Data distributions for all study variables (the y axis indicates the proportion of sample, and the x axis indicates response scales).

Data distributions for all study variables (the y axis indicates the proportion of sample, and the x axis indicates response scales).

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Significance Communicating in ways that motivate engagement in social distancing remains a critical global public health priority during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study tested motivational qualities of messages about social distancing (those that promoted choice and agency vs. those that were forceful and shaming) in 25,718 people in 89 countries...

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The Covid-19 pandemic has become a huge global health crisis. Whole world is suffering from this virus and yet we are unable to find any evident solution of this virus. This paper summarizes the experiences (facts and figures) of the first, second and third waves of Covid-19 across various regions of the World like Asia, Africa, Europe and South Am...

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... Autonomous motivation is considered important for implementing sustainable health behaviours [22,27]. The COVID-19 context is no exception, and autonomous motivation has been shown to increase COVID-19 preventive behaviours such as social distancing [28] and intentions to vaccinate [10]. ...
... The scientific quest to illuminate reasons why citizens across the world support or undermine safe and protective behaviors, came as a natural response to the global pandemic. Current evidence suggests that individuals may support or practice behaviors that prevent the spread of COVID-19 either for their self-interest (i.e., fear of becoming infected) [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] , or for otheroriented prosocial reasons (i.e., fear of infecting others) [13][14][15][16] . Yet, a deeper understanding of how these motives may interact with their socio-cultural conditions is lacking. ...
... Big Team Science projects are often led by researchers from Anglo-Saxon and Global North institutions, while the contributions of researchers from the Global South are oftentimes diluted in the ordering of authors-i.e., authors from Global North tend to occupy positions of prestige such as the first, corresponding, and last author (e.g., refs. 146,147,[156][157][158][159][160][161][162] ) while researchers from Lowand Middle-income countries are compressed in the middle. Moreover, there are also challenges associated with collecting data in low-and-middle-income countries that are often not accounted for, such as limited access to polling infrastructure or technology and the gaping inequities in resources, funding, and educational opportunities. ...
... Furthermore, journals and research institutions do not always recognize contributions to Big Team Science projects, which can unequally negatively impact the academic careers of already marginalized researchers. For example, some prominent journals prefer mentioning consortium or group names instead of accommodating complete lists of author names in the byline, with the result that immediate author visibility decreases (see for example, ref. 156 ). To promote social justice in Big Team Science practices, it is crucial to set norms that redistribute credit, resources, funds, and expertise rather than preserving the status quo of extractive intellectual labour. ...
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The emergence of large-scale replication projects yielding successful rates substantially lower than expected caused the behavioural, cognitive, and social sciences to experience a so-called ‘replication crisis’. In this Perspective, we reframe this ‘crisis’ through the lens of a credibility revolution, focusing on positive structural, procedural and community-driven changes. Second, we outline a path to expand ongoing advances and improvements. The credibility revolution has been an impetus to several substantive changes which will have a positive, long-term impact on our research environment.
... However, it is important to critically examine some of the norms, practices, and culture associated with Big Team Science to identify areas for improvement. Big Team Science projects are often led by researchers from Anglo-Saxon and Global North institutions, while the contributions of researchers from the Global South are oftentimes diluted in the ordering of authors-i.e., authors from Global North tend to occupy positions of prestige such as the first, corresponding, and last author (e.g., 187,188,[197][198][199][200][201][202][203] ) while researchers from Low-and Middle-income countries are compressed in the middle. Moreover, there are also challenges associated with collecting data in low-and-middle-income countries that are often not accounted for, such as limited access to polling infrastructure or technology and the gaping inequities in resources, funding, and educational opportunities. ...
... Furthermore, journals and research institutions do not always recognize contributions to Big Team Science projects, which can unequally negatively impact the academic careers of already marginalized researchers. For example, some prominent journals prefer mentioning consortium or group names instead of accommodating complete lists of author names in the byline, with the result that immediate author visibility decreases (see for example 197 ). To promote social justice in Big Team Science practices, it is crucial to set norms that redistribute credit, resources, funds, and expertise rather than preserving the status quo of extractive intellectual labour. ...
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The emergence of large-scale replication projects yielding successful rates substantially lower than expected caused the behavioural, cognitive, and social sciences to experience a so-called ‘replication crisis’. In this Perspective, we reframe this ‘crisis’ through the lens of a credibility revolution, focusing on positive structural, procedural and community-driven changes. Second, we outline a path to expand ongoing advances and improvements. The credibility revolution has been an impetus to several substantive changes which will have a positive, long-term impact on our research environment.
