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During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the COVIDiSTRESS Consortium launched an open-access global survey to understand and improve individuals’ experiences related to the crisis. A year later, we extended this line of research by launching a new survey to address the dynamic landscape of the pandemic. This survey was released with the goal of addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion by working with over 150 researchers across the globe who collected data in 48 languages and dialects across 137 countries. The resulting cleaned dataset described here includes 15,740 of over 20,000 responses. The dataset allows cross-cultural study of psychological wellbeing and behaviours a year into the pandemic. It includes measures of stress, resilience, vaccine attitudes, trust in government and scientists, compliance, and information acquisition and misperceptions regarding COVID-19. Open-access raw and cleaned datasets with computed scores are available. Just as our initial COVIDiSTRESS dataset has facilitated government policy decisions regarding health crises, this dataset can be used by researchers and policy makers to inform research, decisions, and policy. © 2022, The Author(s). U.S. Department of Education, ED: P031S190304; Texas A and M International University, TAMIU; National Research University Higher School of Economics, ВШЭ The COVIDiSTRESS Consortium would like to acknowledge the contributions of friends and collaborators in translating and sharing the COVIDiSTRESS survey, as well as the study participants. Data analysis was supported by Texas A&M International University (TAMIU) Research Grant, TAMIU Act on Ideas, and the TAMIU Advancing Research and Curriculum Initiative (TAMIU ARC) awarded by the US Department of Education Developing Hispanic-Serving Institutions Program (Award # P031S190304). Data collection by Dmitrii Dubrov was supported within the framework of the Basic Research Program at HSE University, RF.

The COVIDiSTRESS global survey collects data on early human responses to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic from 173,429 respondents in 48 countries. The open science study was co-designed by an international consortium of researchers to investigate how psychological responses differ across countries and cultures, and how this has impacted behaviour, coping and trust in government efforts to slow the spread of the virus. Starting in March 2020, COVIDiSTRESS leveraged the convenience of unpaid online recruitment to generate public data. The objective of the present analysis is to understand relationships between psychological responses in the early months of global coronavirus restrictions and help understand how different government measures succeed or fail in changing public behaviour. There were variations between and within countries. Although Western Europeans registered as more concerned over COVID-19, more stressed, and having slightly more trust in the governments' efforts, there was no clear geographical pattern in compliance with behavioural measures. Detailed plots illustrating between-countries differences are provided. Using both traditional and Bayesian analyses, we found that individuals who worried about getting sick worked harder to protect themselves and others. However, concern about the coronavirus itself did not account for all of the variances in experienced stress during the early months of coronavirus restrictions. More alarmingly, such stress was associated with less compliance. Further, those most concerned over the coronavirus trusted in government measures primarily where policies were strict. While concern over a disease is a source of mental distress, other factors including strictness of protective measures, social support and personal lockdown conditions must also be taken into consideration to fully appreciate the psychological impact of COVID-19 and to understand why some people fail to follow behavioural guidelines intended to protect themselves and others from infection. ‘The Stage 1 manuscript associated with this submission received in-principle acceptance (IPA) on 18 May 2020. Following IPA, the accepted Stage 1 version of the manuscript was preregistered on the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/g2t3b. This preregistration was performed prior to data analysis.'

