The relationship between measures of individualism and collectivism and the impact of COVID-19 across nations

COVID-19 mortality rate and its determinants in Ethiopia: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background

The COVID-19 mortality rate continues to be high in low-income countries like Ethiopia as the new variant's transmission expands and the countries' limited capacity to combat the disease causes severe outcomes, including deaths. The aim of this study is to determine the magnitude of the COVID-19 mortality rate and its determinants in Ethiopia.

Methods

The main electronic databases searched were PubMed, CINAHL, Google Scholar, and African journals online. The included studies' qualities were assessed independently using the Newcastle-Ottawa scale. The data was extracted in Microsoft Excel spreadsheet format. The pooled effect size and odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals across studies were determined using the random-effects model. I2 is used to estimate the percentage of overall variation across studies due to heterogeneity. Egger's test and funnel plot were used to find the published bias. A subgroup analysis was conducted. The effect of a single study on the overall estimation was determined by sensitivity analysis.

Results

A total of 21 studies with 42,307 study participants were included in the final analysis. The pooled prevalence of COVID-19 mortality was 14.44% (95% CI: 10.35-19.08%), with high significant heterogeneity (I2 = 98.92%, p < 0.001). The risk of mortality from COVID-19 disease was higher for patients with comorbidity (AHR = 1.84, 95% CI: 1.13-2.54) and cardiovascular disease (AHR = 2, 95% CI: 1.09-2.99) than their counterparts without these conditions.

Conclusion

A significant number of COVID-19 patients died in Ethiopia. COVID-19 patients with comorbidities, particularly those with cardiovascular disease, should receive special attention to reduce COVID-19 mortality.

Systematic review registration

https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/, registration identifier (ID) CRD42020165740.

Country's value priorities in health crisis: How dominant societal motivations shape COVID-19 severity

This paper presents two comprehensive studies examining how Schwartz's human values dimensions at the country level predict COVID-19 pandemic severity. Study 1 aggregated survey data across 89 countries from the European Social Survey and World Values Survey to assess societal-level conservation versus openness to change (CON-OTC) and self-enhancement versus self-transcendence (SE-ST) value-continuums. Study 2 developed an innovative archival measurement approach using 10 indicators to estimate these value dimensions for over 180 countries. Both studies employed multilevel modeling to test the relationships between country-level values and COVID-19 severity, measured through epidemiological indicators of transmission speed, case fatality rate, infection prevalence and mortality burden. Results revealed that the CON-OTC and SE-ST value-continuums showed consistent, significant negative associations with transmission speed and infection prevalence before adjusting for modernization, latitude, historical pathogen prevalence and government stringency across both studies. However, after accounting for these socioecological and policy covariates, the CON-OTC value-continuum positively predicted case fatality rate in both studies, implying conservation values could increase COVID-19 lethality. In contrast, across both studies, the SE-ST value-continuum negatively predicted case fatality rate after adjusting for the covariates, suggesting countries prioritizing self-enhancement values exhibited relatively lower pandemic severity and lethality when accounting for developmental, ecological, and policy factors. Accordingly, the studies advance theoretical understanding of how country's value priorities shape COVID-19 impact. Methodologically, these studies contribute through multilevel techniques that account for spatial dependencies, as well as an innovative ecological measurement. Overall, this research demonstrates the value of applying Schwartz's framework at a societal level to predict global health crises and pandemics.

The Differential Experience of COVID-19 on Asian American Subgroups: The Los Angeles Pandemic Surveillance Cohort Study

Data from Asian Americans (AsA) are commonly aggregated in research studies and reporting, obscuring the significant differences across AsA subgroups. We investigated the differential experience of AsA subgroups in COVID-19 testing, vaccination, engagement in risky and protective behaviors and mental health status against this infectious disease. We surveyed a representative sample of the Los Angeles County population (N = 5500) in April 2021 as part of the Los Angeles Pandemic Surveillance Cohort Study and focused on participants who self-identified as AsA (N = 756). There were significant differences across the AsA subgroups, with Koreans, Asian Indians, and Other Asians living in areas with higher COVID-19 mortality rates, and Asian Indians demonstrating the lowest proportion of COVID-19 vaccination. Vietnamese and Koreans had a higher proportion of becoming unemployed during the pandemic. Although the AsA sample on average demonstrated better outcomes than other racial and ethnic groups, the apparent advantages were heterogenous and due to specific subgroups of AsAs rather than AsAs as a whole. The observed differences in COVID-19 measures across AsA subgroups underscore the need to disaggregate AsA data to identify and reduce existing disparities.

