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Networks in the infant's brain develop considerably during infancy. Although directly after birth, many of the macroscopic structures and connections are already present, during the first year of life, the brain network optimizes by pruning unimportant and strengthening important connections (Fair et al., 2009; Keunen, Counsell, & Benders, 2017). Current theories highlight that experience is essential for this brain network optimization. Neuroconstructivism explains neural development as an ongoing interaction between neural activity, gene expression, and the environment (Westermann et al., 2007). During development, neural activity, either spontaneously generated or derived from sensory experience, plays an integral part in shaping neural networks. These changes to the brain change cognitive behavior, leading to new experiences and changes in the brain. Therefore, the development of brain and behavior is heavily intertwined. The development of social competency is a noteworthy example of a type of cognitive change inextricably linked to both the development of the brain and the increases in available new experiences. The brain optimizes through the processing of social behavior, which leads to more complex social cognition, increasing social learning possibilities. The human ability to learn from others has been deemed crucial for human evolutionary success (Tomasello, Kruger, & Ratner, 1993) and human infants show considerable social learning capabilities during infancy (Clearfield, Osborne, & Mullen, 2008; Elsner, 2007). These social learning situations create new experiences, which change the brain even further. Note, that these new experiences need not be strictly social. Therefore, developing social competency could influence the brain as a whole. Thus, to develop the infant brain network, new social experiences are critical. This is most critically shown in the relationship between infant and caregiver. For example, synchronous mother-child interactions have been shown to facilitate emotional, cognitive, and social growth (Harrist & Waugh, 2002). Opposingly, the lack of a caregiver removes the possibility of some new social experiences, influencing both neural and behavioral development negatively (Cirulli, Berry, & Alleva, 2003; Faturi et al., 2010; Kaufman, Plotsky, Nemeroff, & Charney, 2000). While within-family social interaction is the most important social bond during infancy. Infants also get extensive amounts of social cues from family friends, daycare, and other random interactions. These interactions have been severely hampered in the past years due to COVID-19 and its concurrent regulations. The closing of schools and daycare, wearing masks, keeping distance, and a general limiting of unnecessary social interaction severely limited the available social cues for newly born infants. It is unlikely that this has lowered the number of social interactions of an infant - parents worked from home more often and infants still needed to be cared for, but the number of interactions with different persons and with it the heterogeneity of social cues was likely affected. Studying the effects of COVID-19 regulations on brain development sheds light on the importance of the heterogeneity of these social interactions during the first year of life. Typical maturation of the infant brain network Structurally, most of the macrostructures of the infant brain network are already present at birth (Ball et al., 2014; van den Heuvel et al., 2014). The neonate brain network is, however, still unoptimized. Therefore, the brain spends the first years of life on optimization, through the selective pruning of rarely used connections and the strengthening of oft-used connections (Keunen et al., 2017). Functionally, a similar strive for optimization has been shown. Activity patterns in distinct brain areas become more focal and stronger during development, indicating an increase in specialization (Durston et al., 2006). This coincides with increased integration of brain information, through increased reliance on long-range connections in the developing connectome (Fair et al., 2009). It is common to use a graph-theoretical framework, to calculate this optimization of the brain network. In graph theory, networks consist of nodes (the centers of information) and edges (the connections between the nodes). A network structure consisting of many clusters and a relative ease of going from one part of the network to another is generally seen as an optimal network since it combines two key features of any network: specialization and integration. This optimality is captured in the small-worldness index (Watts & Strogatz, 1998). While neonate brain networks do show some semblance of small-worldness (Fransson et al., 2007), many studies have found evidence for further optimization during childhood. For example, small-worldness propensity increases between 5 and 10 months old (van der Velde, 2022). Similar developments of the optimization of the brain network have been found in children between 2 and 6 years old (Bathelt, O'Reilly, Clayden, Cross, & de Haan, 2013) and in children between 5 and 7 years old (Boersma et al., 2011). It is therefore apparent that this optimization process is gradual and constant throughout the early years of life. In addition to the optimization of the network, maturing infant brain networks also show increases in general functional connectivity (Gao, Lin, Grewen, & Gilmore, 2016; Xie, Mallin, & Richards, 2018). Lastly, a reorganization of the functional infant brain network occurs somewhere in the second half of the first year of life. Previous work by our lab showed that EEG theta networks, but not alpha networks, showed a reorganization from a parieto-occipital network towards a frontoparietal network. After this change in functional network topology, the networks became selective for social versus non-social stimuli, showing increased functional connectivity when social stimuli were processed. Therefore, this change might represent the switch from the brain trying to visually describe a stimulus to the brain trying to interpret this stimulus (van der Velde, White, & Kemner, 2021). The current study Taken together, infants experienced a less heterogeneous environment of social cues during the COVID-19 pandemic while the brain uses these cues to optimize throughout the first year of life. Previous work tells us that caregiver-infant interactions are vital for developing cognitive and brain functioning. However, we do not know the effects of the heterogeneity of these cues on social and brain functioning. Gaining insight into this might help us create better environments for infants to grow up in, but also could be used to recognize how drastic these regulations truly are in case of future unforeseen events. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the relationship between COVID-19 regulations and brain network development, with a longitudinal framework, during the first year of life. To this end, we compared functional EEG brain networks of 150 infants born after the COVID-19 regulations started with 150 infants born and tested before COVID-19. Both groups of infants were tested twice, around 5 and 10 months of age. The following properties of the infant brain networks were compared: 1) optimization, 2) average network strength, and 3) frontoparietal connectivity. We studied theta and alpha networks, due to their reliability and possible involvement in social processing (van der Velde et al., 2021; van der Velde, Haartsen, & Kemner, 2019). We expected infants born and tested after COVID-19 regulation began to have lower theta and alpha network optimization both at 5 and 10 months old and show a slower development of network optimization over time. Similar results are expected for global network strength. Lastly, we expect lower theta frontoparietal connectivity in 10-months-old infants, but not in 5-months-old infants, since theta brain network reorganization takes place between 5 and 10-months-old.

