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Lay beliefs about human trait heritability are consequential for cooperation and social cohesion, yet there has been no global characterisation of these beliefs. Participants from 30 countries ( N = 6128) reported heritability beliefs for intelligence, personality, body weight and criminality, and transnational factors that could influence these beliefs were explored using public nation-level data. Globally, mean lay beliefs differ from published heritability ( h 2 ) estimated by twin studies, with a worldwide majority overestimating the heritability of personality and intelligence, and underestimating body weight and criminality. Criminality was seen as substantially less attributable to genes than other traits. People from countries with high infant mortality tended to ascribe greater heritability for most traits, relative to people from low infant mortality countries. This study provides the first systematic foray into worldwide lay heritability beliefs. Future research must incorporate diverse global perspectives to further contextualise and extend upon these findings.

A theoretical perspective on grandiose narcissism suggests four forms of it (sanctity, admiration, heroism, rivalry) and states that these forms conduce to different ways of thinking and acting. Guided by this perspective, we examined in a multinational and multicultural study (61 countries; N = 15,039) how narcissism forms are linked to cognitions and behaviors prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic. As expected, differences in cognitions and behaviors across narcissism forms emerged. For example, higher narcissistic rivalry predicted lower likelihood of enactment of COVID-19 prevention behaviors, but higher narcissistic sanctity predicted higher likelihood of enactment of COVID-19 prevention behaviors. Further, whereas the heroism, admiration, and rivalry narcissism forms acted in a typically antisocial manner, with high narcissism predicting greater endorsement of unfounded health beliefs, the sanctity form acted in a prosocial manner, with higher narcissism being linked to lower endorsement of unfounded COVID-19 health beliefs. Thus, the findings (a) support the idea of four narcissism forms acting differently, and (b) show that these differences reflect a double-edged sword, sometimes linking to an anti-social orientation, and sometimes linking to a pro-social orientation., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Environmental stewardship is a term describing both the philosophy and the actions required to protect, restore, and sustainably use natural resources for the future benefit of the environment and society. In this paper, we review the environmental science literature to map the types of practical actions that are identified as 'environmental stewardship' using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines for scoping reviews. We specifically mapped: 1) the type of actions and outcomes targeting the natural environment that have been categorized as environmental stewardship, 2) the main actors, and the underlying factors influencing their environmental stewardship actions, and 3) the methods used to mobilize environmental stewardship actions once these factors are known. From the 77 selected articles, we found the term environmental stewardship encompassed a multitude of different actions, undertaken by a range of actors and addressing an array of issues that impact biodiversity on the land and in the water. These stewardship actions were conducted on both privately-owned and publicly managed lands and waterways, and across rural and urban landscapes. Despite many studies identifying characteristics and underlying behavioral factors that predicted actors' participation in stewardship actions, there were few studies formally evaluating interventions to increase stewardship. Our review highlighted the term environmental stewardship is not embraced by all and is viewed by some as being inconsistent with aspects of indigenous worldviews. A better understanding of the concept of environmental stewardship and continued practical research into its practice is fundamental to empowering people to demand and enact environmental stewardship as well as for evaluating the success of their actions., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 McLeod et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