Predicting attitudes toward mitigation interventions and social distancing behaviors at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States

Aim

The goal of this research was to assess the influence of adult attachment, personality, and cultural orientation on social distancing and attitudes toward COVID-19 mitigation interventions.

Methods

Survey data was collected across two samples (NMTurk = 201, Nsnowball = 242) in the US from April 29 to May 11, 2020. Adult attachment was assessed via the Experiences in Close Relationships Scale-Short Form (ECR-S; Wei, M., Russell, D. W., Mallinckrodt, B., & Vogel, D. L. (2007). The experiences in close relationship scale (ECR)-short form: Reliability, validity, and factor structure. Journal of Personality Assessment, 88(2), 187-204), personality was assessed via the Ten Item Personality Inventory (TIPI; Gosling, S. D., Rentfrow, P. J., & Swann, W. B. (2003). A very brief measure of the Big-Five personality domains. Journal of Research in Personality, 37(6), 504-528), cultural orientation was assessed via the Horizontal and Vertical Individualism and Collectivism Scale (Triandis, H. C., & Galfand, M. J. (1998). Converging measurement of horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(1), 118-128), and social distancing and attitudes toward mitigation interventions were assessed via self-report measures developed for this assessment.

Results

In the MTurk sample, agreeableness (β = .19) and conscientiousness (β = .26) predicted positive mitigation intervention attitudes. Agreeableness (β = .24) and vertical collectivism (β = .25) positively predicted social distancing, while attachment anxiety (β = -.32) and vertical individualism (β = -.32) negatively predicted social distancing. In our snowball sample, residing primarily in New York, openness (β = .18) and horizontal collectivism (β = .16) predicted positive intervention attitudes, while horizontal individualism (β = -.20) predicted negative attitudes. Social contact in this sample was low and not associated with predictor variables. In both samples, mitigation attitudes and social distancing were only moderately correlated.

Implications

Our findings highlight the inherent inconsistency between attitudes and behaviors as well as the potential impact of mandated interventions on both attitudes and behavior.

Beyond the surface: accounting for confounders in understanding the link between collectivism and COVID-19 pandemic in the United States

According to the parasite-stress theory, collectivism serves as a trait of ingroup assortative sociality, providing defense against infectious diseases. This study investigated the association between cultural collectivism and COVID-19 severity at the state (Study 1: N = 51), county (Study 2: N = 3,133), and daily (Study 3: N = 52,806) levels from the beginning of 2020 to the end of 2022. State-level collectivism was assessed using two distinct measures: the U.S. collectivism index, focusing on social interconnectedness and interdependence, and the subjective-culture individualism-collectivism index (reversed), capturing attitudes and beliefs related to religion, abortion, and same-sex marriage. By employing random-intercept multilevel models, the results demonstrated significant and negative effects of state-level collectivism, as measured by the U.S collectivism index, on COVID-19 cases per million, COVID-19 deaths per million, and composite COVID-19 severity index, after controlling for confounding factors, such as socioeconomic development, ecological threats, disease protective behaviors, cultural norms, and political influences. A mini meta-analysis (Study 4: N = 9) confirmed the significance of these effects across studies. These findings supported the proactive role of collectivism in defending against the novel coronavirus in the United States, aligning with the parasite-stress theory of sociality. However, the subjective-culture individualism-collectivism index (reversed) did not exhibit a significant relationship with COVID-19 severity when confounding factors were considered. The high correlation between the subjective-culture individualism-collectivism index (reversed) and the controlled variables suggested shared variance that could diminish its impact on COVID-19 outcomes. Accordingly, the present findings underscore the significance of accounting for confounding factors when examining the association between collectivism and COVID-19 severity at population level. By considering relevant confounding factors, researchers could gain a comprehensive understanding of the complex interplay between cultural collectivism and its influence on COVID-19 severity. Overall, this research contributes to our understanding of how cultural collectivism shapes the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, emphasizing the importance of adjusting for confounding effects in population level studies.