Data request 15

tuberculosis was once one of the most common in low- and middle-income countries due to its high death toll (up to 1.5 million per year) among infected individuals. According to the World Health Organization's national tuberculosis control program, Iraq is a high-burden country with an annual death rate from TB of over 3000. This places Iraq at number 17 out of 22 countries in the eastern Mediterranean region. The most common issue with tuberculosis treatment is a relapse after initial treatment has been completed. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines "default" as two months or more without treatment, a correlation between defaulting status and demographic factors such as age, family income, smoking, anti-tuberculosis medicine side effects, and chronic conditions,covd19 pandemic, so The World Health Organization's DOTS strategy must be put into place with the help of all relevant organizations. 91 TB patients who live in Baghdad city involved in this study,41 of them are defaulters. The other TB non defaulter patients ,a comparison between both group to estimate the effect of different variables on default TB treatment. The results of this study show a correlation between defaulting status and demographic factors such as age, family income, smoking, anti-tuberculosis medicine side effects, and chronic conditions. There was no correlation between default state and variables like gender, location,. Conclusion:- The World Health Organization's DOTS strategy must be put into place with the help of all relevant organizations, both private and public. Raise health education, help patients stay on their treatment.

This project studies the effect of compassion on prosocial behavior and assigned responsibility to different actors during crisis situations.

The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has led to millions of deaths and significant loss of quality of life globally. As SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted primarily through respiratory droplets and aerosols, the use of personal protective equipment (PPE), particularly masks and respirators, is an important measure to reduce transmission. As COVID-19 becomes endemic, it is imperative for regulators and policy makers issuing mask recommendations to have information on the comparative efficacy of different mask types in key populations. This rapid review of systematic reviews aims to examine the comparative efficacy of surgical masks versus P2/N95 respirators (and their equivalents) in protecting healthcare workers and the general population from SARS-CoV-2 infection. Searches were carried out in Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Ovid MEDLINE and EMBASE to August 10, 2022. Overall, 1545 titles and abstracts were screened in duplicate, followed by 82 full texts. Ten full texts were included and underwent data extraction and quality assessment. The majority of reviews were high quality but comprised mostly low-quality studies. In healthcare workers, P2/N95 respirators likely provide better protection from SARS-CoV-2 and similar respiratory viruses compared to surgical masks. There is insufficient evidence comparing the efficacy of surgical masks and P2/N95 respirators in the general population. More research is needed to definitively establish whether P2/N95 respirators are superior to surgical masks at protecting the general population against SARS-CoV-2 infection.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a devastating health crisis in the world. It is crucial to understand and analyze factors influencing Covid-19 severity for treatment protocol development. Magnesium is an essential mineral involved in many physiological processes, and low levels of serum magnesium have been implicated in various diseases. There has been growing interest in the potential role of magnesium in the outcome of COVID-19 severity. However, the results of individual studies on this topic have been inconsistent, and it is unclear whether there is a strong association between reduced serum magnesium levels and the outcome of COVID-19. For better understanding, we conducted a systematic review of the available evidence to synthesize the current knowledge on the association between reduced serum magnesium levels and the outcome of COVID-19 and if there is a role of magnesium supplementation in reducing Covid-19 severity.