The COVIDiSTRESS global survey collects data on early human responses to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic from 173,429 respondents in 48 countries. The open science study was co-designed by an international consortium of researchers to investigate how psychological responses differ across countries and cultures, and how this has impacted behaviour, coping and trust in government efforts to slow the spread of the virus. Starting in March 2020, COVIDiSTRESS leveraged the convenience of unpaid online recruitment to generate public data. The objective of the present analysis is to understand relationships between psychological responses in the early months of global coronavirus restrictions and help understand how different government measures succeed or fail in changing public behaviour. There were variations between and within countries. Although Western Europeans registered as more concerned over COVID-19, more stressed, and having slightly more trust in the governments' efforts, there was no clear geographical pattern in compliance with behavioural measures. Detailed plots illustrating between-countries differences are provided. Using both traditional and Bayesian analyses, we found that individuals who worried about getting sick worked harder to protect themselves and others. However, concern about the coronavirus itself did not account for all of the variances in experienced stress during the early months of coronavirus restrictions. More alarmingly, such stress was associated with less compliance. Further, those most concerned over the coronavirus trusted in government measures primarily where policies were strict. While concern over a disease is a source of mental distress, other factors including strictness of protective measures, social support and personal lockdown conditions must also be taken into consideration to fully appreciate the psychological impact of COVID-19 and to understand why some people fail to follow behavioural guidelines intended to protect themselves and others from infection. ‘The Stage 1 manuscript associated with this submission received in-principle acceptance (IPA) on 18 May 2020. Following IPA, the accepted Stage 1 version of the manuscript was preregistered on the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/g2t3b. This preregistration was performed prior to data analysis.'

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

This paper presents strategies that Viennese adolescents use to uphold snap streaks - a gamified challenge on Snapchat inviting users to exchange at least one snap each 24 hours to keep the score. This gamification feature strongly impacts the communication practice of adolescents, both with regard to its temporality and its content. In order to secure the timed reciprocal exchange with their streak partner, adolescents would resort to so called streak snaps - impersonal pictures with reduced content that are sent solely for the purpose of upholding the streak. Three partially overlapping subcategories of streak snaps are outlined: mass snaps, “good morning” or “good night” snaps, and black pictures. Their main characteristics and role in perpetuating the gamified challenge on Snapchat are discussed with regard to reciprocity and metagaming. More specifically, the impact of these metagaming strategies on adolescents' communication, as well as their relevance for social media design, is discussed in detail.

Many parents worry over their children’s gaming habits, but to what extent do such worries match possible detrimental effects of excessive gaming? We attempted to answer this question by comparing children of highly concerned parents with other adolescents of the same age.34 parents who identified as highly concerned over their children’s video game habits were recruited for a public study in collaboration with a national TV station. Using an online experimental platform in conjunction with surveys of parents’ beliefs and attitudes, we compared their children to age-matched peers in an exploratory case-control study.The scores of children with highly concerned parents on tests of cognitive control (cued task-switching and Iowa Gambling Task) and psychological wellbeing (WHO-5) were statistically similar to controls, suggesting no selective cognitive or psychological detriments from gaming or otherwise in the cases with concerned parents. The case group however, did spend more time gaming, and scored higher than controls on problem gaming indicators (Gaming Addiction Scale), which also correlated negatively with wellbeing. Within the case group, wellbeing effects seemed mainly to consist in issues of relaxation and sleep, and related to gaming addiction indicators of playing to forget real-world problems, and the feeling of neglecting non-gaming activities.Where most results of research staged for TV never get published, making it difficult to interpret both methods and results, we here present, this paper describes findings and participant recruitment in detail.The relationship between parental concern and children’s gaming is discussed, as is the merits and challenges of research conducted with media, such as TV programs and their recruited on-screen participants.

Educational institutions in countries such as Denmark, US and UK are adopting esports as a way of accommodating to a growing interest in competitive gaming, and to attract and retain students in the educational system. In light of inconclusive research on the effect of gaming on issues like social isolation associations between screen-time and mental health, the question remains whether students opting for esport programmes fare worse than regular students in terms of everyday well-being. The current study explored whether students enrolled in sport programmes differ from regular students (gamers and non-gamers) on psychological measures of mental well-being, social and academic self-efficacy as well as loneliness and gaming addiction through a survey conducted at a school offering both esport and regular school programs (N=104). Additionally, participant observation was used to explore how esport students experienced and engaged in their gaming environment. Results showed no significant difference in well-being, loneliness, and academic and social self-efficacy between esport students and regular students. Observations provided insight into an esport environment challenged by both inexperienced coaches and students unaccustomed to participation in formal training environment.