Public Support for COVID-19 Responses: Cultural Cognition, Risk Perception, and Emotions

As one of the biggest challenges facing mankind in recent history, the COVID-19 pandemic has had profound impact on the United States. However, government responses ranging from stay-at-home orders to temporary closing of nonessential businesses are not palatable for everyone. This study examines how cultural cognition, risk perception, and discrete emotions influence Americans' support for COVID-19 responses. We found that compared to communitarians and egalitarians, individualists and hierarchists were less likely to support COVID-19 responses. In addition, fear and anger mediated the relationship between risk perception and public support in the opposite direction. The highlight of this study is the moderating role of cultural cognition. Specifically, individualistic worldviews significantly moderated anger's mediation effect on the relationship between risk perception and support for COVID-19 responses.

Factors of COVID-19 Vaccine Perception among Transport Drivers in Singapore: A Cross-Sectional Pilot Study

Transport drivers have high risk of exposure to SARS-CoV-2 during COVID-19 pandemic. Vaccines can reduce disease severity. However, COVID-19 vaccine perception among transport drivers is unknown. To identify the key factors influencing vaccine perception of transport drivers in Singapore, a cross-sectional pilot study was conducted. One hundred four completed survey responses were collected between September 2021 and February 2022. Using multivariable logistic regression, education, general vaccine knowledge and attitude, practice of social distancing, misinformation of rare vaccine side effects, and perceiving the pandemic situation to be severe were independently associated with vaccine perception. Despite high vaccination coverage, there were substantial poor vaccine perception, vaccine hesitancy, and unwillingness to take third dose. Vaccination rate may thus not be an accurate reflection of true vaccine acceptance. Communication strategies need to focus on correcting knowledge gaps, instilling collectivist attitudes, and highlighting the importance of vaccination over social distancing to enhance booster uptake rate.

Assessing the role of collectivism and individualism on COVID-19 beliefs and behaviors in the Southeastern United States

America's unique response to the global COVID-19 pandemic has been both criticized and applauded across political and social spectrums. Compared to other developed nations, U.S. incidence and mortality rates were exceptionally high, due in part to inconsistent policies across local, state, and federal agencies regarding preventive behaviors like mask wearing and social distancing. Furthermore, vaccine hesitancy and conspiracy theories around COVID-19 and vaccine safety have proliferated widely, making herd immunity that much more challenging. What factors of the U.S. culture have contributed to the significant impact of the pandemic? Why have we not responded better to the challenges of COVID-19? Or would many people in the U.S. claim that we have responded perfectly well? To explore these questions, we conducted a qualitative and quantitative study of Florida State University faculty, staff, and students. This study measured their perceptions of the pandemic, their behaviors tied to safety and community, and how these practices were tied to beliefs of individualism and collectivism. We found that collectivist orientations were associated with a greater likelihood of wearing masks consistently, severe interruptions of one's social life caused by the pandemic, greater concern for infecting others, and higher levels of trust in medical professionals for behavioral guidelines surrounding the pandemic. These associations largely persist even after adjusting for political affiliation, which we find is also a strong predictor of COVID-19 beliefs and behaviors.

Adoption of measures to mitigate the impact of COVID-19: In search of a Hofstedian explanation for patterns among individual countries and country clusters

We consider multiple safety measures in relation to the COVID-19 virus and look at their adoption levels for a variety of 15 individual countries, based on data from Yougov.co.uk. Subsequently, we establish correlation coefficients between measure-specific uptake levels and Hofstede dimension scores for all countries considered. We notably find that Power Distance Index (PDI) and Individualism (IDV) have a considerable explanatory power. In addition, we carried out a Principal Components Analysis (PCA) and a cluster analysis to see whether the behavioural patterns across countries can be grouped, and which Hofstede dimensions correlate strongest with the two main components that follow from the PCA. The PCA provides further confirmation of PDI and IDV being the most important explanatory factors for the uptake of measures across countries. The cluster analysis, in turn, reveals four broad groups, which only partly coincide with the way that the mental image clustering scheme by Wursten (2019) allots countries into its respective clusters. Hence, this provides a basis to suggest that data-driven exercises like the ones from our paper can serve to adjust Wursten's intuitive scheme.

Of Germs and Culture; Parasite Stress as the Origin of Individualism-Collectivism

Among four proposed origins of individualism-collectivism, modernization theory, rice versus wheat theory, climato-economic theory, and pathogen stress theory, the latter has gained more attention in cross-cultural and evolutionary psychology. Since the parasite stress theory of values and sociality makes a connection between infectious diseases and cultural orientations, it gained even more popularity during the COVID pandemic. But despite extensive research on parasite stress theory, it is not still clear what kind of infectious disease contributes more to the emergence of cultures, what are the possible mechanisms through which pathogenic threat gives rise to cultural systems, and how parasite stress might affect vertical vs. horizontal dimensions of individualism-collectivism. This review summarizes and integrates major findings of parasite stress theory related to individualism-collectivism and its closely related variables and discusses future directions that researchers can take to answer the remaining questions.