The COVID-19 pandemic and related emergency measures are a unique opportunity for the longitudinal study of pet animals’ behaviour and the role of the pet-human relationship on pets and humans’ quality of life. COVID-19 is an important stressor for the human population, due to the health risks and the socio-economical consequences of the lockdown and distancing measures adopted by several countries. The COVID-19 pandemic is an opportunity to perform a longitudinal study to investigate the role of personality differences on human and pets’ quality of life and how personality affects individual responses to stress. The comparison between pet-owners and non-pet-owners will allow the analysis of the buffer effect of pets. We choose to study dog owners and cat owners specifically to take into account also other factors, such as daily walks for dog-owners. Finally, we plan to run the study in three languages (English, Italian and Chinese), to investigate how the response to COVID-19 has differs between the two most affected Countries in the world (Italy and China), compared to the rest of the world (based on data from responders fluent in English). The project has 4 main aims: 1) To compare pet-owners and non-pet-owners to measure the differences in quality of life, following the COVID-19 pandemic 2) To measure the effect of the pet-human relationship types on pets and humans’ quality of life 3) To measure the effect of different personality traits (human and pets) on the quality of life during and the COVID-19 pandemic 4) To measure the effect of the environmental (e.g. routine) changes related to the COVID-19 pandemic on pets’ behaviour

Taking a look at how the Covid-19 pandemic took a strain on people`s live over the year 2020: a comparison between USA, UK, Germany, and Switzerland.

This study will investigate how successful different intra- and interpersonal emotion regulation strategies were during this pandemic. It furthermore aims at investigating whether the perception of accessibility of social resources reflected in reports on access to social support, trust in others, or secure attachment style moderates the effects of these emotion regulation strategies.

INTRODUCTION The COVID-19 pandemic and the response measures that were adopted during the pandemic created major challenges and problems to cancer patients and to the structure and conduct of cancer care. Patients with several types of cancer were at increased risk of fatality after SARS-CoV-2 infection compared with the general non-cancer population. Concurrently, there were changes in health care that were induced by the advent of epidemic waves and by decisions to reduce some medical services in anticipation of and preparedness for COVID-19 impact. These changes were substantial and may have resulted in delays in cancer management, diagnosis, treatment and screening as well as hindrance of other preventive measures. Given the circumstances, it is possible that there was also a possible impact on diverse psychological, ethical, spiritual, and financial needs of cancer patients. The magnitude of the impact of COVID-19 and the measures taken on these frontiers of cancer care and patient needs has already been assessed by a very large number of studies and multiple systematic reviews (e.g. see references 1-21) have also tried to synthesize the evidence on these matters. It would be essential to put together these systematic reviews. Specifically one could assess the types of studies and rigor of the evidence of the systematically reviewed studies, the methodological rigor of the systematic reviews performed, and the main findings in terms of the magnitude of the impact and the uncertainty thereof. In order to achieve these goals, we are proposing to perform an umbrella review of systematic reviews.

This project studies Chinese people's attitudes to the Pandemic. It is a subproject of the Value in Crisis （VIC）project.