The current study investigates attitudes toward one form of sex for resources: the so-called sugar relationships, which often involve exchanges of resources for sex and/or companionship. The present study examined associations among attitudes toward sugar relationships and relevant variables (e.g., sex, sociosexuality, gender inequality, parasitic exposure) in 69,924 participants across 87 countries. Two self-report measures of Acceptance of Sugar Relationships (ASR) developed for younger companion providers (ASR-YWMS) and older resource providers (ASR-OMWS) were translated into 37 languages. We tested cross-sex and cross-linguistic construct equivalence, cross-cultural invariance in sex differences, and the importance of the hypothetical predictors of ASR. Both measures showed adequate psychometric properties in all languages (except the Persian version of ASR-YWMS). Results partially supported our hypotheses and were consistent with previous theoretical considerations and empirical evidence on human mating. For example, at the individual level, sociosexual orientation, traditional gender roles, and pathogen prevalence were significant predictors of both ASR-YWMS and ASR-OMWS. At the country level, gender inequality and parasite stress positively predicted the ASR-YWMS. However, being a woman negatively predicted the ASR-OMWS, but positively predicted the ASR-YWMS. At country-level, ingroup favoritism and parasite stress positively predicted the ASR-OMWS. Furthermore, significant cross-subregional differences were found in the openness to sugar relationships (both ASR-YWMS and ASR-OMWS scores) across subregions. Finally, significant differences were found between ASR-YWMS and ASR-OMWS when compared in each subregion. The ASR-YWMS was significantly higher than the ASR-OMWS in all subregions, except for Northern Africa and Western Asia., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Urbanization poses numerous challenges to freshwater biodiversity. This paper describes two studies with the joint aim of demonstrating the benefits of applying a systematic behaviour change framework and providing the foundational knowledge to inform future behavior change work to protect and restore urban freshwater biodiversity. In Study 1 we used a mixed-methods research design, involving 14 key informant interviews followed by an online survey targeting 17 freshwater biodiversity experts and another targeting a representative sample of 550 urban residents, to identify and prioritize the most promising resident behaviors to target to reduce stormwater pollution and improve natural waterway habitats in urban areas. Study 2 focused on the top-ranked short-term behavior identified in Study 1, citizen reporting of pollution in stormwater drains and waterways. We surveyed a representative sample of 1901 urban residents across Aoteraoa New Zealand to identify four main determinants influencing this behavior: awareness and uncertainty about reporting, lack of opportunity to report, social motivation and personal motivation to report, and five potential target audiences: 'Supportive', 'Unaware but receptive', 'Motivated but lack support', 'Reluctant', and 'Not my problem'. We make recommendations for the most appropriate intervention designs to target each of these audience segments to promote the reporting of stormwater pollution in urban areas. This knowledge will allow for a more coordinated and effective approach for addressing the 'human element' that lies at the heart of many urban freshwater management problems., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank all the key informants, experts and urban residents who took the time to be involved with this project. Funding This work was funded by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (New Zealand’s Biological Heritage NSC, C09X1501), and acquired by PS-B. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Love is a phenomenon that occurs across the world and affects many aspects of human life, including the choice of, and process of bonding with, a romantic partner. Thus, developing a reliable and valid measure of love experiences is crucial. One of the most popular tools to quantify love is Sternberg's 45-item Triangular Love Scale (TLS-45), which measures three love components: intimacy, passion, and commitment. However, our literature review reveals that most studies (64%) use a broad variety of shortened versions of the TLS-45. Here, aiming to achieve scientific consensus and improve the reliability, comparability, and generalizability of results across studies, we developed a short version of the scale-the TLS-15-comprised of 15 items with 5-point, rather than 9-point, response scales. In Study 1 (N = 7,332), we re-analyzed secondary data from a large-scale multinational study that validated the original TLS-45 to establish whether the scale could be truncated. In Study 2 (N = 307), we provided evidence for the three-factor structure of the TLS-15 and its reliability. Study 3 (N = 413) confirmed convergent validity and test-retest stability of the TLS-15. Study 4 (N = 60,311) presented a large-scale validation across 37 linguistic versions of the TLS-15 on a cross-cultural sample spanning every continent of the globe. The overall results provide support for the reliability, validity, and cross-cultural invariance of the TLS-15, which can be used as a measure of love components-either separately or jointly as a three-factor measure., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Scientific evidence unequivocally shows that human activities cause climate change, but some people still deny it. Using New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study data from 2018 and 2019 ( N  = 34,733), we examined segmentation profiles regarding beliefs and concern about climate change ('Climate change is real', 'Climate change is caused by humans', 'I am deeply concerned about climate change'), the probabilities of transitioning to and from profiles over time, and the characteristics of individuals in each profile. Five profiles were identified with varying levels of climate change beliefs and concern. The largest profile (60.4% of respondents) had the highest levels of climate change beliefs and concern, while the smallest profile (3.7% of respondents) had the lowest. Over time, more people moved from profiles of lower into profiles of higher levels of climate change beliefs and concern. The profile with the highest levels was the most stable, with members having an 82.7% chance of staying in this profile over time. Compared to this group, members of the profile with the lowest levels of climate change beliefs and concern were more likely to be male, New Zealand European, parents, religious, and to endorse conservative and system-justifying ideologies. We discuss the implications of the findings., Competing Interests: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s)., (© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.)

Composite indices have been widely used to rank the environmental performance of nations. Such environmental indices can be useful in communicating complex information as a single value and have the potential to generate political and media awareness of environmental issues. However, poorly constructed, or poorly communicated indices, can hinder efforts to identify environmental failings, and there are considerable differences in rank among existing environmental indices. Here, we provide a review of the conceptual frameworks and methodological choices used for existing environmental indices to enhance our understanding of their accuracy and applicability. In the present study, we review existing global indices according to their conceptual framework (objectives of the index and set of indicators included) and methodological choices made in their construction ( e.g. , weighting and aggregation). We examine how differences in conceptual frameworks and methodology may yield a more, or less, optimistic view of a country's environment. Our results indicate that (1) multidimensional environmental indices with indicators related to human health and welfare or policy are positively correlated; (2) environment-only indices are positively correlated with one another or are not correlated at all; (3) multidimensional indices and environment-only indices are negatively correlated with each other or are not correlated at all. This indicates that the conceptual frameworks and indicators included may influence a country's rank among different environmental indices. Our results highlight that, when choosing an existing environmental index-or developing a new one-it is important to assess whether the conceptual framework (and associated indicators) and methodological choices are appropriate for the phenomenon being measured and reported on. This is important because the inclusion of confounding indicators in environmental indices may provide a misleading view of the quality of a country's environment., Competing Interests: The authors declare there are no competing interests., (©2023 Stevens et al.)