Individual costs and community benefits: Collectivism and individuals' compliance with public health interventions

Differences in national responses to COVID-19 have been associated with the cultural value of collectivism. The present research builds on these findings by examining the relationship between collectivism at the individual level and adherence to public health recommendations to combat COVID-19 during the pre-vaccination stage of the pandemic, and examines different characteristics of collectivism (i.e., concern for community, trust in institutions, perceived social norms) as potential psychological mechanisms that could explain greater compliance. A study with a cross-section of American participants (N = 530) examined the relationship between collectivism and opting-in to digital contact tracing (DCT) and wearing face coverings in the general population. More collectivistic individuals were more likely to comply with public health interventions than less collectivistic individuals. While collectivism was positively associated with the three potential psychological mechanisms, only perceived social norms about the proportion of people performing the public health interventions explained the relationship between collectivism and compliance with both public health interventions. This research identifies specific pathways by which collectivism can lead to compliance with community-benefiting public health behaviors to combat contagious diseases and highlights the role of cultural orientation in shaping individuals' decisions that involve a tension between individual cost and community benefit.

Determinants of voluntary compliance: COVID-19 mitigation

During the pre-vaccine period, the success of containing the spread of COVID-19 depends upon how communities respond to non-pharmaceutical mitigation policies such as social distancing, wearing of masks, retail and dining constraints, crowd limitation, and shelter-in-place orders. Of these policies, shelter-in-place and social distancing are of central importance. By using county-level mobility data as a measure of a community's voluntary compliance with social distancing policies, this study found that counties who received strong state social distancing policy directives and who had a high pro-social character showed lower mobility on retail and recreation mobility and grocery and pharmacy mobility (better social distancing) after states reopened from shelter-in-place orders. Counties that experienced a longer duration of shelter-in-place orders showed higher mobility (less social distancing), implying that the duration of the shelter-in-place order deteriorated social distancing response after reopening. This may be because reopening sent a "safe" signal to these counties or resulted in a response to the pent-up demand inducing higher mobility. The results indicate that implementing shelter-in-place and social distancing policies to slow down the transmission of COVID-19 were not necessarily effective in motivating a county to reduce mobility voluntarily. A county's pro-social character and the duration of shelter-in-place order should be considered when designing COVID-19 mitigation policies.

How culture orientation influences the COVID-19 pandemic: An empirical analysis

Purpose

This study aims to investigate the mediational path of the influence of cultural orientation on the COVID-19 pandemic outcome at the national level and find out whether some culture-related factors can have a moderating effect on the influence of culture.

Methodology

Cultural dimension theory of Hofstede is used to quantify the degree of each dimension of culture orientation. The cross-section regression model is adopted to test if culture orientations affect the pandemic outcome, controlling for democracy, economy, education, population, age, and time. Then, a mediational analysis is conducted to examine if policy response is the mediator that culture makes an impact on the pandemic outcome. Finally, a moderation analysis is carried out to determine how each control variable has moderated the influence.

Findings

The cross-section regression results showed that culture orientation influences the outcome of the COVID-19 pandemic at the 99% confidence level and that among the six cultural dimensions, collectivism-individualism has the most significant impact. It has also been found that policy response is the mediator of cultural influence, and culture-related factors can moderate the influence.

Contribution

The contribution of this research lies in developing the assertion that culture influences pandemic outcomes. Our findings indicate that collectivism-individualism culture orientation affects the effectiveness of epidemic controls the most among the six culture dimensions. Additionally, our research is the first to study the mediating effect of policy responses and the moderating effect of culture-related factors on the influence of cultural orientation on the pandemic outcome.