"Skærm / Skærm Ikke" analyserer danske skolers mobilregler, inklusive deres effekter og årsager. Læs hvilke modeller der findes, og hvilke effekter skolerne oplever.Rapporten fra DPU billede af de mobilpolitikker, som skolerne hver især har formgivet dem landet over, og samler historier om processer og effekter, som 602 skoler selv har observeret dem.OPSUMMERING AF RAPPORTENS FUNDDer kan identificeres ni praktiske ”mobilmodeller”. Uanset om de har en politik, eller lader lærere og klasser forvalte deres egne regler, tager danske skoler stilling til, at tele- fonerne nu er allestedsnærværende. To tredjedel oplever en effekt. Ofte har der været konkrete problemer og episoder, der fik ledelsen, lærerne, personalet, skolebestyrelsen eller endda elever til at ønske klarere retningslinjer. Hyppige konkrete problematikker, der har ført til beslutningen om at lave en politik eller et regelsæt, er forstyrrelse i timerne, reduceret samspil uden skærmen i frikvartererne, mobning, elever der ringer hjem samt uønskede billeder/film af elever eller lærere. Det allermest almindelige er dog, at mobilerne opleves som en forstyrrelse i timerne. - Der ses ni overordnede slags regler. Det mest almindelige er, at elevers telefoner opbevares eller skal være slukkede i tasken. Så kan det variere om de må tages frem i frikvarteret og/eller om skolen undertiden bruger dem i undervisningen.- De fleste skoler indfører skærmregler eller opbevaring for at mindske distraktioner i timerne, men den største gevinst observeres for det sociale samvær.- To tredjedel af skolerne observerer en positiv effekt af deres skærmregler. En tredjedel gør ikke.- Opbevaring er den mest effektive måde at mindske distraktioner i timen. Opbevaring og aldersdifferentiering er de mest effektive måder at styrke elevernes sociale samvær. Der ses dog fleste forskellige positive effekter når elever indimellem kan bruge deres telefoner i skolen, og ved aldersdifferentiering.- Skoler har held med at lære eleverne digital adfærd og deltagelseskompetence, hvis de ser det som deres opgave. De mest restriktive regler skaber dog praktiske barrierer for at personalet kan lære eleverne skik og brug omkring mobiltelefoner.- Der er ikke socioøkonomiske forskelle på hvilke problemer skolerne søger at løse, eller på deres valg af regler. Der er dog signifikant regional variation.- Elever har kun været inddraget aktivt i ganske få processer, undtagen når reglerne laves i de enkelte klasser. Meget få skoler henviser til forskning og lignende viden i deres beslutningsgrundlag.Mobiler i timen36% af landets skoler bruger undertiden telefoner i undervisningen, hvis læreren vurderer det nyttigt. 4% har det som deres officielle politik, at telefoner ikke skal ses som et problem, men skal anvendes aktivt som en del af den pædagogiske hverdag. Brug af telefoner I timen er ikke signifikant forbundet med bedre faglæring, men heller ikke med nogen negative effekter som f.eks. forstyrrelse eller socialt fravær. Til gengæld lærer eleverne signifikant hyppigere om mobiladfærd og digital deltagelseskompetence.Mobiler i frikvarteretPå 21% af landet skoler må eleverne godt bruge deres telefoner i frikvarteret. I 46,9 % er det forbudt. De resterende har enten klasseregler (12,4 %) eller aldersdifferentierede reg- ler (19,8 %). Skoleforbud imod mobiler i frikvarteret er positivt forbundet med observe- ret socialt samvær, udeliv og leg.De ni mobilmodeller: Telefonen slukket/i tasken (22,8 %) Opbevares hele dagen under lås (19,1 %) Regler laves i klasserne (14,9 %). Differentieres efter alder (14,8 %) Efter lærerskøn (11,8 %) Opbevares med adgang efter skøn/aftale (10,2 %) Bruges som arbejdsredskab (4,4 %) Ingen faste regler (1,6 %) Forbud (0,4 %).Hyppigst observerede effekter Samvær og det sociale (22 %), Ro, koncentration og nærvær (21 %) Digital deltagelse og selvregulering (13 %) leg (11 %) Bevægelse/udeliv (8 %) Løsning af konkrete problemer (8 %) omkring f.eks. mobning, fotografering,opkald, og børn der unødigt ringer hjem.