Vegetarian and vegan diets have been increasing in the Western world. Recent research has focused on personality trait differences between dietary groups, in part because personality traits are broad characteristics that can integrate findings about different factors that motivate vegetarian or vegan diets. Previous research on personality predictors of vegetarian and vegan (veg*n) diet, however, has yielded inconsistent results. The goal of this study was to integrate the existing results of Big Five personality differences between veg*ns and omnivores as well as between vegetarians and vegans. To this end, we meta-analyzed data from 15 studies and N = 69,576 individuals from several countries. Results indicated that veg*ns were significantly higher in Openness (d = 0.40) and Agreeableness (d = 0.17) than omnivores, while vegans were significantly higher in Openness (d = 0.14) than vegetarians. This work isolates Openness and Agreeableness as important trait predictors of plant-based diets and sets the stage for future work on the factors that motivate vegetarian or vegan diet. Personality traits can provide an integrative framework for conceptualizing dietary preferences, be used to make predictions about the sources, course and correlates of dietary choices, and potentially be useful for advocates and policymakers seeking to tailor meat-reduction interventions., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors have no conflicts to report., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Climate change is being felt across all human and natural systems in Aotearoa New Zealand and is projected to worsen this decade as impacts compound and cascade through natural system and sectoral dependencies. The effectiveness of adaptation is constrained by how fast greenhouse gas emissions are reduced globally, the pace of change, the frequency and progression of impacts, and the capacity of our natural, societal and political systems to respond. We explore how these systems and sectors interact with existing and projected climate change stressors by categorising climate change impacts (Trends and Events) and consequential thresholds (Thresholds), and by grouping systems and sectors by types (Typologies). This approach has identified commonalities and differences between the typologies which are illustrated with examples. Critical constraints and opportunities for adaptation have been identified to guide sector adaptation decision-making and for ongoing adaptation progress and effectiveness monitoring. Constraints are found across all sectors, and opportunities exist to address them through modelling and projections, monitoring frameworks, decision tools and measures, governance coordination and integration of the Māori worldview of the relationship between humans and nature. However, limits to adaptation exist and will increase over time unless all sectors and all nations urgently reduce their emissions., Competing Interests: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s)., (© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.)

Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) is a central predictor of distinct phenomena such as prejudice, voting behavior, corruption, conspiratory beliefs and dietary habits. Given its theoretical and practical relevance, researchers have incorporated RWA measures in large-scale surveys but their length can be an impediment. Although short RWA scales exist, none consider the cultural variability of the RWA structure in non-WEIRD contexts such as Brazil. Here, we report data from five cross-sectional and longitudinal Brazilian samples (N total  = 2,493) used to develop a short RWA version that considers cross-cultural specificities of the Brazilian context, where an alternative four-factor model was observed. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses confirmed a four-factor structure comprising Authoritarianism, Traditionalism, Submission to Authority and Contestation to Authority dimensions. Six-month longitudinal results indicated that Authoritarianism and Traditionalism are more stable than both Submission and Contestation to Authority. Correlations between these dimensions and right-wing political self-categorization were statistically equivalent for the full 34-item RWA scale version and the new 12-item version. Results confirm the psychometric properties of the four-factor, 12-item RWA scale in this cultural context., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Primary stressors are direct outcomes of extreme events (e.g., viruses, floodwater) whereas secondary stressors stem from pre-disaster life circumstances and societal arrangements (e.g., illness, problematic pre-disaster policies) or from inefficient responses to the extreme event. Secondary stressors can cause significant long-term damage to people affected but are also tractable and amenable to change. In this study we explored the association between secondary stressors, social identity processes, social support, and perceived stress and resilience. Pre-registered analyses of data from the COVIDiSTRESS Global Survey Round II ( N  = 14,600; 43 countries) show that secondary stressors are positively associated with perceived stress and negatively associated with resilience, even when controlling for the effects of primary stressors. Being a woman or having lower socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with higher exposure to secondary stressors, higher perceived stress, and lower resilience. Importantly, social identification is positively associated with expected support and with increased resilience and lower perceived stress. However, neither gender, SES, or social identification moderated the relationship between secondary stressors and perceived stress and resilience. In conclusion, systemic reforms and the availability of social support are paramount to reducing the effects of secondary stressors., Competing Interests: The authors declare that there are no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article., (© 2023 The Authors.)

Objective: Vaccines are an effective means to reduce the spread of diseases, but they are sometimes met with hesitancy that needs to be understood., Method: In this study, we analyzed data from a large, cross-country survey conducted between June and August 2021 in 43 countries (N = 15,740) to investigate the roles of trust in government and science in shaping vaccine attitudes and willingness to be vaccinated., Results: Despite significant variability between countries, we found that both forms of institutional trust were associated with a higher willingness to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. Furthermore, we found that conspiratorial thinking and anti-expert sentiments predicted reduced trust in government and science, respectively, and that trust mediated the relationship between these two constructs and ultimate vaccine attitudes. Although most countries displayed similar relationships between conspiratorial thinking and anti-expert sentiments, trust in government and science, and vaccine attitudes, we identified three countries (Brazil, Honduras, and Russia) that demonstrated significantly altered associations between the examined variables in terms of significant random slopes., Conclusions: Cross-country differences suggest that local governments' support for COVID-19 prevention policies can influence populations' vaccine attitudes. These findings provide insight for policymakers to develop interventions aiming to increase trust in the institutions involved in the vaccination process. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: We investigated the characteristics of loneliness by identifying distinct 'profiles' of loneliness and investigating transitions between those loneliness profiles over two years., Method: We conducted Latent Transition Analyses on two years of data from the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study (N=15,820) and modelled how people's health and age were associated with changes in profile membership., Results: Four loneliness profiles emerged: 'low-loneliness' (58% of the sample), 'high-loneliness' (5%), 'appreciated outsiders' (28%; perceived acceptance from others but felt like social outsiders), and 'superficially connected' (9%; lacked acceptance from others but felt socially included). Profile membership was relatively stable over time and transitions were most likely from higher to lower loneliness. Younger people and people reporting poorer health were more likely to transition into profiles with greater loneliness indicators., Conclusions: Findings replicated a four-profile pattern of loneliness, supported the theorised 'trait-like' structure of loneliness and identified the possibility that moderate states of loneliness are transitional states into/from low and high loneliness., Implications for Public Health: The stability of loneliness across years reiterates the need for societal interventions, particularly interventions that are adaptive to whether people's loneliness forms as a lack of acceptance/value or a lack of social inclusion., (© 2022 The Authors.)

Preliminary studies indicate that ideologies and worldviews are key in understanding the motivation behind corruption. Yet, there is no model seeking to explain corrupt intention that incorporates ideology and worldviews as predictors. Our objective was to propose a model integrating ideological factors (social dominance orientation [SDO] and right-wing authoritarianism [RWA]) and their underlying worldviews (competitive worldview beliefs [CWB] and dangerous worldview beliefs [DWB]) as predictors of corrupt intention and attitudes toward corrupt people and examine the model in the high corruption context of Brazil. For that purpose, preregistered hypotheses were tested across six studies. Results confirmed that corrupt intention is predicted by SDO but not RWA, while attitudes toward corrupt people are predicted by RWA but not SDO (Studies 1, 2, and 4). Replicating these findings cross-culturally, World Values Survey data (Study 3) indicated that corrupt intention is predicted by a proxy SDO index but not by a proxy RWA index. Experimentally increasing DWB amplified corrupt intention, but attitudes toward corrupt people remained unaffected (Study 5). Study 6 further confirmed the independence of corrupt intention and attitudes toward corrupt people, with corrupt intention primarily predicted by CWB and attitudes toward corrupt people primarily predicted by RWA. Hence, the first social psychological model that seeks to explain corruption integrating ideologies and worldviews was successfully proposed with implications for future research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The study of moral judgements often centres on moral dilemmas in which options consistent with deontological perspectives (that is, emphasizing rules, individual rights and duties) are in conflict with options consistent with utilitarian judgements (that is, following the greater good based on consequences). Greene et al. (2009) showed that psychological and situational factors (for example, the intent of the agent or the presence of physical contact between the agent and the victim) can play an important role in moral dilemma judgements (for example, the trolley problem). Our knowledge is limited concerning both the universality of these effects outside the United States and the impact of culture on the situational and psychological factors affecting moral judgements. Thus, we empirically tested the universality of the effects of intent and personal force on moral dilemma judgements by replicating the experiments of Greene et al. in 45 countries from all inhabited continents. We found that personal force and its interaction with intention exert influence on moral judgements in the US and Western cultural clusters, replicating and expanding the original findings. Moreover, the personal force effect was present in all cultural clusters, suggesting it is culturally universal. The evidence for the cultural universality of the interaction effect was inconclusive in the Eastern and Southern cultural clusters (depending on exclusion criteria). We found no strong association between collectivism/individualism and moral dilemma judgements., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.)