COVID-19 mass media coverage in English and public reactions: a West-East comparison via Facebook posts

Newspapers and other mass media outlets are critical in shaping public opinion on a variety of contemporary issues, including the COVID-19 pandemic. This study examines how the pandemic is portrayed in the news and how the public reacted differently in the West and East using archival data from Facebook posts about COVID-19 news by English-language mass media between January 2020 and April 2022 (N = 711,646). Specifically, we employed the Valence Aware Dictionary and sEntiment Reasoner (Vader) to measure the news tone on each COVID-19 news item shared on Facebook by mass media outlets. In addition, we calculated a polarity score based on Facebook special reactions (i.e., love, angry, sad, wow, haha, and care) received by each post to measure public reactions toward it. We discovered that people in Western countries reacted significantly more negatively to COVID-19 news than their East counterparts, despite the fact that the news itself, in aggregate, generally contained a relatively similar level of neutral tone in both West and East media. The implications of these distinctions are discussed in greater detail.

Attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines and vaccine uptake intent in China: The role of collectivism, interpersonal communication, and the use of news and information websites

Vaccines can be an effective way to help prevent COVID-19 infections. However, in the age of "infodemic" and people holding different values, promoting COVID-related prevention can be difficult. Based on a survey of 460 Chinese residents in March 2021, the present analysis aims to provide a detailed understanding of the role of values and information sources on the Chinese's attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines and their vaccination intent. Results revealed that collectivism and the use of mainstream websites were positively associated with value-expressive attitudes, trust toward vaccines, and norms, which in turn predicted vaccination intent. Furthermore, collectivism was negatively associated with attitudes toward inconvenience or minor side effects, whereas interpersonal communication was positively associated with such attitudes. Overall, collectivism appeared to be a much stronger predictor of the Chinese's vaccination intent than the media and interpersonal communication. Although this research was conducted in China, where the pace of mass vaccination was fast, the results can provide insights on what might contribute to the success or failure of a vaccination campaign and be used to compare COVID-19 vaccination campaigns in other countries.

Heightened religiosity proactively and reactively responds to the COVID-19 pandemic across the globe: Novel insights from the parasite-stress theory of sociality and the behavioral immune system theory

According to the parasite-stress theory of sociality and the behavioral immune system theory, heightened religiosity serves an anti-pathogen function by promoting in-group assortative sociality. Thus, highly religious countries/territories could have better control of the COVID-19 (proactively avoids disease-threat), and heightened COVID-19 threat could increase religiosity (reactively responds to disease-threat). As expected, country-level religiosity (religion-related online searches (Allah, Buddhism, Jesus, etc.) and number of total religions/ethnoreligions) negatively and significantly predicted COVID-19 severity (a composite index of COVID-19 susceptibility, reproductive rate, morbidity, and mortality rates) (Study 1a), after accounting for covariates (e.g., socioeconomic factors, ecological factors, collectivism index, cultural tightness-looseness index, COVID-19 policy response, test-to-case ratio). Moreover, multilevel analysis accounting for daily- (e.g., time-trend effect, season) and macro-level (same as in Study 1a) covariates showed that country-level religious searches, compared with the number of total religions/ethnoreligions, were more robust in negatively and significantly predicting daily-level COVID-19 severity during early pandemic stages (Study 1b). At weekly level, perceived coronavirus threat measured with coronavirus-related searches (corona, covid, covid-19, etc.), compared with actual COVID-19 threat measured with epidemiological data, showed larger effects in positively predicting religious searches (Study 2), after accounting for weekly- (e.g., autocorrelation, time-trend effect, season, religious holidays, major-illness-related searches) and macro-level (e.g., Christian-majority country/territory and all country-level variables in Study 1) covariates. Accordingly, heightened religiosity could proactively and reactively respond to the COVID-19 pandemic across the globe.

Determinants of voluntary compliance: COVID-19 mitigation

During the pre-vaccine period, the success of containing the spread of COVID-19 depends upon how communities respond to non-pharmaceutical mitigation policies such as social distancing, wearing of masks, retail and dining constraints, crowd limitation, and shelter-in-place orders. Of these policies, shelter-in-place and social distancing are of central importance. By using county-level mobility data as a measure of a community's voluntary compliance with social distancing policies, this study found that counties who received strong state social distancing policy directives and who had a high pro-social character showed lower mobility on retail and recreation mobility and grocery and pharmacy mobility (better social distancing) after states reopened from shelter-in-place orders. Counties that experienced a longer duration of shelter-in-place orders showed higher mobility (less social distancing), implying that the duration of the shelter-in-place order deteriorated social distancing response after reopening. This may be because reopening sent a "safe" signal to these counties or resulted in a response to the pent-up demand inducing higher mobility. The results indicate that implementing shelter-in-place and social distancing policies to slow down the transmission of COVID-19 were not necessarily effective in motivating a county to reduce mobility voluntarily. A county's pro-social character and the duration of shelter-in-place order should be considered when designing COVID-19 mitigation policies.