Evidence for the efficacy of gamification is still mixed, and effect data are rarely gathered in a manner that allows comparison to other equally popular behavior design approaches. This study therefore tested the relative effects of gamification, nudging and rational information as means for getting commuters to choose public transport over cars. The quasi experiment was conducted as part of a planned campaign to recruit more bus travelers, giving us an unique opportunity to compare the effects of three different influence strategies. 284 commuters were given free one-month travel cards, and assigned to one of four influence conditions based on their place of residence. Number of trips, as well as a set of secondary variables, were compared. Affordances from games are being employed in a wide variety of target domains, ranging from marketing to attempts at influencing immediate choice in everyday settings. The use of game elements, however, is far from the only paradigm being leveraged on this sort of behavior change. In this light, gamification can be understood either as a new light to emerge when the psychological power of games became apparent to the business world, or as a component in a broader culture of behavior design where other approaches including nudging and service design also converge on influencing human choice. It is undeniable that some gamification designs have worked well, and the expanding market of gamification solutions and self appointed gurus attest to the faith clients have in the approach (Lieberoth, Møller, & Marin, 2015), yet the data that is made available to the public only suggests a circa fifty percent success rate and often relies on low quality research designs (Hamari, Koivisto, & Sarsa, 2014- new version in preparation showing a similar distribution). Further, only a few have attempted to dissociate the effects of different game affordances such as surface appearance vs. competition mechanics (Lieberoth, 2015), and none have pitted gamification against a truly challenging comparison condition such as a dedicated nudging intervention. The situation with nudging (Thaler & Sunstein, 2009) is similar, except perhaps for the fact that it is based off findings from experiments in psychology and behavioral economics, giving nudging more scientific credence and a stronger culture of documentation from the outset. The idea here is that it is more effective to change human behavior by just-in-time choice situations so as to invite the preferred options, than though rational–just-in-case information (Lieberoth & Jensen, 2016). The guiding premise is that humans are cognitive misers, who rely on fast and frugal heuristics instead of considering our options rationally, leaving us wide open to small situational “nudges” most of the time. The evidence base from highly diverse nudge interventions, however, comprises many studies with small effects and methodological issues (Bucher et al., 2016; Marteau, Ogilvie, Roland, Suhrcke, & Kelly, 2011), perhaps reflecting the noisy nature of real world situational change interventions. In summary, the jury is till out on the effects of gamification and nudging, even if some interventions have shown nice success stories. However, traditional information based approaches run into the same problems, generally faring poorly when it comes to real behavior impact (Ferrier & Fleming, 2014). The goal of this experiment was to compare three different interventions in their ability to move commuters from cars to public transport during a month of free bus passes. This will be a work-in-progress paper pending further data analysis. 284 local commuters were recruited into the experiment using a traditional campaign of media appearances and outdoor advertising. Participants were divided into groups based on their place of residence. A fourth smaller control condition was also formed. Each participant received a letter of information particular to the influence condition, and a free travel card good for the month. Researchers from two major universities each designed an influence strategy in accordance with literature and practices in their fields, separable into gamification, nudging and rational health information. Swipes of the personalized electronic bus passes were recorded and used as the main dependent variable, with behavior on the experiment website and self report surveys were used as secondary variables. Findings: What are / will be the main outcomes and results? (369 / 400 words) The experiment ran for a full month, during which each influence strategy leveraged via email, text messages, the experiment webpage and elements mailed to the participants beforehand. The web site contained personalized information on money, CO2 and hours behind the wheel saved as the month progressed. The control condition received this basic information on their websites, as well as generalized reminders. The nudging approach centered on conscious buy-in through precommitment to travel days, anchored on a physical calendar to be placed in the home. In addition, social proof was leveraged on the website by showing how other users in the same locations were doing. The gamification intervention awarded users raffle tickets for hitting travel benchmarks as well as taking the bus on variably scheduled “bonus days”, and dealt out badges ,some of which were visible on the web page as goal posts and some of which were secret surprise awards only made visible when “players” started displaying them on their profiles. Just-in–time feedback was sent on text and email, and information on e.g. badges accumulated on the website. A prize of further free travel was offered. The rational health information approach framed the benefits of commuting in terms of exercise, adding calories burned to the information on money, CO2 and time displayed on the personalized website. Further, this information was shared with the family to create a social bed for the rational incentives. In the end, all three influence strategies beat controls on the number of travel card swipes, but not significantly. Out of the four, the game group registered the highest number of average swipes. The gamification group also had significantly more website logins than all the other conditions. On self-reported measures, the stated intent to renew the travel card after the experiment was significantly higher for the game group than for the rational information group. The game group also beat controls on the subjective sense of taking the bus as a new habit. None of these results had huge effect sizes. This paper offers a groundbreaking comparison between nudging, gamification and rational health information in changing everyday behavior. It also offers new data in the specific domain of influencing commuter travel choices. Even though the experiment suffered several methodological issues inherent to the partnership model agreed upon between the researchers and companies, which was ultimately focused on recruitment rather than scientific rigor, this study represents a unique comparison of three independently expert developed interventions from the 2010’s behavior design culture. Participants were not distributed into groups though randomization, but rather as residents of nine different towns. Thus, this was not a true randomized trial, but rather a field quasi experiment. The control group was smaller than the other conditions, and lived further from the regional capital, making it a poor basis for comparison. The real findings should thus be found in a comparison between the three active behavior design interventions, which is luckily also the appeal of this study Initial recruitment had predicted much a much larger pool of participants, so there was a high degree of variance within the relatively small groups. There also was fewer swipes than hoped for. Thus effect sizes were not impressive. However, the gamification group came out ahead in terms of swipes (although not significantly so) as well as on logins to the website and self report measures, suggesting a deeper level of commitment in this condition. One reason for the relative success of the game group may be that a prize was offered up. The opportunity to offer the same in all conditions was declined by the other researchers to avoid contamination by additional extrinsic motivators. A second reason may simply be, that the gamification condition was more elaborately designed in terms of graphics and active feedback hitting participants on e.g. text messages. The difference may thus be one of intensity and quantity, rather than influence quality. In conclusion, it seems that all three influence strategies were viable for scaffolding commuter choice away from the car and into busses, but that the tie between the game affordances and dynamic website – combined with the offer of a prize for a trackable everyday behavior - created the a strong feedback loop in the gamification condition than did nudging and rational information. Bucher, T., Collins, C., Rollo, M. E., McCaffrey, T. A., De Vlieger, N., Van der Bend, D., … Perez-Cueto, F. J. A. (2016). Nudging consumers towards healthier choices: a systematic review of positional influences on food choice. The British Journal of Nutrition, 115(12), 2252–2263. doi:10.1017/S0007114516001653 Ferrier, A., & Fleming, J. (2014). The Advertising Effect: How to Change Behaviour. Melbourne: Oxford University Press Australia & New Zealand. Hamari, J., Koivisto, J., & Sarsa, H. (2014). Does Gamification Work? -- A Literature Review of Empirical Studies on Gamification. In 2014 47th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (pp. 3025–3034). Ieee. doi:10.1109/HICSS.2014.377 Lieberoth, A. (2015). Shallow gamification – psychological effects of framing an activity as a game. Games and Culture, 10(3), 249–268. doi:10.1177/1555412014559978 Lieberoth, A., & Jensen, N. H. (2016). Gamify, nudge and punish: situating gamification within the broader practice of behavior design. In NordiCHI 2016 (p. IN REVIEW). Göteborg. Lieberoth, A., Møller, M., & Marin, A. (2015). Deep and shallow gamification in marketing: the thin evidence for effects and forgotten powers of really good games. In J. Martí-Parreño, C. Ruiz-Mafé, & L. L. Scribner (Eds.), Engaging Consumers through Branded Entertainment and Convergent Media (pp. 110–126). IGI global. Marteau, T. M., Ogilvie, D., Roland, M., Suhrcke, M., & Kelly, M. P. (2011). Judging nudging: can nudging improve population health? BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.), 342(7791), d228. doi:10.1136/bmj.d228 Thaler, R. H., & Sunstein, C. R. (2009). Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness. London: Penguin Group US.

Humans routinely solve problems of immense computational complexity by intuitively forming simple, low-dimensional heuristic strategies. Citizen science exploits this ability by presenting scientific research problems to non-experts. Gamification is an effective tool for attracting citizen scientists to provide solutions to research problems. While citizen science games Foldit, EteRNA and EyeWire have been used successfully to study protein and RNA folding and neuron mapping, so far gamification has not been applied to problems in quantum physics. Does the fact that everyday experiences are based on classical physics hinder the use of non-expert citizen scientists in the realm of quantum mechanics? Here we report on Quantum Moves, an online platform gamifying optimization problems in quantum physics. We show that human players are able to find solutions to difficult problems associated with the task of quantum computing. Players succeed where purely numerical optimization fails, and analyses of their solutions provide insights into the problem of optimization of a more profound and general nature. Based on player strategies, we have thus developed a new, few-parameter heuristic optimization method which efficiently outperforms the most prominent established numerical methods. The numerical complexity associated with time-optimal solutions increases for shorter process durations. To better understand this, we have made a low-dimensional rendering of the optimization landscape. These studies show why traditional optimization methods fail near the quantum speed limit, and they bring promise that combined analyses of optimization landscapes and heuristic solution strategies may benefit wider classes of optimization problems in quantum physics and beyond., 19 pages, 7 figures, supplementary materials are included

Sometimes stories about games make their way into the media. Around the year 2000 they were usually about how games turns mild-mannered suburban kids into desensitized high school-shooters-in-training. But things have changed. Warnings about aggressive emotions, caricatured gender images, and detrimental effects of time spent in front of a screen now compete with claims about gamification as a magic key to business success and utopist visions of a better game-based tomorrow for education, citizenship, and science participation. The claims are many – but they all seem to agree on one thing: Games affect us. And we all want to prove our claims. But how do we test the impact of games?In this chapter, we discuss empirical logics and approaches known from large- to small-scale effect studies as traditionally found in educational, political, and biological sciences. There are two premises in this approach: We assume that causal effects of games can be specified and measured (often by proxy) in a statistically valid way, and that findings from studies allow us (at least with a few caveats) to generalize cause and effect to other players at other times. The balance between control and real-world relevance varies very much across methods, and is something we will return to repeatedly.This chapter provides an overview of methods, as well as a discussion of the dilemmas and limitations inherent to measuring anything in the lives of diverse groups like students or gamers. The chapter finishes by discussing the inherent problems in causal and probabilistic claims in media psychology, and argues that it is necessary to keep in mind that humans are interpretative beings. But first, a few words about evidence and (yes, unfortunately) math.

Blandingen af offentlig interesse, gode mediehistorier og smarte sælgere har ført til sejlivede neuromyter, der ikke bare distraherer almindelige mennesker, men også fører til udbredte misforståelser blandt professionelle som lærere og plejepersonale. I bedste fald leder neuromyter til spild af tid og penge, samt til placebo- effekter og basale misforståelser om den menneskelige tilstand. I værste fald distraherer pseudovidenskab os fra at opsøge videnskabeligt valideret hjælp, hvilket kan have en høj menneskelig og økonomisk pris.Her drøftes forskellige måder neurovidenskabelige idéer forvandskes og misforstås, og hvordan moderne viden om hjernen kan anvendes mere kritisk i f.eks. læringssammenhæng.

The psychological impact of games is usually measured in terms of fun, or paratelic engagement: An immersed and intrinsically motivated state, where an activity is sustained for its own sake, rather than for extrinsic rewards. This poster presents preliminary results from a controlled experiment with a custom-made boardgame where levels og game-mechanics and pure alluring shape was manipulated, and a model for understanding the differences between gamification, alluring gamelike (but mechanics-less) design and true games. Analyses suggest that shaping an activity as a game changes subjective experiences of fun and "gamelikeness" but not overall motivation.