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.

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

The cultural origins of human cognition

Current research on culture focuses on independence and interdependence and documents numerous East-West psychological differences, with an increasing emphasis placed on cognitive mediating mechanisms. Lost in this literature is a time-honored idea of culture as a collective process composed of cross-generationally transmitted values and associated behavioral patterns (i.e., practices). A new model of neuro-culture interaction proposed here addresses this conceptual gap by hypothesizing that the brain serves as a crucial site that accumulates effects of cultural experience, insofar as neural connectivity is likely modified through sustained engagement in cultural practices. Thus, culture is “embrained,” and moreover, this process requires no cognitive mediation. The model is supported in a review of empirical evidence regarding (a) collective-level factors involved in both production and adoption of cultural values and practices and (b) neural changes that result from engagement in cultural practices. Future directions of research on culture, mind, and the brain are discussed.

/pdf/culture-mind-and-the-brain-current-evidence-and-future-1lstub029w.pdf

Culture, Mind, and the Brain: Current Evidence and Future Directions

Current research on culture focuses on independence and interdependence and documents numerous East-West psychological differences, with an increasing emphasis placed on cognitivemediatingmechanisms. Lost in this literature is a time-honored idea of culture as a collective process composed of cross-generationally transmitted values and associated behavioral patterns (i.e., practices). A new model of neuro-culture interaction proposed here addresses this conceptual gap by hypothesizing that the brain serves as a crucial site that accumulates effects of cultural experience, insofar as neural connectivity is likely modified through sustained engagement in cultural practices. Thus, culture is “embrained,” and moreover, this process requires no cognitive mediation.Themodel is supported in a reviewof empirical evidence regarding (a) collective-level factors involved in both production and adoption of cultural values and practices and (b) neural changes that result from engagement in cultural practices. Future directions of research on culture, mind, and the brain are discussed. 419 A nn u. R ev . P sy ch ol . 2 01 1. 62 :4 19 -4 49 . D ow nl oa de d fr om w w w .a nn ua lr ev ie w s. or g by U ni ve rs ity o f M ic hi ga n A nn A rb or o n 12 /1 5/ 10 . F or p er so na l u se o nl y. PS62CH16-Kitayama ARI 10 November 2010 7:52 Independence versus interdependence: social orientations that emphasize each individual’s distinctness, uniqueness, and separation from others (e.g., self-promotion, self-expression, and self-sustenance) versus each individual’s embeddedness and connectedness with others (e.g., social harmony and coordination, relational attachment, and social duties), respectively

Culture, mind, and the brain: Current evidence and future

The hope for creating widespread change in social values has endured among conservation professionals since early calls by Aldo Leopold for a "land ethic." However, there has been little serious attention in conservation to the fields of investigation that address values, how they are formed, and how they change. We introduce a social-ecological systems conceptual approach in which values are seen not only as motivational goals people hold but also as ideas that are deeply embedded in society's material culture, collective behaviors, traditions, and institutions. Values define and bind groups, organizations, and societies; serve an adaptive role; and are typically stable across generations. When abrupt value changes occur, they are in response to substantial alterations in the social-ecological context. Such changes build on prior value structures and do not result in complete replacement. Given this understanding of values, we conclude that deliberate efforts to orchestrate value shifts for conservation are unlikely to be effective. Instead, there is an urgent need for research on values with a multilevel and dynamic view that can inform innovative conservation strategies for working within existing value structures. New directions facilitated by a systems approach will enhance understanding of the role values play in shaping conservation challenges and improve management of the human component of conservation.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/cobi.12855

Why social values cannot be changed for the sake of conservation.

Prior research suggests that cultural groups vary on an overarching dimension of independent versus interdependent social orientation, with European Americans being more independent, or less interdependent, than Asians Drawing on recent evidence suggesting that the dopamine D4 receptor gene (DRD4) plays a role in modulating cultural learning, we predicted that carriers of DRD4 polymorphisms linked to increased dopamine signaling (7- or 2-repeat alleles) would show higher levels of culturally dominant social orientations, compared with noncarriers European Americans and Asian-born Asians (total N = 398) reported their social orientation on multiple scales They were also genotyped for DRD4 As in earlier work, European Americans were more independent, and Asian-born Asians more interdependent This cultural difference was significantly more pronounced for carriers of the 7- or 2-repeat alleles than for noncarriers Indeed, no cultural difference was apparent among the noncarriers Implications for potential coevolution of genes and culture are discussed

The Dopamine D4 Receptor Gene (DRD4) Moderates Cultural Difference in Independent Versus Interdependent Social Orientation

Arabs represent a major cultural group, yet one that is relatively neglected in cultural psychology. We hypothesized that Arab culture is characterized by a unique form of interdependence that is self-assertive. Arab cultural identity emerged historically in regions with harsh ecological and climatic environments, in which it was necessary to protect the survival of tribal groups. Individuals in Arabian cultures were honour-bound to be respectable and trustworthy group members. Supporting this hypothesis, study 1 found that Arabs were interdependent and holistic (like East Asians), but also self-assertive (like Westerners). This psychological profile was observed equally for both Muslim and Christian Arabs, thus ruling out Islamic religion as an alternative explanation for our findings. Studies 2 and 3 showed that the self-assertive tendency of Arabs is in service of interdependence, whereas that of Westerners is in service of independence. Our work contributes to the current effort by cultural psychologists to go beyond the prevailing East versus West, interdependence versus independence paradigm. It also speaks to the emerging socioecological perspective in cultural research. Despite being a major cultural group, Arabs are relatively neglected in cultural psychology. Going beyond the prevailing East versus West paradigm, this paper suggests that a unique form of interdependence that is self-assertive typifies Arab culture.

Self-assertive interdependence in Arab culture

In the present commentary, we first examine the three target articles included in the Asian Journal of Social Psychology special issue on cultural neuroscience. We spell out the contributions that the articles have offered to the field. We extend this examination with our own theoretical model of neuro-culture interaction, which proposes that brain connectivity changes as a function of each person's active, repeated engagement in culture's scripted behavioural patterns (i.e. practices). We then locate the current endeavour of cultural neuroscience within a broader framework, detailing empirical, theoretical, and meta-theoretical reasons why the approach of cultural neuroscience is important to both socio-behavioural and biological sciences. It is concluded that the scholarship demonstrated in the target articles will be an important collective asset for all of us who aspire to understand the human mind as fundamentally biocultural and to study it as such.

/pdf/envisioning-the-future-of-cultural-neuroscience-1jwyhakbc6.pdf

Envisioning the future of cultural neuroscience

While Western cultures are more focused on individualization and self-expression, East Asian cultures promote interrelatedness. Largely unknown is how gene by culture interactions influence the degree to which individuals acquire culture, and the neurocircuitry underlying how social cues are processed. We sought to examine the interaction between DRD4 polymorphism and culture in the neural processing of social emotional cues. 19 Asian-born East Asian (AA) and 20 European American (EA) participants performed a shifted attention emotion appraisal functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) task, which probes implicit emotional processing and regulation in response to social emotional cues. Half of the participants in each group were DRD4 2- or 7-repeat allele (2R/7R) carriers. AA participants showed larger left and right amygdala, and left hippocampal activation during implicit processing of fearful faces. There was a gene by culture interaction in the left insula during implicit processing of facial cues, while activation in EA DRD4 2R/7R carriers was larger than EA non-carriers and AA carriers. Our findings suggest that emotional facial cues are more salient to AA participants and elicit a larger amygdala reaction. Gene by culture interaction finding in insula suggests that DRD4 2R/7R carriers in each culture are more prone to adopting their cultural norm.

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-328X/8/7/62/pdf

Steve Tompson

Papers

The Dopamine D4 Receptor Gene (DRD4) Moderates Cultural Difference in Independent Versus Interdependent Social Orientation

Self-assertive interdependence in Arab culture

Envisioning the future of cultural neuroscience

Gene by Culture Effects on Emotional Processing of Social Cues among East Asians and European Americans.

Cultural Neuroscience of Choice Justifi cation