data-driven approach to learning from the different approaches countries are taking to managing the pandemic.

DELVE group publishes evidence paper on the use of face masks in tackling Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic

We’ve put together some useful tips, advice and links to articles that you might find helpful in dealing with the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

Coronavirus resources

From literature to manufacturing, crisis and creativity have often gone hand-in-hand.

How governments can engage digital resources to manage their Covid-19 response

The European Commission, led by the European Innovation Council and in close collaboration with the EU member states, will host a follow-up matchathon to help the finalists and winners of the EUvsVirus Hackathon connect with corporates, investors, accelerators, venture capitalists, etc. around the world to put their innovative solutions into production and save lives.

We want to gather in one place all initiatives/ information related to the cultural and creative sectors in the EU in response to the COVID crisis

The idea that government advisers can separate science and politics is bogus, says Melanie Smallman

‘Independent Sage’ group is an oxymoron

“Is the government's objective to suppress infection or to manage the infection?”, asked Sir David King at the first press conference of a newly formed independent Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), held last week. The UK now has two SAGEs. The officially constituted SAGE has seen its reputation collapse during the past 3 months. Partly, this loss of credibility arose out of the group's unwillingness to be transparent about its membership and its proceedings. At a moment of national emergency, SAGE's secrecy simply became unacceptable. The public had a right to know the evidence on which advice was being made to government—advice that was not only protecting lives but also destroying livelihoods. But the official SAGE luxuriated in elite insouciance. It displayed a very British characteristic: the arrogance of exceptionalism. Rarely has a publicly constituted body been so out of touch with the public mood for accountability.

Offline: Independent science advice for COVID-19—at last

Government must state whether aim is to suppress or manage infections, say experts convened by Sir David King

Rival Sage group says Covid-19 policy must be clarified

‘We are following the ​science’ is the message the British public have been hearing from government since COVID-19 mitigating measures began. It says it is following the advice of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE). But the activities of the committee have been kept secret and excluded from scrutiny by the public or wider scientific community. In response, on Monday May 4, the Independent SAGE convened as a group of preeminent experts from the UK and around the world. The aim of the Independent SAGE was and is to provide robust, independent advice to HM Government with the purpose of helping the UK navigate COVID-19 whilst minimising fatalities. The Independent SAGE is chaired by former HM Government Chief Scientific Advisor Sir David King and draws on a range of international and British experts.

Independent SAGE: 4th May first Committee Meeting

There has been a growing interest on the negative influence that the environment of higher education institutions has on the mental health of academics, and there is evidence to suggest that the university environment is jeopardising academics’ physical and psychological health. This study sought to review the international literature with a view to ascertaining what the most commonly used measures are to investigate this topic, including the main stressors and coping strategies reported/used by academics and their lived experiences. A thorough review of the literature was conducted, and 28 studies were identified and critically analysed. The review concludes that there is compelling evidence that the university environment is triggering high levels of stress and burnout and low levels of wellbeing for academics. There is extremely limited research on the perceptions and lived experiences of academic staff. It is virtually unknown, what coping strategies academics use to face job demands, and our knowledge about burnout, seems to be limited by the use of one particular measure without cultural adaptations.

What do we know about University Academics’ Mental Health? A Systematic Literature Review

Welcome to the our research page, seeking to contribute to urgent public debates and policy practice on the UK’s phased response to COVID-19, drawing on political behaviour, crisis management theory, international relations and political psychology. Through the analysis of original survey data, our main aims are to analyse what drives public support for and compliance with social distancing measures, how the pandemic disproportionately affects different social groups, and what are the public preferences on balancing public health with economic considerations and security with freedom.

Pandemic Politics: Political Attitudes and Crisis Communications

Should people be forced to wear face masks in public? That’s the question facing governments as more countries unwind their lockdowns. Over 30 countries have made masks compulsory in public, including Germany, Austria and Poland. This is despite the science saying masks do little to protect wearers, and only might prevent them from infecting other people. Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister, has nonetheless announced new guidelines advising Scots to wear masks for shopping or on public transport, while the UK government is expected to announce a new stance shortly. Meanwhile, US vice president Mike Pence has controversially refused to mask up. This all has echoes of the great influenza pandemic, aka the Spanish flu, which killed some 50 million people in 1918-20. It’s a great case study in how people will put up with very tough restrictions, so long as they think they have merit.

Face masks: what the Spanish flu can teach us about making them compulsory

For many of us, grocery shopping is when we will come into contact with the highest number of people during the pandemic. The more people we encounter, the higher the risk of virus transmission. So, how do we keep safe when going to the shops?

