The COVID-19 pandemic represents a massive global health crisis. Because the crisis requires large-scale behaviour change and places significant psychological burdens on individuals, insights from the social and behavioural sciences can be used to help align human behaviour with the recommendations of epidemiologists and public health experts. Here we discuss evidence from a selection of research topics relevant to pandemics, including work on navigating threats, social and cultural influences on behaviour, science communication, moral decision-making, leadership, and stress and coping. In each section, we note the nature and quality of prior research, including uncertainty and unsettled issues. We identify several insights for effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic and highlight important gaps researchers should move quickly to fill in the coming weeks and months.

/pdf/using-social-and-behavioural-science-to-support-covid-19-25vr5kyvxt.pdf

Using social and behavioural science to support COVID-19 pandemic response.

By Pierre Bourdieu (London: Routledge, 2010), xxx + 607 pp. £15.99 paper. A combination of social theory, statistical data, illustrations, and interviews, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judg...

Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion Jonathan Haidt Pantheon Books, 2012One has likely heard that, for the sake of decorum, religion and politics should never be topics of conversation with strangers. Even amongst friends or even when it is known that others hold opposing political or religious views, why is it that discussion of religion and politics leads to visceral-level acrimony and that one's views are right and the other's views are wrong? Professor Jonathan Haidt of the University of Virginia examines the psychological basis of our "righteous minds" without resorting to any of the pejorative labeling that is usually found in a book on politics and religion and eschews a purely comparative approach. Haidt proposes the intriguing hypothesis that our visceral reaction to competing ideologies is a subconscious, rather than leaned, reaction that evolved over human evolution to innate senses of suffering, fairness, cheating and disease, and that moral foundations facilitated intra-group cooperation which in turn conferred survival advantages over other groups. These psychological mechanisms are genetic in origin and not necessarily amenable to rational and voluntary control - this is in part the reason debating one's ideological opposite more often leads to frustration rather than understanding. Haidt also suggests that morality is based on six "psychological systems" or foundations (Moral Foundations Theory), similar to the hypothesized adaptive mental modules which evolved to solve specific problems of survival in the human ancestral environment.While decorum pleads for more civility, it would be better, as Haidt suggests, dragging the issue of partisan politics out into the open in order to understand it and work around our righteous minds. Haidt suggests a few methods by which the level of rhetoric in American politics can be reduced, such that the political parties can at least be cordial as they have been in the past and work together to solve truly pressing social problems.There are a number of fascinating points raised in the current book, but most intriguing is the one that morality, ideology and religion are products of group selection, as adaptations that increased individual cooperation and suppressed selfishness, thereby increasing individual loyalty to the group. That morality, political ideology and religion buttress group survival is probably highly intuitive. However, given the contemporary focus on the individual as the source of adaptations, to the exclusion of all else, to suggest that adaptations such as religion and political ideology arose to enhance survival of groups is heresy or, as Haidt recounts, "foolishness". While previous rejection of group selection itself was due in part to conceptual issues, one could also point out the prevailing individualist social sentiment, "selfish gene" mentality and unrelenting hostility against those who supported the view that group selection did indeed apply to humans and not just to insects. Haidt gives a lengthy and convincing defense of group selection, his main point being that humans can pursue self- interest at the same time they promote self-interest within a group setting - humans are "90 percent chimp, 10 percent bees". One can readily observe in the news and entertainment mediate that religion is a frequent target of derision, even within the scientific community - Haidt points to the strident contempt that the "New Atheists" hold for religion. They claim that religion is purely a by-product of an adaptive psychological trait and as a mere by-product religion serves no useful purpose. However, the religious "sense" has somehow managed to persist in the human psyche. One explanation by the New Atheists of how religion propagated itself is that it is a "parasite" or "virus" which latches onto a susceptible host and induces the host to "infect" others. As a "virus" or "parasite" that is merely interested in its own survival, religion causes people to perform behaviors that do not increase their own reproductive fitness and may even be detrimental to survival, but religion spreads nonetheless. …

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion

How the mind works

EDITORIAL BOARD Robert Davison Aviles, Bradley University Harley E. Baker, California State University–Channel Islands Jean-Guy Blais, Universite de Montreal, Canada Catherine Y. Chang, Georgia State University Robert C. Chope, San Francisco State University Kevin O. Cokley, University of Missouri, Columbia Patricia B. Elmore, Southern Illinois University Shawn Fitzgerald, Kent State University John J. Fremer, Educational Testing Service Vicente Ponsoda Gil, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain Jo-Ida C. Hansen, University of Minnesota Charles C. Healy, University of California at Los Angeles Robin K. Henson, University of North Texas Flaviu Adrian Hodis, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand Janet K. Holt, Northern Illinois University David A. Jepsen, The University of Iowa Gregory Arief D. Liem, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University Wei-Cheng J. Mau, Wichita State University Larry Maucieri, Governors State College Patricia Jo McDivitt, Data Recognition Corporation Peter F. Merenda, University of Rhode Island Matthew J. Miller, University of Maryland Ralph O. Mueller, University of Hartford Jane E. Myers, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro Philip D. Parker, University of Western Sydney Ralph L. Piedmont, Loyola College in Maryland Alex L. Pieterse, University at Albany, SUNY Nicholas J. Ruiz, Winona State University James P. Sampson, Jr., Florida State University William D. Schafer, University of Maryland, College Park William E. Sedlacek, University of Maryland, College Park Marie F. Shoffner, University of Virginia Len Sperry, Florida Atlantic University Kevin Stoltz, University of Mississippi Jody L. Swartz-Kulstad, Seton Hall University Bruce Thompson, Texas A&M University Timothy R. Vansickle, Minnesota Department of Education Steve Vensel, Palm Beach Atlantic University Dan Williamson, Lindsey Wilson College F. Robert Wilson, University of Cincinnati

