The Association Between Mindfulness and Grit: an East vs. West Cross-cultural Comparison

Mindfulness, namely present-oriented attention that is non-judgmental in nature, and grit, namely perseverance and passion for long-term goals, are psychological constructs that have recently received considerable attention within the West. Given the theoretical importance and heretofore lack of research into how these two constructs relate to each other, the present study aimed to examine how mindfulness and grit relate to each other within Western and non-Western cultures. New Zealand (N?=?343) and Thai (N?=?233) university students completed a battery of questionnaires that assessed the variables of interest. Although both samples showed a positive association between grit and mindfulness at the construct level, results at the facet level showed several notable differences. Specifically, acting with awareness and non-judging were found to predict grit for NZ students more strongly than for Thai students. These findings suggest that mindfulness evidenced more robust relationships with grit in an individualistic culture than in a collectivist society

โทษประหารชีวิตในมุมมองเชิงจิตวิทยาและพฤติกรรมศาสตร์

Death Penalty in the Psychological and Behavioral Science PerspectivesLegal law is a type of social norm, which is tremendously important, because it encourages the feeling of safety in society. However, legal process may sometimes lead to wrong verdicts. In case of “scapegoats”, the penalty may cause extreme loss to the scapegoats and their families. Some of them may lose their lives during the punishment due to their physical conditions or death penalty. Although death penalty has long been enforced as the most severe punishment in several countries, this execution is surrounded by controversy and criticism. This article proposes a variety of related psychological knowledge, for example; operant conditioning, social cognitive theory, belief in a just world, forensic psychology, theory of aggression, and the other notions of behavioral science perspective of human nature, in order to explain why the death penalty may not be the best practical method for socialization process, and discuss the extent of the myth and reality of the effectiveness of the death penalty, and its existence.Keywords: law, death penalty, psychology, behavioral science, socializationบทคัดย่อกฎหมายคือบรรทัดฐานทางสังคมรูปแบบหนึ่งที่มีความสำคัญยิ่ง เพราะเป็นการส่งเสริมความรู้สึกปลอดภัยในสังคม อย่างไรก็ตาม บางครั้งกระบวนการทางกฎหมายอาจนำไปสู่การตัดสินที่ผิดพลาด อย่างในกรณีของการ “จับแพะ” นั้น การลงโทษด้วยกฎหมายอาจเป็นเหตุให้เกิดความสูญเสียอย่างหนักต่อบุคคลและครอบครัวเป็นอย่างมาก บางรายอาจถึงขั้นเสียชีวิตขณะรับโทษซึ่งอาจเกิดจากสภาวะทางร่างกายของตัวผู้ถูกคุมขัง หรือจากการได้รับโทษประหารชีวิต ถึงแม้ว่าโทษประหารชีวิตมีการบังคับใช้อย่างยาวนานว่าเป็นบทลงโทษสูงสุดในหลายประเทศ บทลงโทษนี้กลับได้รับการโต้แย้งและการวิพากษ์วิจารณ์ในรอบด้าน บทความนี้จึงได้เสนอองค์ความรู้ทางจิตวิทยาจากหลากหลายมุมมอง อาทิ การเรียนรู้การวางเงื่อนไขแบบการกระทำ, การเรียนรู้ทางสังคม, ความเชื่อว่าโลกนี้ยุติธรรม, นิติจิตวิทยา, ทฤษฎีความก้าวร้าว รวมถึงแนวคิดทางด้านพฤติกรรมศาสตร์อื่นๆ ที่เกี่ยวข้องกับธรรมชาติของมนุษย์ เพื่ออธิบายว่าเพราะเหตุใดโทษประหารชีวิตอาจไม่ใช่วิธีการในเชิงปฏิบัติที่ดีที่สุดสำหรับกระบวนการสังคมประกิต และอภิปรายความเชื่อและความเป็นจริงของประสิทธิผล และการคงอยู่ของโทษประหารชีวิตคำสำคัญ: กฎหมาย; โทษประหารชีวิต; จิตวิทยา; พฤติกรรมศาสตร์; กระบวนการสังคมประกิต

Nation-level moderators of the extent to which self-efficacy and relationship harmony predict students’ depression and life satisfaction: evidence from ten cultures

Previous two-nation comparisons have provided evidence that self-efficacy may be a protective factor against depression in individualist cultures, whereas relationship harmony may be a stronger protective factor in collectivist cultures. However, wider sampling and more specific measures of cultural difference are required to test these conclusions. Student ratings of depression and life satisfaction were surveyed in 10 samples drawn from nine nations. Culture-level individualism positively moderated the relationship of self-efficacy to low depression. However, culture-level collectivism negatively moderated the linkage of relationship harmony to depression. To better understand these effects, four separate nation-level predictors derived from dimensions of self-construal were employed. Effects of self-efficacy were strongest where cultural models of selfhood emphasized self-direction (vs. receptiveness to influence); effects of relationship harmony were strongest where cultural models of selfhood emphasized dependence on others (vs. self-reliance). These results illustrate the value of unpackaging the diffusely defined concept of individualism-collectivism

Trust in government and its associations with health behaviour and prosocial behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic

Previous studies suggested that public trust in government is vital for implementations of social policies that rely on public's behavioural responses. This study examined associations of trust in government regarding COVID-19 control with recommended health behaviours and prosocial behaviours. Data from an international survey with representative samples (N=23,733) of 23 countries were analysed. Specification curve analysis showed that higher trust in government was significantly associated with higher adoption of health and prosocial behaviours in all reasonable specifications of multilevel linear models (median standardised β=0.173 and 0.244, P<0.001). We further used structural equation modelling to explore potential determinants of trust in government regarding pandemic control. Governments perceived as well organised, disseminating clear messages and knowledge on COVID-19, and perceived fairness were positively associated with trust in government (standardised β=0.358, 0.230, 0.055, and 0.250, P<0.01). These results highlighted the importance of trust in government in the control of COVID-19

Intentions to be Vaccinated Against COVID-19:The Role of Prosociality and Conspiracy Beliefs across 20 Countries

Understanding the determinants of COVID-19 vaccine uptake is important to inform policy decisions and plan vaccination campaigns. The aims of this research were to: (1) explore the individual- and country-level determinants of intentions to be vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2, and (2) examine worldwide variation in vaccination intentions. This cross-sectional online survey was conducted during the first wave of the pandemic, involving 6697 respondents across 20 countries. Results showed that 72.9% of participants reported positive intentions to be vaccinated against COVID-19, whereas 16.8% were undecided, and 10.3% reported they would not be vaccinated. At the individual level, prosociality was a significant positive predictor of vaccination intentions, whereas generic beliefs in conspiracy theories and religiosity were negative predictors. Country-level determinants, including cultural dimensions of individualism/collectivism and power distance, were not significant predictors of vaccination intentions. Altogether, this study identifies individual-level predictors that are common across multiple countries, provides further evidence on the importance of combating conspiracy theories, involving religious institutions in vaccination campaigns, and stimulating prosocial motives to encourage vaccine uptake.</p

Politicization of COVID-19 health-protective behaviors in the United States:Longitudinal and cross-national evidence

During the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. conservative politicians and the media downplayed the risk of both contracting COVID-19 and the effectiveness of recommended health behaviors. Health behavior theories suggest perceived vulnerability to a health threat and perceived effectiveness of recommended health-protective behaviors determine motivation to follow recommendations. Accordingly, we predicted that—as a result of politicization of the pandemic—politically conservative Americans would be less likely to enact recommended health-protective behaviors. In two longitudinal studies of U.S. residents, political conservatism was inversely associated with perceived health risk and adoption of health-protective behaviors over time. The effects of political orientation on health-protective behaviors were mediated by perceived risk of infection, perceived severity of infection, and perceived effectiveness of the health-protective behaviors. In a global cross-national analysis, effects were stronger in the U.S. (N = 10,923) than in an international sample (total N = 51,986), highlighting the increased and overt politicization of health behaviors in the U.S

Predictors of adherence to public health behaviors for fighting COVID-19 derived from longitudinal data

The present paper examines longitudinally how subjective perceptions about COVID-19, one's community, and the government predict adherence to public health measures to reduce the spread of the virus. Using an international survey (N = 3040), we test how infection risk perception, trust in the governmental response and communications about COVID-19, conspiracy beliefs, social norms on distancing, tightness of culture, and community punishment predict various containment-related attitudes and behavior. Autoregressive analyses indicate that, at the personal level, personal hygiene behavior was predicted by personal infection risk perception. At social level, social distancing behaviors such as abstaining from face-to-face contact were predicted by perceived social norms. Support for behavioral mandates was predicted by confidence in the government and cultural tightness, whereas support for anti-lockdown protests was predicted by (lower) perceived clarity of communication about the virus. Results are discussed in light of policy implications and creating effective interventions

Pandemic boredom:Little evidence that lockdown-related boredom affects risky public health behaviors across 116 countries

Some public officials have expressed concern that policies mandating collective public health behaviors (e.g., national/regional "lockdown") may result in behavioral fatigue that ultimately renders such policies ineffective. Boredom, specifically, has been singled out as one potential risk factor for noncompliance. We examined whether there was empirical evidence to support this concern during the COVID-19 pandemic in a large cross-national sample of 63,336 community respondents from 116 countries. Although boredom was higher in countries with more COVID-19 cases and in countries that instituted more stringent lockdowns, such boredom did not predict longitudinal within-person decreases in social distancing behavior (or vice versa; n = 8,031) in early spring and summer of 2020. Overall, we found little evidence that changes in boredom predict individual public health behaviors (handwashing, staying home, self-quarantining, and avoiding crowds) over time, or that such behaviors had any reliable longitudinal effects on boredom itself. In summary, contrary to concerns, we found little evidence that boredom posed a public health risk during lockdown and quarantine. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved). </p

Being oneself through time: bases of self-continuity across 55 cultures

Self-continuity – the sense that one’s past, present, and future are meaningfully connected – is considered a defining feature of personal identity. However, bases of self-continuity may depend on cultural beliefs about personhood. In multilevel analyses of data from 7287 adults from 55 cultural groups in 33 nations, we tested a new tripartite theoretical model of bases of self-continuity. As expected, perceptions of stability, sense of narrative, and associative links to one’s past each contributed to predicting the extent to which people derived a sense of self-continuity from different aspects of their identities. Ways of constructing self-continuity were moderated by cultural and individual differences in mutable (vs. immutable) personhood beliefs – the belief that human attributes are malleable. Individuals with lower mutability beliefs based self-continuity more on stability; members of cultures where mutability beliefs were higher based self-continuity more on narrative. Bases of self-continuity were also moderated by cultural variation in contextualized (vs. decontextualized) personhood beliefs, indicating a link to cultural individualism-collectivism. Our results illustrate the cultural flexibility of the motive for self-continuity