Coronavirus shopping tips to keep you safe at the supermarket

Although different countries around the world have taken largely similar approaches to facing the coronavirus pandemic by aiming to reduce human contact, it has become clear that their decisions have different consequences for different groups of people. For many of us, it simply means adapting to working from home, reducing travel and reorienting our social lives to digital platforms. But for others, the COVID-19 global crisis has overlapped with pre-existing conditions of displacement to make what was already an uncomfortable life even less bearable. This is the case for thousands of asylum seekers who have been deported and held back on EU borders.

What coronavirus looks like at the Bosnian-Croatian frontier for Europe’s unwanted migrants

At the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, there was much attention on the plight of cruise tourists. Governments around the world closed their ports to cruise ships and refused to allow passengers to disembark. While all cruise passengers are now ashore, those who work on cruise ships are not, with an estimated 100,000 cruise ship workers currently stranded. The same is true of workers on cargo ships. There are an estimated 1.6 million seafarers working onboard various types of ships. These men and women are responsible for transporting 90% of the world’s trade. From the food that we eat to the clothes that we wear, pretty much everything we own was transported by a seafarer. These workers live and work onboard for months at a time, driving the ship, maintaining its machinery and loading and discharging cargo at ports around the world. With an average crew size of just 23 people, seafarers are used to social isolation. On the surface, all seems well: goods are still flowing. But the men and women who are transporting these goods are struggling. In a normal month, approximately 100,000 seafarers leave their ships and are replaced by others, but these crew changes have been cancelled. Over a month ago, Maersk, the world’s largest container line, suspended all crew changes and then recently announced an further extension to the crew change suspension. Other shipping lines have also suspended crew changes. It is estimated that 150,000 seafarers are currently waiting to go home.

Thousands of seafarers are stranded aboard ships, with no end to their shift in sight

We are experiencing the biggest remote work experiment in history – but many are beginning to imagine life after lockdown. Amid unprecedented global job losses, concerns about transport infrastructure and the continuing need for workplace social distancing, governments are launching back-to-work plans. Meanwhile, the latest US research reveals that 74% of businesses want some workers to permanently work remotely and business leaders are actively shedding leased office space – hinting that not everyone will go back to the office. Here are five key trends that will shape the future of how we work.

Five workplace trends will shape life after lockdown

It has been less than two months since the world scrambled to go into the “Great Lockdown” to slow the spread of COVID-19. Now, many countries are considering their exit strategies. Some have already eased up. The push is largely economic. There is a lot scientists don’t yet understand about the novel coronavirus, and there is no known cure or vaccine. Many countries are still experiencing a rise in infections. But the lockdowns have played havoc with people’s livelihoods. Entire economies are in meltdown: The International Monetary Fund predicts the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Just as each nation chose a different route into lockdown, each is likely to choose its own exit path. I have launched a research initiative, “Imagining a Digital Economy for All 2030,” with a focus on the post-pandemic global economy. We have been studying the characteristics of 40 countries that help explain how governments and citizens have acted to contain the COVID-19 outbreak and their preparedness to take an economy online. Our analysis offers ways to gauge which countries are best prepared for a safe exit.

Exit from coronavirus lockdowns – lessons from 6 countries

UNITED NATIONS — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday the coronavirus pandemic keeps unleashing “a tsunami of hate and xenophobia, scapegoating and scare-mongering” and appealed for “an all-out effort to end hate speech globally."The U.N. chief said “anti-foreigner sentiment has surged online and in the streets, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories have spread, and COVID-19-related anti-Muslim attacks have occurred.”Guterres said migrants and refugees “have been vilified as a source of the virus — and then denied access to medical treatment.”“With older persons among the most vulnerable, contemptible memes have emerged suggesting they are also the most expendable,” he said. “And journalists, whistleblowers, health professionals, aid workers and human rights defenders are being targeted simply for doing their jobs.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyGuterres called on political leaders to show solidarity with all people, on educational institutions to focus on “digital literacy” at a time when “extremists are seeking to prey on captive and potentially despairing audiences.”

UN Chief Says Pandemic Is Unleashing a 'Tsunami of Hate'

Exclusive: report criticising government lockdown proposals heavily redacted before release

UK scientists condemn 'Stalinist' attempt to censor Covid-19 advice

This daily paper brings together news articles with a focus on #Leadership  and Management Research UK and world-wide. There's also room for interesting articles on other issues on the Twitterstream. Enjoy reading and welcome!