measurement and evaluation in counseling and Development

Recent years have seen a surge in psychological research on the relationship between political ideology (particularly conservatism) and cognition, affect, behaviour, and even biology. Despite this flurry of investigation, however, there is as yet no accepted, validated, and widely used multi-item scale of conservatism that is concise, that is modern in its conceptualisation, and that includes both social and economic conservatism subscales. In this paper the 12-Item Social and Economic Conservatism Scale (SECS) is proposed and validated to help fill this gap. The SECS is suggested to be an important and useful tool for researchers working in political psychology.

/pdf/the-12-item-social-and-economic-conservatism-scale-secs-dffimihdne.pdf

The 12 item Social and Economic Conservatism Scale (SECS).

‘Utilitarian’ judgments in sacrificial moral dilemmas do not reflect impartial concern for the greater good

Are humans intuitively altruistic, or does altruism require self-control? A theory of social heuristics, whereby intuitive responses favor typically successful behaviors, suggests that the answer may depend on who you are. In particular, evidence suggests that women are expected to behave altruistically, and are punished for failing to be altruistic, to a much greater extent than men. Thus, women (but not men) may internalize altruism as their intuitive response. Indeed, a meta-analysis of 13 new experiments and 9 experiments from other groups found that promoting intuition relative to deliberation increased giving in a Dictator Game among women, but not among men (Study 1, N = 4,366). Furthermore, this effect was shown to be moderated by explicit sex role identification (Study 2, N = 1,831): the more women described themselves using traditionally masculine attributes (e.g., dominance, independence) relative to traditionally feminine attributes (e.g., warmth, tenderness), the more deliberation reduced their altruism. Our findings shed light on the connection between gender and altruism, and highlight the importance of social heuristics in human prosociality.

Social heuristics and social roles: Intuition favors altruism for women but not for men.

Are humans intuitively altruistic, or does altruism require self-control? A theory of social heuristics, whereby intuitive responses favor typically successful behaviors, suggests that the answer may depend on who you are. In particular, evidence suggests that women are expected to behave altruistically, and are punished for failing to be altruistic, to a much greater extent than men. Thus, women (but not men) may internalize altruism as their intuitive response. Indeed, a meta-analysis of 13 new experiments and 9 experiments from other groups found that promoting intuition increased giving in a Dictator Game among women, but not among men (Study 1). Furthermore, this effect was shown to be moderated by explicit sex role identification (Study 2, N=1,831): the more women described themselves using traditionally masculine attributes (e.g., dominance, independence) relative to traditionally feminine attributes (e.g., warmth, tenderness), the more deliberation reduced their altruism. Our findings shed light on the connection between gender and altruism, and highlight the importance of social heuristics in human prosociality.

Social Heuristics and Social Roles: Intuition Favors Altruism for Women But Not for Men

We introduce and investigate the philosophical concept of 'speciesism' -the assignment of different moral worth based on species membership -as a psychological construct. In five studies, using both general population samples online and student samples, we show that speciesism is a measurable, stable construct with high interpersonal differences, that goes along with a cluster of other forms of prejudice, and is able to predict real-world decision-making and behavior. In Study 1 we present the development and empirical validation of a theoretically driven Speciesism Scale, which captures individual differences in speciesist attitudes. In Study 2, we show high test-retest reliability of the scale over a period of four weeks, suggesting that speciesism is stable over time. In Study 3, we present positive correlations between speciesism and prejudicial attitudes such as racism, sexism, homophobia, along with ideological constructs associated with prejudice such as social dominance orientation, system justification, and right-wing authoritarianism. These results suggest that similar mechanisms might underlie both speciesism and other well-researched forms of prejudice. Finally, in Studies 4 and 5, we demonstrate that speciesism is able to predict prosociality towards animals (both in the context of charitable donations and time investment) and behavioral food choices above and beyond existing related constructs. Importantly, our studies show that people morally value individuals of certain species less than others even when beliefs about intelligence and sentience are accounted for. We conclude by discussing the implications of a psychological study of speciesism for the psychology of human-animal relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

/pdf/the-moral-standing-of-animals-towards-a-psychology-of-357p6g40pf.pdf

Jim A. C. Everett

Papers

The 12 item Social and Economic Conservatism Scale (SECS).

‘Utilitarian’ judgments in sacrificial moral dilemmas do not reflect impartial concern for the greater good

Social heuristics and social roles: Intuition favors altruism for women but not for men.

Social Heuristics and Social Roles: Intuition Favors Altruism for Women But Not for Men

The moral standing of animals: Towards a psychology of speciesism.