This study is designed to explore the role of digital communication on well-being and interaction quality over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. This preregistration focuses specifically on the costs and benefits of digital communication during the pandemic. Other measures included in a comprehensive survey are a subject of a separate preregistration: osf.io/6tzgf

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact people worldwide–steadily depleting scarce resources in healthcare. Medical Artificial Intelligence (AI) promises a much-needed relief but only if the technology gets adopted at scale. The present research investigates people’s intention to adopt medical AI as well as the drivers of this adoption in a representative study of two European countries (Denmark and France,N= 1068) during the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results reveal AI aversion; only 1 of 10 individuals choose medical AI over human physicians in a hypothetical triage-phase of COVID-19 pre-hospital entrance. Key predictors of medical AI adoption are people’s trust in medical AI and, to a lesser extent, the trait of open-mindedness. More importantly, our results reveal that mistrust and perceived uniqueness neglect from human physicians, as well as a lack of social belonging significantly increase people’s medical AI adoption. These results suggest that for medical AI to be widely adopted, people may need to express less confidence in human physicians and to even feel disconnected from humanity. We discuss the social implications of these findings and propose that successful medical AI adoption policy should focus on trust building measures–without eroding trust in human physicians.

A dose response and network meta-analysis for higher and lower dose corticosteroids in COVID19.

A network meta-analysis addressing whether high versus low dose corticosteroids is more efficacious for patient important outcomes.

Please see summary tab.

We investigate participants’ perception of risks of the Corona crisis as well as their determinants and consequences. We also investigate how well individuals are able to forecast the development of the crisis and who is particularly good in that. This is a replication an extension of a previous study (Risk Perception in times of Corona) with a representative sample.

We investigate participants’ perception of risks of the Corona crisis as well as their determinants and consequences. We also investigate how well individuals are able to forecast the development of the crisis and who is particularly good in that.

This study aims to analyze the influence of lexicon (i.e., heroic vs. descriptive) and type of occupation (i.e., medical vs. non-medical) on social judgments of occupations, as well as on the perception of citizens’ and governmental actions for the targeted groups. Based on the first study, two occupations were selected: one medical (i.e., nurse assistant) and one non-medical (i.e., supermarket employee).

In this project we investigate the relation between BIG5 personality and participants’ COVID19 infection risks, consequences of Corona measures, and acceptance of and adherence to governmental measures.

Research informed by evolutionary theory has suggested that, all else being equal, men are expected to take greater risks than women. This has been evidenced in a range of domains, including health prevention behaviours. In this study, gender differences in mask wearing were recorded at three locations on a University campus (n = 1,435). Logistic regression and Bayes Factor analyses demonstrated that the data do not support a gender difference in mask wearing. This led us to supplement our findings with a mini-meta-analyis, synthesising the gender difference reported in ten papers (n = 73,493) observing mask wearing during the COVID-19 pandemic. This analysis is supportive of a weak effect whereby women are more inclined to wear a mask than men (OR = 1.54, 95% CI = 1.26 to 1.88). However, the mini-meta-analysis also suggested a considerable amount of heterogeneity. Our research calls for further work assessing the factors explaining this heterogeneity in the observed gender difference in mask wearing.

The purpose of this study is to characterize a volunteer population willing to consent to SARS-CoV-2 vaccine human challenge trials (HCTs). These features include volunteers’ pro-sociality, risk-taking behaviors and attitudes, and their understanding of the COVID-19 pandemic and of the risks and burdens that may arise from participating in a challenge trial. Better understanding of the perceptions, motives, and personality traits of these volunteers may illuminate a distinctive altruistic behavior and facilitate a more robust informed consent process for HCTs.

How do people take political decisions during prolematic period, as during the COVID19 crisis? This project is part of a collaborative initernational project on COVID10 (COVID Many Labs 2020)

The recent outbreak of COVID-19 has had far reaching effects on all of us, and we are only beginning to grasp the full extent of its impact. With this unique time in human history comes the realization that we have little understanding of how many of the large-scale measures being taken will impact us as individuals and as societies. While there has been necessary focus on the physical health implications of the pandemic, it is becoming increasingly clear that there are important mental health repercussions that are only beginning to be understood. The present study will use a large dataset that used daily surveys to ask people to share their experiences during the COVID19 pandemic. Participants are asked to report metrics of stress, worry, negative and positive affect, and to answer questions about their sleep patterns, exercise patterns, and social interactions. To date, participants have logged over 36,000 responses to our surveys. Importantly for the current project, we are collecting data from adults ages 18 to 90, allowing us to uncover novel insights in how age interacts with the coping experiences of our participants. Although advanced age is often associated with increased markers of wellbeing, with older adults often reporting more positive and less negative affect than younger adults, the present time provides a unique opportunity to examine whether these patterns hold under sustained stress. We will therefore examine the effects of age (Hypothesis 1) on the mood and stress metrics at two time periods: The early phase of the pandemic in the United States (note: participants from other parts of the world will be excluded from analyses given the different timelines and societal responses to the pandemic in different countries) and start of widespread stay-home ordinances and school/workplace closures (two weeks from mid-March to early-April) and the later phase in which cities and states began opening up again (mid-to-late May). We have never before, on a societal level, lived through a shared experience like this one. These results will provide important insight on how people cope with sudden changes to their lifestyles, how they adapt once they can return to a life that is closer to the one they were leading before, and the role that aging plays in this effect.

In this work, we explore students’ and instructors’ attitudes toward remote teaching and learning at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, a leading technological university in Haifa, Israel. We designed two surveys for instructors and students who switched to a remote educational context as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. The surveys focus on three main areas of interest – instructional design (as reflected by learning activities, course components, and learning assessments), student engagement, and perceived contribution to students’ learning processes. We are interested to explore similarities and differences between the ways students and instructors perceive the transition to remote education, which instructional design choices promote a more positive teaching and learning experience, and which design choices are perceived as more effective in promoting meaningful learning.

In French, common nouns can be feminine or masculine. In France, the “Académie Française” has recommended using the term Covid-19 as feminine, but it is clear that in common usage and in the media, the term Covid-19 is rather used as masculine. The objective of this research is to study experimentally whether the gender assigned to the Covid-19 disease and its perceived gender have an impact on its perceived severity, the protective measures implemented, the perceived risk... A second objective will be to make a French translation of the COVID-19 Perceived Risk Scale by Yıldırım and Güler (2020).

As explained, some occupations are essential to the functioning of the nation. For these occupations, workers continue to attend their workplace and are highly exposed to the virus. The aim of this first study is thus to analyze the social judgments made towards these occupations in the time of COVID-19. The results will make it possible to select occupations for which judgements differs in order to manipulate them in Study 2.

All of us have experienced the significant disruption to daily life that COVID-19 has introduced to our community, as well as the substantial potential for financial strain, serious physical illness of self or others, and negative impact on mental health. Therefore, it seemed a relevant and valuable research endeavor to study how people are reacting to and impacted by COVID-19. We are confident that this information can be used to inform response and action at a variety of levels, from within the home to governmental bodies, and from the current pandemic to future public health events. We created an online survey that asks about demographic information, social support, personal impact of Coronavirus (COVID-19), personality traits, symptoms of depression, anxiety, and hostility, and a few other COVID-19-specific questions such as perceived risk and seriousness of the pandemic. We will send a Qualtrics survey via email to undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and staff of several colleges within Purdue University. We will also post the study for Introduction to Psychology students to complete for credit. The study will include three waves between the beginning of March and the end of May.

In the context of the current COVID-19 pandemic, households throughout the world have to cope with negative shocks, either because of the disease or the various mitigation strategies that have caused massive unemployment and financial insecurity. Previous research has shown that negative shocks impair cognitive function and change risk, time and social preferences. In this study, we analyze the results of a longitudinal multi-country survey conducted in Italy (N=1,652), Spain (N=1,660) and the United Kingdom (N=1,578). We measure cognitive function using the Cognitive Reflection Test and preferences traits using an experimentally validated set of questions to assess the differences between people exposed to a shock compared to the rest of the sample. We measure four possible types of shocks: labor market shock, health shock, occurrence of stressful events, and mental health shock. Additionally, we randomly assign participants to groups with either a recall of negative events (more specifically, a mild reinforcement of stress or of fear/anxiety), or to a control group (to recall neutral or joyful memories), in order to assess whether or not stress and negative emotions drive a change in preferences. Results show that people affected by shocks performed worse in terms of cognitive functioning, are more risk loving, and are more prone to punish others (negative reciprocity). Data do not support the hypotheses that the result is driven by stress or by negative emotions.

