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This research aims to elucidate the connection of perceived health and financial threat linked to the COVID-19 pandemic with the willingness to engage in prosocial and antisocial behaviors, while also testing the potential mediating role of empathic concern. During the lockdown period, a sample of Spanish community members (N = 702) filled in a multi-measure online survey. Our results revealed that (a) COVID-19 health (but not financial) threat predicted a greater tendency to express prosocial actions, (b) none of these forms of COVID-19 threat predicted antisocial inclinations, and (c) empathic concern mediated the effects of COVID-19 health threat on both prosocial and antisocial tendencies. Findings speak to the ongoing debate about whether individuals most psychologically impacted by the pandemic would tend to respond in a more prosocial or antisocial manner.

Despite its important implications child development, perfectionism has largely been ignored as an explanation for emotional diseases. We examined mediation models in which high levels of external pressure predict depression and anxiety symptoms, which may be mediated by low levels of self-exigency and high levels of negative self-evaluation. A sample of 2537 Spanish children completed the Child Perfectionism Inventory and the Clinical-Educative Questionnaire: Anxiety and Depression. The results indicated a predictive effect of external pressure on anxiety and depression symptoms, which was mediated by both low self-exigency and high negative self-evaluation. Our results suggest that dimensions of perfectionism play a critical role in psychopathological symptoms. Therefore, we recommend an increased focus on external pressure, self-exigency and negative self-evaluation to provide a better understanding of child psychopathologies.