Solidarity and collectivism in the context of COVID-19

The coronavirus pandemic has impacted health care, economies and societies in ways that are still being measured across the world. To control the spread of the virus, governments continue to appeal to citizens to alter their behaviours and act in the interests of the collective public good so as to protect the vulnerable. Demonstrations of collective solidarity are being consistently sought to control the spread of the virus. Catchphrases, soundbites and hashtags such as 'we're all in this together', 'stronger together' and other messages of unity are employed, invoking the sense of a collective struggle. However, this approach is fundamentally challenged as collectivist attitudes run contrary to the individualism of neoliberal ideology, to which citizens have been subjected. This paper argues that attempting to employ the concept of solidarity is inherently challenged by the deep impact of neoliberalism in health policies and draws on the work of Durkheim to examine the concept in a context in which health care has become established as an individual responsibility. The paper will argue that a dominant private-responsibility model and an underfunded public system have eroded solidarity weakening its effectiveness in generating concerns for the collective.

Measuring, Modeling, and Forecasting the Mental Wealth of Nations

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the deep links and fragility of economic, health and social systems. Discussions of reconstruction include renewed interest in moving beyond GDP and recognizing "human capital", "brain capital", "mental capital", and "wellbeing" as assets fundamental to economic reimagining, productivity, and prosperity. This paper describes how the conceptualization of Mental Wealth provides an important framing for measuring and shaping social and economic renewal to underpin healthy, productive, resilient, and thriving communities. We propose a transdisciplinary application of systems modeling to forecast a nation's Mental Wealth and understand the extent to which policy-mediated changes in economic, social, and health sectors could enhance collective mental health and wellbeing, social cohesion, and national prosperity. Specifically, simulation will allow comparison of the projected impacts of a range of cross-sector strategies (education sector, mental health system, labor market, and macroeconomic reforms) on GDP and national Mental Wealth, and provide decision support capability for future investments and actions to foster Mental Wealth. Finally, this paper introduces the Mental Wealth Initiative that is harnessing complex systems science to examine the interrelationships between social, commercial, and structural determinants of mental health and wellbeing, and working to empirically challenge the notion that fostering universal social prosperity is at odds with economic and commercial interests.

Collectivism, individualism and COVID-19 prevention: a cross sectional study of personality, culture and behavior among Canadians

Background

Collectivism has been identified as a protective factor against COVID-19 - perhaps due to increased conformity with social norms regarding prevention behaviors. Other studies have also found that individualism can inspire uptake of preventative behaviors as a means of personal protection. It is possible that these cultural orientations may promote different patterns of prevention (e.g. mask wearing vs. social distancing). Furthermore, existing studies examining the role of individualism and collectivism during the COVID-19 pandemic have frequently failed to account for other psychological processes, including differences in personality, which could help provide a better understanding of the psychological process underlying prevention behavior.

Methods

Participants were recruited using social media advertisements. The Cultural Orientations Scale measured individualism-collectivism and hierarchism-egalitarianism. The Ten Item Personality Inventory measured the five factor model of personality. Multivariable models, dominance analyses and structural equation mediation tests were used to identify the most important predictors of COVID-19 prevention behavior (i.e. mask-wearing, hand-washing, reducing social interactions, physical distancing, staying at home and social bubbling), controlling for demographic and situational factors.

Results

Among 774 participants, most (i.e. 60-80%) reported uptake of COVID-19 prevention behaviors. Higher vertical (hierarchical) collectivism was associated with staying at home and higher horizontal (egalitarian) individualism was associated with mask-wearing and reducing social interactions. Neither Vertical Collectivism nor Horizontal Collectivism were significantly associated with any of the prevention behaviors when controlling for personality traits and confounding variables. Agreeableness was identified as a key mediator of the correlation between these cultural orientations on general uptake of COVID-19 prevention behaviors.

Conclusions

Cultural orientations (e.g. collectivism-individualism, hierarchism-egalitarianism) and personality traits (e.g. Agreeableness) are salient correlates of COVID-19 prevention behaviors and therefore should be accounted for in the development, design and delivery of health promotion messages aiming to increase uptake of these behaviors.