We investigate the relation between BIG5 personality and participants’ infection risks, consequences through corona measures, and acceptance of and adherence to governmental measures. This is a replication and extension of a previous study (Risk Perception in times of Corona) with a representative sample that investigated relations with personality only in an exploratory manner.

Responsibility to protect others is one of the most important drivers of prosocial and civic behavior. This study will test whether the sense of individual exclusive and inclusive responsibility translates into public health practices and prosocial behavior and support for diverse policies aimed at fighting COVID-19, as well as mechanisms explaining these relationships. Specifically, we predict that responsibility construals will motivate 1) individual behavior, that is, compliance with public health practices and solidarity with others in need, 2) attitudes towards social policies aiming at internal and external security, employment, or social assistance to the sectors of the population (e.g., the homeless, or the elderly), and 3) support for global cooperation in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. In addition, we will test indirect effects in these relationships, through other-oriented emotions (e.g., compassion).

Using longitudinal institutional data, this project will examine the effect of introducing remote delivery (fully online learning) on undergraduate, block model student satisfaction and performance. The project will compare student satisfaction and performance levels in the first remote-delivered course/unit, comparing to historical counterparts, and using multi-level models with comprehensive controls and nested levels appropriate to the structure of the data. Moderators of the effect of remote delivery will be tested, comprising student and curricula characteristics. Findings will be relevant to the widespread introduction of fully online University study, due to the COVID19 pandemic.

Survey v. 1.1

In response to the COVID19 pandemic, Edquity will roll out its app to WGU students to assist WGU in dispersing emergency aid funds of over $USD 1 million for non-academic needs to their students. WGU will monitor which WGU students apply for and receive emergency aid via the Edquity app, and link that data with student demographic and academic outcomes data in the WGU database. WGU will also send out surveys to students (those who applied for and receive emergency aid and a random comparison group) to assess student perceptions of WGU.

This OSF is a repository documenting the study and the analysis used in publications using the Blursday database. The Blursday database assembles a broad range of behavioral tests and questionnaires designed to capture subjective time and related processes during confinement together with vital quantitative statistics such as sleep patterns, personality traits, and psychological well-being. The database contains data gathered from over 2800 participants (over 9 countries, 4 continents) tested on 14 questionnaires and 15 tasks during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns. It presents data in an easy-to-process and accessible format to facilitate its use by researchers interested in studying the effects of social isolation on temporal information processing, time perspective, decision-making, sleep, metacognition, psychological well-being, attention, self-perception and mindfulness...

Previous work by Dolan et al. (2012), Durantini et al. (2006) and Cialdini (1993) has demonstrated that who delivers a message to the public makes a key difference on the ensuing behavioural response to the message. This phenomenon has been aptly named the Messenger Effect. The current research project seeks to explore whether trust in the messenger has an effect on people’s perceptions and beliefs in the message, specifically in the context of Honduras during the COVID-19 pandemic. Like many other countries in Latin America, Honduras suffers from decreased trust in its governmental institutions as evidenced by the most recent public opinion report issued by Vanderbilt University’s Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) for the years 2018/2019 (Zechmeister & Lupu, 2019). The report highlighted that in terms of how much the population deemed their country’s basic institutions and processes as trustworthy and respectable on a scale from 0 - 100, Honduras scored an average of 43.3, placing it as the country from those surveyed by the project with the third lowest trust in its institutions. This is of particular importance in COVID-19 times because the ensuing crisis generated by the disease has exposed tears in the country’s already fragile social fabric, with the government currently facing backlash over their response to the virus and corruption allegations. Based on this evidence, we believe that an effect will be observed on the population’s trust and adherence to prevention measures issued by the Honduran government during the pandemic. To test whether messenger effects could exist in this context, we propose an online survey experiment where participants will be separated into two groups, a control and a treatment group. The control group will be viewing a set of social media messages with COVID-19 preventive measures presumably issued by the World Health Organisation, which is an institution familiar to most Honduras and of neutral political standing. The treatment group will view the same messages, but as issued by the Honduran government. Participants will then be asked to rate how much they trust the institutions sending the message, how much they believe in the effectiveness of the preventive measure being prescribed, how often they think this institution tells the truth and how much they intend to follow the recommendation stated by the organisation. This will be followed by a set of demographic questions including age, gender, political views and ethnicity. It is expected that the treatment group who views the message as sent by the Honduran government will on average across messages display less trust in the institution, less adherence to the preventive measure, less belief in the measure, and they will believe this institution tells the truth less often. In terms of demographics, it is hypothesized that men will show more trust than women for both institutions in line with what other studies have found using trust and reciprocity games (Chaudhuri & Gangadharan, 2002). In terms of ethnicity, it is believed that those who identify with Indigenous and African minorities will have a lower level of trust due to the discrimination that these groups have historically suffered in the region (Hooker, 2005; Patrinos, 2000). For age groups, we believe young people (16-34) will be those who will show the lowest level of trust than any other age group, in line with observations that recent protests and unrest across the region have been driven by youth (Groshek & Bachmann, 2014; Valenzuela et al., 2012). In the case of political beliefs, subjects who identify as having right-leaning political ideology will show more trust than left-leaning participants, this is based on the findings that partisan beliefs and associations are linked to trust (Carlin & Love, 2013). The current government in Honduras is right-leaning, this should promote higher levels of trust and belief in people aligned with these views.

The opinions and behaviors of peers are potent factors influencing human decision making (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004). As such, a number of studies have demonstrated that descriptive norm-based messages can be effective at influencing individuals’ behavior through changing their perceived norms. Such health campaigns have been carried out in the U.S., Canada, and the UK, and targeted a number of risky and health behaviors, such as drug use, alcohol consumption, and tobacco use (e.g. Arbour-Nicitopoulos, Kwan, Lowe, Taman, & Faulkner, 2010; Cislaghi & Heise, 2018; Donaldson et al., 1994; Larimer & Neighbors, 2003; Liu & Shi, 2019; Neighbors et al., 2004). In addition to descriptive norms, other persuasive appeals (such as autonomy and humor) have shown to be effective at influencing people’s health-related beliefs and behaviors. In the proposed study, we assess the social relevance and favorability of norm-based covid-19 social distancing messages (e.g. messages that highlight people staying home and avoiding crowds) as well as their effectiveness in shifting people’s perceived social distancing norms. In addition, we will examine the interaction effects of individuals’ interdependent self-construal and experimental condition (norms/autonomous/humor) on perceived social distancing norms.

The extent to which citizens comply or not with public health measures designed to limit the spread of COVID-19 strongly affects the propagation of the virus as well as the number of hospitalizations and death from the disease. It is however very difficult to identify (and then target) non-compliers because claiming to follow the rules is socially desirable. Drawing on data from three survey experiments, we examine the efficacy of “face-saving” treatments as a means of reducing social desirability and enhancing measurement of compliance. These treatments should make it more acceptable and guilty-free for citizens to admit non-compliance. We thus expect to find the proportion of non-compliance to be systematically higher in the group received the face-saving question. Considering the present context and the importance of accurately measuring and then targeting non-compliance, we argue that scholars around the world should adopt the face-saving question.

This international collaboration explored the impact of COVID-19 for families of children with Special Needs (SN), especially in relation to the impact related to health issues, the worries of parents and children and their coping mechanisms. As studies in SEN are often underpowered the current study includes data from multiple countries around the world. The focus of the current study is therefore on differences between the different SN groups and how SN children compare to typically developing (TD) children, rather than differences between the countries.

We will conduct a longitudinal study (with four waves) in three countries to measure short run and long run behavioral change induced by the exposure to CoViD19 and response to government strategy and communication. The study includes a baseline, two interventions, and a follow up. In week two and three, we will conduct experiments using priming to test: (a) if trauma and shock induce changes in preferences and cognitive performance; (b) if differences in terms of epistemic uncertainty, non value consensus, and conflict of interests affect approval of different communications strategies by the government (expert based, deliberative, and negotiation). In week four, we assess approval of contested claims that (1) the economic costs has not been taken into consideration, (2) the communication by authorities is too paternalistic, controlling for social desirability bias. Health and economic consequences will be monitored across the four waves.