#Leadership-Research

The CHDH has been leading international research looking at public perceptions of governmental tracking technologies as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We have just completed wave three of our survey which focuses specifically on the Australian public’s perception and uptake of the COVIDSafe app. You can see the entire preliminary analysis here, but we reproduce a few highlights below:

Attitudes of Australians to the Government’s COVIDSafe contact tracing app

Along with the Coronavirus pandemic, another crisis has manifested itself in the form of mass fear and panic phenomena, fuelled by incomplete and often inaccurate information. There is therefore a tremendous need to address and better understand COVID-19's informational crisis and gauge public sentiment, so that appropriate messaging and policy decisions can be implemented. In this research article, we identify public sentiment associated with the pandemic using Coronavirus specific Tweets and R statistical software, along with its sentiment analysis packages. We demonstrate insights into the progress of fear-sentiment over time as COVID-19 approached peak levels in the United States, using descriptive textual analytics supported by necessary textual data visualizations. Furthermore, we provide a methodological overview of two essential machine learning classification methods, in the context of textual analytics, and compare their effectiveness in classifying Coronavirus Tweets of varying lengths. We observe a strong classification accuracy of 91% for short Tweets, with the Naive Bayes method. We also observe that the logistic regression classification method provides a reasonable accuracy of 74% with shorter Tweets, and both methods showed relatively weaker performance for longer Tweets. This research provides insights into Coronavirus fear sentiment progression, and outlines associated methods, implications, limitations and opportunities.

COVID-19 Public Sentiment Insights and Machine Learning for Tweets Classification

After decades of debate on the feasibility of open access (OA) to scientific publications, we may be nearing a tipping point. A number of recent developments, such as Plan S, suggest that OA upon publication could become the default in the sciences within the next several years. Despite uncertainty about the long-term sustainability of OA models, many publishers who had been reluctant to abandon the subscription business model are showing openness to OA (1). Although more OA can mean more immediate, global access to scholarship, there remains a need for practical, sustainable models, for careful analysis of the consequences of business model choices, and for “caution in responding to passionate calls for a ‘default to open’” (2). Of particular concern for the academic community, as subscription revenues decline in the transition to OA and some publishers prioritize other sources of revenue, is the growing ownership of data analytics, hosting, and portal services by large scholarly publishers. This may enhance publishers' ability to lock in institutional customers through combined offerings that condition open access to journals upon purchase of other services. Even if such “bundled” arrangements have a near-term benefit of increasing openly licensed scholarship, they may run counter to long-term interests of the academic community by reducing competition and the diversity of service offerings. The healthy functioning of the academic community, including fair terms and conditions from commercial partners, requires that the global marketplace for data analytics and knowledge infrastructure be kept open to real competition

In pursuit of open science, open access is not enough

We examine framing effects in nudging honesty, in the spirit of the growing norm-nudge literature, by utilizing a high-powered and pre-registered study. Across four treatments, participants received one random truthful norm-nudge that emphasized ‘moral suasion based on either what other participants previously did (empirical message) or approved of doing (normative message) and varied in the framing (positive or negative) in which it was presented. Subsequently, participants repeatedly played the ‘mind game’ in which they were first asked to think of a number, then rolled a digital die, and then reported whether the two numbers coincide, in which case a bonus was paid. Hence, whether or not the report was truthful remained unobservable to the experimenters. We find compelling null effects with tight confidence intervals showing that none of the norm-nudge interventions worked. A follow-up experiment reveals the reason for these convincing null-effects: the information norm-nudges did not actually change norms. Notably, our secondary results suggest that a substantial portion of individuals misremembered norm-nudges such that they conveniently supported deviant behavior. This subset of participants indeed displayed significantly higher deviance levels, a behavior pattern in line with literature on motivated misremembering and belief distortion. We discuss the importance of this high-powered null finding for the flourishing norm-nudge literature and derive policy implications.

Requiem for a Nudge: Framing effects in nudging honesty

What Do We Know and What Should We Be Teaching Others About Our Field

FT-Peterson survey finds 71% back states as support slips for president’s economic stewardship