... Previous studies have shown that the way the restrictions or regulations are conveyed to the public might play a role, as a more autonomous type of message ("You are in charge") can produce less defiance than a controlling type of message based on shame and blame ("Do you want to kill another person?") [59]. Martela et al. [60] proposed communication guidelines, which may help to promote compliance. ...
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COVID-19-related regulations have impacted the economy and people’s well-being, highlighting the long-standing problem of inequality. This research explored how COVID-19-related restrictive policies, such as a lockdown or social distancing, affected people’s well-being. In Study 1, a cross-sectional online survey (N = 685), we examined the associations between socio-economic characteristics, the number of resources, their relative change, people’s stress levels, and their support of restrictive policies. We found that financial loss due to COVID-19, the number of children at home, and the intensity of restrictive measures were associated with higher stress by restrictive measures. The lower support for restrictive measures was observed among those who experienced financial loss due to COVID-19, had more children at home, less frequently accessed COVID-19-related information in the media, and did not perform self-isolation. Men were generally less supportive of restrictions than women, and the number of new COVID-19 cases was negatively related to the support. Lower stress and higher support for restrictive measures were positively associated with life satisfaction. In Study 2, an experience-sampling survey (Nparticipants = 46, Nresponses = 1112), the participants rated their well-being and level of available resources daily for one month. We observed that daily increases in well-being, characterized by higher life satisfaction and lower levels of stress and boredom, were positively associated with more social communication and being outdoors. In summary, the findings support the resource and demand framework, which states that people with access to resources can better cope with the demands of restrictive policies. Implications for policies and interventions to improve well-being are discussed.
... Moreover, the quality of studies on fear appeals in promoting health-oriented behaviours has been criticized due to a lack of research that would capture behavioural change, which limits our understanding of the causal relationship between fear appeal and behaviour (Kok et al., 2018). Especially in the context of the pandemic, the existing evidence is limited to individual countries, employing cross-sectional design, and not distinguishing interand intra-individual changes (c.f., Legate et al., 2022). In conclusion, it remains unclear whether the fear of a virus predicts behaviours that should limit virus transmission, crucially on the intra-individual level. ...
... Consequently, people may feel no control over getting infected or over avoiding the negative effects of the pandemic. In a similar vein, the importance of communication styles when inducing support for anti-COVID behaviour was demonstrated in a cross-national experiment, whereby an autonomy-supportive communication style was more effective than a controlling style(Legate et al., 2022). The autonomy-supportive communication style was characterized by endorsing perspective-taking, providing meaningful rationale, and supporting individual agency. ...
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During a pandemic, it is vital to identify factors that motivate individuals to behave in ways that limit virus transmission (i.e., anti‐COVID‐19 behaviour). Fear has been suggested to motivate health‐oriented behaviour, yet fear of the virus (i.e., fear of COVID‐19) could have unintended consequences, such as an increase in anti‐immigrant prejudice. In a three‐wave longitudinal study (NT1 = 4275) in five European countries from April to October 2020, we investigated how social norms, the impact of the pandemic on individuals, and intergroup contact affected fear of COVID‐19 and—or in turn—anti‐COVID‐19 behaviour and prejudice towards immigrants. A latent change score model——distinguishing between intra‐ and inter‐individual changes in outcomes——indicated that fear of COVID‐19 influenced neither anti‐COVID‐19 behaviour nor prejudice. Anti‐COVID‐19 behaviour was increased by anti‐COVID‐19 norms (i.e., belief that others perform anti‐COVID‐19 behaviours), while prejudice was influenced by positive and negative direct and mass‐mediated intergroup contact.
... Therefore, for obtaining the most reliable results, psychological studies in general should be performed worldwide -in a great variety of cultures and customs, and not only the WEIRD countries. Fortunately, it is becoming a trend in social science and more studies appear to be testing large, diverse samples (Bago et al., 2022;Legate et al., 2022;Wang et al., 2021). My model, despite it explained only a fracture of variance of social conservatism (and its predictor -disease history) among participants, it was accordant with described above trend considering sample size and diversity. ...