Why tightness alone is not enough: The varying anti-pathogenic effects of rational values and cultural tightness at different phases of the COVID-19 pandemic

Gelfand et al. demonstrated that tight cultural norms lowered COVID-19 transmissions and deaths, but can’t account for the lag between the beginning of the pandemic and the significance of tightness. Rational values help citizens adopt novel behavioral norms necessary to inhibit viral transmission. Multiple regression analysis on COVID-19 cases and deaths within twelve 25-day stages of the pandemic revealed that rational values were particularly significant in subduing COVID-19 cases and deaths by facilitating citizen adoption of novel behavioral norms during the acceleration phase of two pandemic waves. Rationality’s significance was highly correlated with the period to period increase in cases r(7) = −0.9, p < 0.001 and deaths, r(7) = −0.72, p < 0.05. Tightness became significant several months into the pandemic only after novel norms had become widely accepted. While rational values facilitate speedy adoption of effective anti-viral behavioral norms, tightness exerts pressure on citizens to comply with the new norms.

COVID-19 concerns in cyberspace predict human reduced dispersal in the real world: Meta-regression analysis of time series relationships across American states and 115 countries/territories

On the basis of parasite-stress theory of sociality and behavioral immune system theory, this research examined how concerns regarding the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in cyberspace (i.e., online search volume for coronavirus-related keywords) would predict human reduced dispersal in the real world (i.e., human mobility trends throughout the pandemic) between January 05, 2020 and May 22, 2021. Multiple regression analyses controlling for COVID-19 cases per million, case fatality rate, death-thought accessibility, government stringency index, yearly trends, season, religious holidays, and reduced dispersal in the preceding week were conducted. Meta-regression analysis of the multiple regression results showed that when there were high levels of COVID-19 concerns in cyberspace in a given week, the amount of time people spent at home increased from the previous week across American states (Study 1) and 115 countries/territories (Study 2). Across studies, the associations between COVID-19 concerns and reduced dispersal were stronger in areas of higher historical risks of infectious-disease contagion. Compared with actual coronavirus threat, COVID-19 concerns in cyberspace had significantly larger effects on predicting human reduced dispersal in the real world. Thus, online query data have invaluable implications for predicting large-scale behavioral changes in response to life-threatening events in the real world and are indispensable for COVID-19 surveillance.

Psychological Resources for Coping with Fear of COVID-19 and Negative Psychological Emotional States among Students of Russia and Kazakhstan

<p>The article presents the analysis results of stress resistance and basic beliefs as psychological resources for coping with fear of COVID-19 and negative psychological and emotional states on the sample of Russian (N=2310) and Kazakh (N=500) students (71.2% &mdash; women, average age 19.7). A higher level of stress resistance and basic belief expression in <em>Benevolence of the World Around </em>and <em>Perceiving the World as Meaningful and Social Justice</em> among Kazakh students in comparison with Russian ones is revealed, which is determined by the peculiarities formed in the conditions of the nomadic lifestyle of the Kazakh culture, based on the principles of mutual support and mutual assistance, trust and openness. It is shown that, regardless of the country and gender, high level of stress resistance and expression of basic beliefs are accompanied by lower indicators of fear of COVID-19 and the absence of negative psychological and emotional states associated with it, which suggests the universality of these psychological resources as a buffer that mitigates the traumatic effect of the pandemic situation.</p>

Critical country-level determinants of death rate during Covid-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has already led to over 94 million confirmed cases and over 2 million deaths globally (John Hopkins CSSE, 2021). Due to the magnitude of the socio-economic damage of COVID-19 all over the world, we analyzed the critical country-level determinants of the death rate during the COVID-19 pandemic. We have examined the effects of GDP (allocated to pandemics and health), education, gender, cultural factors, number of physicians (per 1000 of the population) on the death rate. A correlation between the death rate and socio-economic conditions has been observed. The finding shows that power distance, individualism, gender, and age affect the death rate more than other socio-economic factors we use. We have also performed the same analysis by using Lockdown levels as a moderator. Lockdown levels have a more significant moderating effect on cultural factors rather than the other socio-economic factors. However, due to the topic's sensitivity, we still need to pay attention to the socio-economic factors that may have lower levels of significant relationship with the death rate, since even 0.1 % of changes in coefficients of our other socio-economic variables could mean thousands of lives. The study results will help health organizations, administration, and policymakers take the necessary steps to combat and manage the pandemic.