Most Americans trust governors over Trump on reopening, poll shows

This is the code and configuration for our paper, OpenSAFELY: factors associated with COVID-19-related hospital death in the linked electronic health records of 17 million adult NHS patients

opensafely-risk-factors-research

Objective: We tested whether targeting the illusion of causality and/or misperceptions about health risks had the potential to reduce consumer demand for an ineffective health remedy (multivitamin supplements). Design: We adopted a 2 (contingency information: no/yes) × 2 (fear appeal: no/yes) factorial design, with willingness-to-pay (WTP) as the dependent variable. The contingency information specified, in table format, the number of people reporting a benefit vs. no benefit from both multivitamins and placebo, plus a causal explanation for lack of efficacy over placebo. The fear appeal involved a summary of clinical-trial results that indicated multivitamins can cause health harms. The control condition received only irrelevant information. Main outcome measure: Experimental auctions measured people’s WTP for multivitamins. Experiment 1 (N = 260) elicited hypothetical WTP online. Experiment 2 (N = 207) elicited incentivised WTP in the laboratory. Results: Compared to a control group, we found independent effects of the contingency intervention (-22%) and the fear appeal (-32%) on WTP. The combined condition had the greatest impact (-50%) on WTP. Conclusion: We found compelling evidence that consumer choices are influenced by both perceptions of efficacy and risk. The combination of both elements can provide additive effects that appear superior to either approach alone.

Countering Demand for Ineffective Health Remedies: Do Consumers Respond to Risks, Lack of Benefits, or Both?

Rapid review: Reflective Practice in crisis situations

In the service of reducing disease transmission through interpersonal contact, humans have evolved a behavioral immune system that facilitates identification and avoidance of environmental pathogens. One behavioral strategy in response to pathogenic threat is the adoption of interpersonal reticence. However, reticence may impede status acquisition, a process that necessarily fosters distinctiveness from the rest of the group that affords increased access to resources. The current program of research tested whether activation of pathogen-avoidant motives through priming fosters reticence related to status, namely disinterest in pursuing a group leadership position (Study 1) or disinterest in accepting a group leadership position when led to believe one has been selected by others (Study 2). Results indicated that those high in germ aversion were particularly interested in pursuing leadership as a form of status, with disease salience unexpectedly heightening status motives among those low in germ aversion. Furthermore, those high in perceived infectability reported reluctance in accepting high-status positions, although disease salience heightened interest in accepting a leadership role. We contextualize these findings by identifying the dispositional and situational factors that foster individuals to invoke a motivational tradeoff between status and pathogen-avoidant motives.

Testing the Motivational Tradeoffs in Pathogen Avoidance and Status Acquisition

A global survey of the perceived impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on the severity of tics in persons with Tourette syndrome (TS) or chronic tic disorder (CTD).

Perceived worsening of tics in adult patients with Tourette syndrome after the COVID-19 outbreak

Millions of Europeans use online platforms with almost blind trust that the platforms operate in the interests of the consumer. However, the presentation of search results, transparency about contractual parties and the publication of user reviews that contribute to the value of online platforms in Europe’s Single Digital Market also pose significant risks regarding consumer protection and market competition. The current study investigates how enhanced information transparency in online platforms might affect consumers’ trust in online activities and choice behaviour. Following an exploratory qualitative study, three online discrete choice experiments were conducted with representative samples of 1200 respondents in each of four countries - Germany, Poland, Spain and the UK. The objective of the experiments was to test whether increased transparency in the presentation of online search information, details of contractual entities and the implications for consumer protection, and user reviews and ratings would affect consumers’ choices. The results show that increased online transparency increases the probability of product selection. A comparison across the four countries found that the similarities in responses to online transparency were far greater than the differences. The findings are discussed in relation to biases and heuristics identified in behavioural science. In conclusion recommendations are made to increase online transparency which the empirical evidence of this study shows would benefit both users and platform operators.

The impact of online platform transparency of information on consumer’s choices

Language is a psychologically rich medium for human expression and communication. While it is often used in moral psychology as an intermediary between researcher and participant, much of the human experience that occurs through language — our relationships, conversations, and, in general, the everyday transmission of our thoughts — has yet to be studied in association with moral concerns. In order to understand how moral concerns relate to observed language usage, we paired Facebook status updates (N = 107,798) from English-speaking participants (n = 2,691) with their responses on the Moral Foundations Questionnaire, which measures Care, Fairness, Loyalty, Authority, and Purity concerns. Overall, we found consistent evidence that participants’ self-reported moral concerns can be predicted from their language, though the magnitude of this effect varied considerably among concerns. Across a diverse selection of Natural Language Processing methods, cross-validated R2 values ranged from 0.04 for predicting Fairness concerns to 0.21for predicting Purity concerns. In follow-up analyses, each moral concern was found to be related to distinct patterns of relational, emotional, and social language. Our results are the first finding relating internally valid measures of moral concerns to observations of language, motivating several new avenues for exploring and investigating how the moral domain intersects with language usage.

Moral Concerns are Differentially Observable in Language