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Aim. Using available data from previously published study the hypothesis that individuals with broader disease history are more conservative than those, who were infected less often in the past was tested. Methods. Publicly available database containing data regarding perceived vulnerability to disease, social conservatism and participant’s history of parasitic disease was accessed. In the study 9409 cases from 43 countries were analysed. Results. When controlling for participant’s age, sex, education level, wealth and perceived infectability, it was found, that broader disease history was a significant predictor of social conservatism. Conclusions. Individuals, who were in the past infected with parasitic diseases more often, were observed to be more conservative than people, who had suffered from these diseases less often.
... Replicating prior studies on a global scale, I found that women, younger individuals, and less educated individuals tend to have higher COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. In doing so, I identified groups that may particularly benefit from behavioral nudges (Campos-Mercade et al., 2021;Legate et al., 2022;Milkman et al., 2021;Pennycook et al., 2020) and evidence-based communication about This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. ...
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This article presents one of the largest and broadest investigations into COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, a burning issue that poses a global threat. First, I provide a timely review of the predictors of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy identified by prior studies. More importantly, I advance a dynamic, cultural psychological perspective to examine how the cultural dimension of uncertainty avoidance partly explains national differences in initial vaccine hesitancy. To track global vaccine hesitancy over time, I leveraged a daily survey of 979,971 individuals in 67 countries/territories (October 2020 to March 2021) and another daily survey of over 11 million individuals in 244 countries/territories (December 2020 to March 2021). To increase sample representativeness, both surveys used algorithms to correct for nonresponse bias and coverage bias. Consistent with my theoretical perspective, people in higher (vs. lower) uncertainty avoidance cultures had higher vaccine hesitancy initially (late 2020) as a function of greater vaccine side-effect concerns, but these differences decreased over time as COVID-19 vaccine uptake became prevalent. These findings were robust after controlling for other cultural dimensions, demographics, COVID-19 severity, government response stringency, socioeconomic indicators, common vaccine coverage, and religiosity. Understanding cultural differences in vaccine hesitancy is important, as delaying vaccination for even a short period can increase morbidity and mortality.
... It is therefore relevant for public health in the short and in the long term, to understand which could be the most effective ways to promote adherence to social distancing measures. The present study, carried out on a sample of Italian citizens, is part of a broader international project which has exactly this aim (Legate et al., 2021). In particular, the current work considers the role of a particular type of motivation, namely autonomous motivation (Deci and Ryan, 2000), analyzing its relationship to intention to adhere to social distancing measures in the short and in the long term. ...
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To maintain social distancing in the long term, in the current COVID-19 scenario, people’s motivation must be strong and of high quality. Many governments adopted measures enforcing social distancing. Enforcement, however, can produce feelings of defiance and backfiring effects. The present work aims at investigating the relationship between autonomous motivation and intentions to maintain social distancing, through adherence to recommendations and feelings of defiance. A sample of 502 Italian residents, from different parts of Italy, completed an online survey assessing their present behavior, levels of autonomous motivation and feelings of defiance, as well as intentions to observe social distancing in the short and long term. Results support the hypotheses that autonomous motivation is related to stronger intentions to maintain social distancing, particularly in the long term, and that feelings of defiance mediate this relationship. These results underline importance of promoting understanding and internalizing reasons for social distancing, beyond norms.
... Even with (relatively) high levels of vaccination, curbing the pandemic requires rapid behavioural change to limit social contact. Accordingly, international public health organizations and virtually all national governments have made physical distancing the central target of their prevention strategy by implementing a diverse range of interventions, which include elements of education, persuasion, and environmental restructuring (Lunn et al., 2020;WHO, 2020a). ...
... See supporting information (Data S1) for details. These findings confirm the results of previous research suggesting that empathy is a powerful driver of motivation for physical distancing (Lunn et al., 2020;Pfattheicher et al., 2020). ...
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The outbreak of COVID‐19 has turned out to be a major challenge to societies all over the globe. Curbing the pandemic requires rapid and extensive behavioural change to limit social interaction, including physical distancing. In this study, we tested the notion that inducing empathy for people vulnerable to the virus may result in actual distancing behaviour beyond the mere motivation to do so. In a large field experiment with a sequential case–control design, we found that (a) empathy prompts may increase distancing as assessed by camera recordings and (b) effectiveness of prompts depends on the dynamics of the pandemic and associated public health policies. In sum, the present study demonstrates the potential of empathy‐generating interventions to promote pro‐social behaviour and emphasizes the necessity of field experiments to assess the role of context before advising policy makers to implement measures derived from behavioural science. Please refer to Supplementary Material to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement