The onset of COVID-19, common identity, and intergroup prejudice

Decent work and the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic: A two-wave study1

BACKGROUND

The world is going through a challenging historical moment, with the COVID-19 pandemic affecting billions of lives and communities worldwide.

OBJECTIVE

Building on the widespread negative impact of the pandemic on the socio-economic context, and consequently on the labour market, the aim of this study was to analyse the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on workers' perception of decent work.

METHODS

The Decent Work Questionnaire was administered to 243 workers from seven Portuguese organisations at two-time points (before and during the pandemic).

RESULTS

Results revealed a positive and significant effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on six of seven dimensions of decent work, particularly those related to Meaningful Remuneration for the Exercise of Citizenship and Health and Safety.

CONCLUSION

The positive effects of social comparison processes are stronger than the negative effects of the adverse socio-economic context. Faced with the COVID-19 pandemic, workers may have compared their work situation with the condition of other workers, activating an increase in their subjective perception of the value of their current reality.

Looking for your cross-group friends after the breakout? Children's intergroup contact behaviours before and after the onset of COVID-19

While COVID-19 implications for prejudice have been investigated among adults in previous research, children's intergroup reactions to the pandemic and specifically how native children's contact behaviours with refugees might have changed after the pandemic has not been examined yet. Drawing on a unique longitudinal school dataset (N = 861, 5th graders, M _age reported at T1 = 10.38, SD = 0.68) collected before the onset of the pandemic (T1, pre-lockdown), after the onset of the pandemic (T2, post-lockdown), and 6 months after the post-lockdown (T3, follow-up) in Turkey, we examined how children's contact behaviour (positive and negative contact), contact motivation (self-efficacy and volition), as well as behavioural tendencies (approach and avoidance) have shifted during this period (2.5 years). We observed a consistent pattern of improvement in contact behaviours demonstrated by increases in positive contact variables and decreases in negative contact variables particularly from T1 to T2. The change in some positive contact variables was stable for 6 months, while negative contact and avoidance rapidly regressed to the baseline during the normalization period (T3). The boosting effect of the pandemic was particularly pronounced among children who displayed greater prejudice towards refugees before the pandemic. Findings contribute to the growing research literature delineating the potential benefits of COVID-19 at the collective level.

Social psychology and COVID-19: What the field can tell us about behavior in a pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc in the lives of people around the world. Pandemics are powerful situations that can be examined from a social psychological lens. In this special section, four articles present data collected before and during the pandemic, providing a type of quasi-experimental design that helped examine the impact of the pandemic on social behavior. A number of findings emerged: the pandemic potentially increased instances of cyberbullying; the pandemic may have increased reports that Black-White intergroup interactions are more competitive and discriminatory; the pandemic may have reduced negative attitudes and bias in domestic versus international students in the U.S; and the pandemic may have allowed feelings of helplessness to provide a fear-reducing mechanism. We expand upon these findings by discussing how social psychology can help us understand and modify behaviors related to health and social relations during major threats like a pandemic.