Background: The determinants of health behaviours and health outcomes are multifaceted and the surrounding environment is increasingly considered as an important influence. This pre-registered study investigated the associations between the geospatial environment people live within and their health behaviours as well as their mental and physical health outcomes., Method: We used the newly developed Healthy Location Index (HLI) to identify health-promoting and health-constraining environmental features where people live. We then used Time 10 (2018) data from the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Survey (NZAVS; N = 47,951), a national probability sample of New Zealand adults, to gauge mental health outcomes including depression, anxiety and psychological distress, physical health outcomes including BMI and type II diabetes, and health behaviours such as tobacco smoking and vaping. Linear and logistic multilevel mixed effect regression models with random intercepts of individuals nested within geographical areas (meshblocks) were employed., Results: The presence of health-constraining environmental features were adversely associated with self-reported mental health outcomes of depression, anxiety and psychological distress, physical health outcomes of BMI and type II diabetes, and negative health behaviours of tobacco smoking and vaping. By contrast, health-promoting environmental features were uniquely associated only with physical health outcomes of BMI and type II diabetes., Conclusion: The current study advances research on environmental determinants of health behaviours by demonstrating that close proximity to health-constraining environmental features is related to a number of self-reported physical and mental health outcomes or behaviours. We provide some evidence to support the notion that preventive population-health interventions should be sought., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic claimed millions of lives and caused unprecedented disruptions. Despite these negative impacts, there is optimism the pandemic may shift public opinion on other global crises by fostering a sense of collective efficacy. Using propensity score matching to compare New Zealanders assessed before (n =12,304) and after (n = 12,370) nationwide lockdowns in 2020, we tested a preregistered mediation model with COVID-19 lockdown experience predicting increases in pro-environmental attitudes via enhanced socio-political efficacy. As hypothesized, socio-political efficacy increased after the successful nationwide lockdowns. In turn, socio-political efficacy amplified respondents' pro-environmental attitudes including climate beliefs and concern, as well as support for a government subsidy for public transport and opposition to government spending on new motorways. The pandemic also enhanced respondents' satisfaction with the quality of the natural environment, which was unmediated by socio-political efficacy. The crisis might offer an opportunity to foster collective pro-environmental actions., Competing Interests: The authors have no competing interests., (© 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Both climate scientists and non-scientists (laypeople) attribute extreme weather events to various influences. Laypeople's attributions for these events are important as these attributions likely influence their views and actions about climate change and extreme events. Research has examined laypeople's attribution scepticism about climate change in general; however, few climate scientists are familiar with the processes underpinning laypeople's attributions for individual extreme events. Understanding these lay attributions is important for scientists to communicate their findings to the public. Following a brief summary of the way climate scientists calculate attributions for extreme weather events, we focus on cognitive and motivational processes that underlie laypeople's attributions for specific events. These include a tendency to prefer single-cause rather than multiple-cause explanations, a discounting of whether possible causes covary with extreme events, a preference for sufficient causes over probabilities, applying prevailing causal narratives, and the influence of motivational factors. For climate scientists and communicators who wish to inform the public about the role of climate change in extreme weather events, these patterns suggest several strategies to explain scientists' attributions for these events and enhance public engagement with climate change. These strategies include showing more explicitly that extreme weather events reflect multiple causal influences, that climate change is a mechanism that covaries with these events and increases the probability and intensity of many of these events, that human emissions contributing to climate change are controllable, and that misleading communications about weather attributions reflect motivated interests rather than good evidence., Competing Interests: Conflict of interestThe authors declare no competing interests., (© The Author(s) 2022.)

Concerns over potential negative effects of excessive meat consumption on both the environment and personal health, coupled with long-standing debates over animal rights, have motivated research on the prevalence and predictors of plant-based versus meat-based diets. Yet few studies have examined longitudinal trends in dietary behaviours using large national samples. We address this gap by examining the prevalence, predictors, and annual change in the self-reported dietary behaviour of a large national probability sample of New Zealand adults (categorised as omnivore, vegetarian, or vegan; Ns = 12,259-50,964). Consistent with our pre-registered hypotheses, omnivore was the most prevalent dietary category (94.1%). Moreover, higher levels of conservative ideologies (i.e., political conservatism, Right-Wing Authoritarianism, and Social Dominance Orientation), lower subjective health, lower environmental efficacy, and lower disgust sensitivity predicted having an omnivore (vs. vegetarian or vegan) diet. Longitudinal analyses further revealed that the probability of shifting from an omnivore diet to a vegetarian or vegan diet over a one-year period was low, and that veganism was the least stable dietary category. Both gender (men) and political conservatism predicted lower probabilities of transitioning from meat to no-meat diets over time., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Sea-level rise resulting from climate change is impacting coasts around the planet. There is strong scientific consensus about the amount of sea-level rise to 2050 (0.24-0.32 m) and a range of projections to 2100, which vary depending on the approach used and the mitigation measures taken to reduce carbon emissions. Despite this strong scientific consensus regarding the reality of climate change-related sea-level rise, and the associated need to engage publics in adaptation and mitigation efforts, there is a lack of empirical evidence regarding people's understanding of the issue. Here we investigate public understanding of the amount, rate and causes of sea-level rise. Data from a representative sample of New Zealand adults showed a suprising tendency for the public to overestimate the scientifically plausible amount of sea-level rise by 2100 and to identify melting sea ice as its primary causal mechanism. These findings will be valuable for scientists communicating about sea-level rise, communicators seeking to engage publics on the issue of sea-level rise, and media reporting on sea-level rise., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Accumulating evidence indicates that climate change awareness and concern has increased globally, but commentators suggest a climate change generation gap whereby younger people care more about climate change than older people. Here we use a decade of panel data from 56,513 New Zealanders to test whether belief that "Climate change is real" and "Climate change is caused by humans" increased over the 2009-2018 period; and whether changes are uniform across 12 five-year birth cohorts spanning those born from 1936 to 1995. Results confirm a generation gap in mean (intercept) climate change beliefs but not in over-time increase (slope). The generation gap occurs because older cohorts started from a lower initial belief level (circa 2009), but all age cohorts increased their belief level at a similar rate over the last decade; and these results were not qualified by respondents' gender. The findings offer hope for collective action that bridges efforts across generations.

The Dark Triad (i.e., narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism) has garnered intense attention over the past 15 years. We examined the structure of these traits' measure-the Dark Triad Dirty Dozen (DTDD)-in a sample of 11,488 participants from three W.E.I.R.D. (i.e., North America, Oceania, Western Europe) and five non-W.E.I.R.D. (i.e., Asia, Middle East, non-Western Europe, South America, sub-Saharan Africa) world regions. The results confirmed the measurement invariance of the DTDD across participants' sex in all world regions, with men scoring higher than women on all traits (except for psychopathy in Asia, where the difference was not significant). We found evidence for metric (and partial scalar) measurement invariance within and between W.E.I.R.D. and non-W.E.I.R.D. world regions. The results generally support the structure of the DTDD.

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 COVID-19 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., (© 2021 The Authors.)

Objectives: The Dark Triad traits (i.e., narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism) capture individual differences in aversive personality to complement work on other taxonomies, such as the Big Five traits. However, the literature on the Dark Triad traits relies mostly on samples from English-speaking (i.e., Westernized) countries. We broadened the scope of this literature by sampling from a wider array of countries., Method: We drew on data from 49 countries (N = 11,723; 65.8% female; Age Mean  = 21.53) to examine how an extensive net of country-level variables in economic status (e.g., Human Development Index), social relations (e.g., gender equality), political orientations (e.g., democracy), and cultural values (e.g., embeddedness) relate to country-level rates of the Dark Triad traits, as well as variance in the magnitude of sex differences in them., Results: Narcissism was especially sensitive to country-level variables. Countries with more embedded and hierarchical cultural systems were more narcissistic. Also, sex differences in narcissism were larger in more developed societies: Women were less likely to be narcissistic in developed (vs. less developed) countries., Conclusions: We discuss the results based on evolutionary and social role models of personality and sex differences. That higher country-level narcissism was more common in less developed countries, whereas sex differences in narcissism were larger in more developed countries, is more consistent with evolutionary than social role models., (© 2020 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

Relational mobility is a socio-ecological construct quantifying how much freedom and opportunity a society affords individuals to choose and dispose of interpersonal relationships. Past research has confirmed that relational mobility varies across nations, but no large-scale study has examined the degree to which relational mobility may vary within a single nation. We report two studies (Study 1, N = 647; Study 2, N = 7343) exploring within-country similarity or variability in relational mobility across all 27 states and five geo-socio-political regions in the continent-size country of Brazil. Results confirmed the measurement equivalence of the Relational Mobility Scale across respondents from all Brazilian states. Notably, relational mobility scores were uniform across Brazilian regions and states, indicating a common national culture regarding the amount of opportunities Brazilians have in selecting new relationship partners within their social context. Replicating existing findings, relational mobility was positively associated with pro-active tendencies that help people retain relationships-levels of intimacy and self-disclosure toward a close friend-indicating that friends tend to feel closer intimacy to their close friends, and reveal serious personal information to a larger degree in social contexts where opportunities to find and retain relationships with like-minded others are greater., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

The contagiousness and deadliness of COVID-19 have necessitated drastic social management to halt transmission. The immediate effects of a nationwide lockdown were investigated by comparing matched samples of New Zealanders assessed before (N prelockdown = 1,003) and during the first 18 days of lockdown (N lockdown = 1,003). Two categories of outcomes were examined: (a) institutional trust and attitudes toward the nation and government and (b) health and well-being. Applying propensity score matching to approximate the conditions of a randomized controlled experiment, the study found that people in the pandemic/lockdown group reported higher trust in science, politicians, and police, higher levels of patriotism, and higher rates of mental distress compared to people in the prelockdown prepandemic group. Results were confirmed in within-subjects analyses. The study highlights social connectedness, resilience, and vulnerability in the face of adversity and has applied implications for how countries face this global challenge. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Having children is a transformative experience and may change the way people think about the future. Parents invest time, energy and resources to ensure the survival and reproductive success of offspring. Having children may also induce environmental concerns and investments in actions aimed at guaranteeing the quality of natural resources available to offspring. However, there is limited empirical support for this parenthood effect, and little is known about how environmental attitudes and behaviour change over time following the birth of a child. This pre-registered study uses data from the first seven waves (2009-2015) of the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study-a longitudinal national probability study of social attitudes, personality, and health outcomes-with multilevel interrupted time series analysis. Respondents' belief in the reality and causes of climate change, sacrifices to standard of living to protect the environment, and changes in daily routine to protect the environment did not change significantly following the birth of a child; and nor were there changes in the underlying trends of attitudes or pre-birth anticipation effects. The study further found no gender differences in the attitudinal effects of childbirth. Additional exploratory analyses suggest that becoming a parent for the first time may increase beliefs in the reality of climate change but does not appear to change other environmental attitudes. Overall, our findings provide little empirical evidence for parenthood effects on environmentalism., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

The extant literature has focused either on personal variables or on situational factors to explain pro-environmental behavior despite several calls to integrate both. The present research addresses this integration call by testing the interaction between environmental attitudes and situational prompts on pro-environmental behavior. Three experimental studies manipulate the presence/absence of pro-environmental prompts, measure environmental attitudes, and investigate the effect of both variables on behavior. Study 1 showed a simple effect: participants with higher levels of pro-environmental attitudes (compared to those with lower levels) performed more energy saving behavior in the presence of prompts. However, in the absence of prompt, none of the participants performed the behavior, which prevented us from statistically testing the interaction. Studies 2 and 3 were conducted with a similar design: main effects of attitude and prompts were obtained, but the interaction was not found. A Bayesian analysis of the data suggested more evidence toward the null hypothesis of no interaction between environmental attitudes and situational prompts., (Copyright © 2020 Moussaoui, Desrichard and Milfont.)

Social dominance orientation (SDO) and right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) are ideological attitudes that predict lower concern for the environment and less willingness to act on climate change. Research generally shows that SDO and RWA exhibit moderate, negative relationships with environmentalism. We examine the longitudinal influence of SDO and RWA on people's willingness to change their behaviour to benefit the environment in a national probability sample over five years. We show that both ideological attitudes relate to lower environmentalism across time and that the SDO effect was stronger than the RWA effect, yet the association from environmentalism to later endorsement of SDO is stronger than the reverse. Interestingly, these findings suggest that the more likely temporal association flows from environmentalism to SDO., Competing Interests: The authors have no competing interests to declare.

Biologists and social scientists have long tried to understand why some societies have more fluid and open interpersonal relationships and how those differences influence culture. This study measures relational mobility, a socioecological variable quantifying voluntary (high relational mobility) vs. fixed (low relational mobility) interpersonal relationships. We measure relational mobility in 39 societies and test whether it predicts social behavior. People in societies with higher relational mobility report more proactive interpersonal behaviors (e.g., self-disclosure and social support) and psychological tendencies that help them build and retain relationships (e.g., general trust, intimacy, self-esteem). Finally, we explore ecological factors that could explain relational mobility differences across societies. Relational mobility was lower in societies that practiced settled, interdependent subsistence styles, such as rice farming, and in societies that had stronger ecological and historical threats., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2018 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.)

Background: Loneliness has many negative physical and mental health ramifications and is most prevalent among vulnerable social groups. However, little is known about how loneliness is grouped within the population and the characteristics of those groups., Methods: We conducted a Latent Profile Analysis on 18,264 participants from the fifth wave of the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study to identify the number of distinct loneliness profiles in the population. Secondary analyses then determined the representation of various demographic and psychosocial characteristics of participants within each profile., Results: Analyses identified four distinct loneliness profiles: 'high-loneliness' (5.7%), 'low-loneliness' (57.9%), 'appreciated outsiders' (29.1%; who received acceptance from others but felt like social outsiders) and 'superficially connected' (7.2%; who showed the opposite pattern). 'High-loneliness' were the most introverted, emotionally unstable and poorest in wellbeing. 'Appreciated outsiders' and 'superficially connected' had moderate wellbeing, but 'appreciated outsiders' were relatively higher in wellbeing despite greater introversion and neuroticism., Conclusion: This research provides a typology of loneliness in New Zealand and identifies groups more likely to experience loneliness. The 'appreciated outsiders' and 'superficially connected' profiles provide fresh insight into how loneliness may manifest and the relative influences of quality and quantity of social contacts on wellbeing.

Willingness to engage in sustainable actions may be limited by the psychological distance of climate change. In this study, we test the legacy hypothesis , which holds that having children leads parents to consider the legacy left to offspring in respect of environmental quality. Using the Understanding Society dataset, a longitudinal survey representative of the UK population ( n  = 18,176), we assess how having children may change people's individual environmental attitudes and behaviour. Results indicate that having a new child is associated with a small decrease in the frequency of a few environmental behaviours. Only parents with already high environmental concern show a small increase in the desire to act more sustainably after the birth of their first child. Overall, the results do not provide evidence in support of the legacy hypothesis in terms of individual-level environmental attitudes and behaviours. We argue that the transition to parenthood is a time where concern is prioritised on the immediate wellbeing of the child and not on the future environmental threats.

A study with United States undergraduate students showed individuals high in concern with future consequences engage in exercise and healthy eating because they adopt a promotion orientation, which represents the extent to which individuals are inclined to pursue positive gains. The present article reports a cross-cultural replication of the mediation findings with undergraduate samples from Brazil and New Zealand. Promotion orientation mediated the association between concern with future consequences and exercise attitudes in both countries, but the associations for healthy eating were not replicated-which could be explained by distinct obesity prevalence and eating habits in these socio-cultural contexts. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of the findings for promoting health behavior.

Polls examining public opinion on the subject of climate change are now commonplace, and one-off public opinion polls provide a snapshot of citizen's opinions that can inform policy and communication strategies. However, cross-sectional polls do not track opinions over time, thus making it impossible to ascertain whether key climate change beliefs held by the same group of individuals are changing or not. Here we examine the extent to which individual's level of agreement with two key beliefs ("climate change is real" and "climate change is caused by humans") remain stable or increase/decrease over a six-year period in New Zealand using latent growth curve modelling (n = 10,436). Data were drawn from the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study, a probabilistic national panel study, and indicated that levels of agreement to both beliefs have steadily increased over the 2009-2015 period. Given that climate change beliefs and concerns are key predictors of climate change action, our findings suggest that a combination of targeted endeavors, as well as serendipitous events, may successfully convey the emergency of the issue.

Variations in acquiescence and extremity pose substantial threats to the validity of cross-cultural research that relies on survey methods. Individual and cultural correlates of response styles when using 2 contrasting types of response mode were investigated, drawing on data from 55 cultural groups across 33 nations. Using 7 dimensions of self-other relatedness that have often been confounded within the broader distinction between independence and interdependence, our analysis yields more specific understandings of both individual- and culture-level variations in response style. When using a Likert-scale response format, acquiescence is strongest among individuals seeing themselves as similar to others, and where cultural models of selfhood favour harmony, similarity with others and receptiveness to influence. However, when using Schwartz's (2007) portrait-comparison response procedure, acquiescence is strongest among individuals seeing themselves as self-reliant but also connected to others, and where cultural models of selfhood favour self-reliance and self-consistency. Extreme responding varies less between the two types of response modes, and is most prevalent among individuals seeing themselves as self-reliant, and in cultures favouring self-reliance. As both types of response mode elicit distinctive styles of response, it remains important to estimate and control for style effects to ensure valid comparisons., (© 2016 International Union of Psychological Science.)

Non-compliance with fishing regulations can undermine management effectiveness. Previous bivariate approaches were unable to untangle the complex mix of factors that may influence fishers' compliance decisions, including enforcement, moral norms, perceived legitimacy of regulations and the behaviour of others. We compared seven multivariate behavioural models of fisher compliance decisions using structural equation modeling. An online survey of over 300 recreational fishers tested the ability of each model to best predict their compliance with two fishing regulations (daily and size limits). The best fitting model for both regulations was composed solely of psycho-social factors, with social norms having the greatest influence on fishers' compliance behaviour. Fishers' attitude also directly affected compliance with size limit, but to a lesser extent. On the basis of these findings, we suggest behavioural interventions to target social norms instead of increasing enforcement for the focal regulations in the recreational blue cod fishery in the Marlborough Sounds, New Zealand. These interventions could include articles in local newspapers and fishing magazines highlighting the extent of regulation compliance as well as using respected local fishers to emphasize the benefits of compliance through public meetings or letters to the editor. Our methodological approach can be broadly applied by natural resource managers as an effective tool to identify drivers of compliance that can then guide the design of interventions to decrease illegal resource use., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Markus and Kitayama's (1991) theory of independent and interdependent self-construals had a major influence on social, personality, and developmental psychology by highlighting the role of culture in psychological processes. However, research has relied excessively on contrasts between North American and East Asian samples, and commonly used self-report measures of independence and interdependence frequently fail to show predicted cultural differences. We revisited the conceptualization and measurement of independent and interdependent self-construals in 2 large-scale multinational surveys, using improved methods for cross-cultural research. We developed (Study 1: N = 2924 students in 16 nations) and validated across cultures (Study 2: N = 7279 adults from 55 cultural groups in 33 nations) a new 7-dimensional model of self-reported ways of being independent or interdependent. Patterns of global variation support some of Markus and Kitayama's predictions, but a simple contrast between independence and interdependence does not adequately capture the diverse models of selfhood that prevail in different world regions. Cultural groups emphasize different ways of being both independent and interdependent, depending on individualism-collectivism, national socioeconomic development, and religious heritage. Our 7-dimensional model will allow future researchers to test more accurately the implications of cultural models of selfhood for psychological processes in diverse ecocultural contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).)

Recent studies have examined whether values change across time. The present study investigates both rank-order stability and mean-level differences in core values--and whether age and sex moderate stability and change--over 3 years using a national probability sample (from 25 to 75 years;N= 3,962). Value priorities were highly stable, except for Conservation values among women, which peaked in stability at age 50 and decreased afterward. Older adults and women placed greater emphasis on values relating to the welfare of others and preservation of traditional practices and stability (Self-Transcendence and Conservation values). Younger individuals and men tended to more highly value the pursuit of status and power, and independent thought and behavior (Self-Enhancement and Openness to Change). The results are consistent with a life span perspective on values development and indicate values may change slowly throughout life as a reflection of biological and psychological maturation., (© 2016 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.)