Loneliness and Social Isolation During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The outbreak of the global COVID-19 pandemic has drastically altered people’s lives. Loneliness and social isolation were publicly discussed as possible psychological consequences of the measures taken to slow the virus spread. These public discussions have sparked a surge in empirical studies on loneliness and social isolation. In this study, we first provide a systematic review synthesizing recent literature on the prevalence and correlates of loneliness and social isolation during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic ( k = 53 studies). We found that most quantitative studies included in the systematic review were cross-sectional. The few longitudinal studies mainly reported increases in loneliness, especially when the pre-pandemic measurement occasions were months or years before the COVID-19 pandemic. Studies with pre-pandemic measures weeks or days before the pandemic reported relatively stable or even decreasing loneliness trends. Second, we enrich the systematic review with an empirical investigation on daily changes in the perceived quality and quantity of social relationships during the pandemic compared to before the pandemic ( N = 4,823). This empirical investigation showed that, on average, the quality of social relationships was perceived worse during the pandemic than before. This perception got slightly stronger over the first 2 weeks of the pandemic but stagnated thereafter. Regarding the quantity of social relationships, participants reported on average that they had fewer social interactions at the beginning of the study than before the pandemic. This perceived reduction in the quantity of social interactions linearly decreased over time.Peer Reviewe

Translation and Validation of the BFI-2 in a Croatian Sample

As multiple crises deepen existing inequalities in urban societies within and between neighborhoods, strategically integrating nature-based solutions into the living environment can help reduce negative impacts and improve public health, social cohesion, and well-being. Compared to public green such as parks, semi-public residential greenery is rarely studied, is regularly overlooked by planners, and often receives step-motherly treatment from architects and housing companies. We approximated the area of residential greenery of modernist multi-story apartment complexes in Berlin, Germany. We surveyed residents’ suggestions for improving their living environments in vulnerable neighborhoods, report on co-creation experiences, and provide a practical guideline for optimizing health-promoting residential green spaces. The semi-public open space on the doorstep of two-thirds of Berlin’s population is highly fragmented and, in total, has a similar area as the public green spaces and a great potential for qualitative development. Just as the suitability of different nature-based solutions to be integrated into the residential greenery depends on building types, resident demands differ between neighborhoods. Residents called for more involvement in design, implementation, and maintenance, frequently proposing that biodiversity-friendly measures be included. As there is no universal solution even for neighborhoods sharing similar structural and socioeconomic parameters, we propose, and have tested, an optimization loop for health-promoting residential greening that involves exploring residents’ needs and co-creating local solutions for urban regeneration processes that can be initiated by different actors using bottom-up and/or top-down approaches in order to unlock this potential for healthy, livable and biodiversity friendly cities.Peer Reviewe

Lonely Today, Lonely Tomorrow: Temporal Dynamics of Loneliness in Everyday Life and its Associations With Psychopathological Symptoms

This publication is with permission of the rights owner (Sage) freely accessible.Although theory emphasizes that loneliness fluctuates in everyday life, most previous studies focused on the general and stable tendency of feeling lonely. In the present study, we used daily diary data collected over two 4-week periods (N1 = 3,309; N2 = 907) to examine different indicators of temporal dynamics of loneliness in everyday life and compare them with temporal dynamics of positive and negative affect. Moreover, we examined associations between temporal dynamics of loneliness and psychopathological symptoms (i.e., stress, anxiety, depression). We found large similarities in the variability, instability, and inertia of loneliness and affect. Moreover, all indicators of temporal dynamics of loneliness were related to psychopathological symptoms. However, these indicators had little added value above the average state and trait level of loneliness in predicting psychopathology. We discuss the potential of assessing the short-term dynamics of loneliness for the early detection of mental health issues.Peer Reviewe

Distinguishing simple and residual consistencies in functionally equivalent and non-equivalent situations: Evidence from experimental and observational longitudinal data

The current work examines consistencies of personality state scores across functionally equivalent and non-equivalent situations. We argue that simple consistency, defined as the correlation between state scores without taking people’s straits into account, needs to be distinguished from residual consistency that does account for traits. The existence of residual consistency reflects systematic interindividual differences in how people respond to situations, above and beyond what is expected from their traits. We examine the level and individual differences in all of these forms of consistency. In four micro-longitudinal studies (total N = 671), participants first provided trait self-ratings and then state ratings, either in response to two situation vignettes presented at separate testing occasions (Studies 1 and 2) or during experience sampling in daily life (Studies 3 and 4). In all studies, simple consistency was substantial, and the level of residual consistency varied with the level of functional equivalence of the situations. Further, individual differences in both simple and residual consistencies were only weakly correlated, suggesting no underlying general factor but only trait-specific consistencies. We conclude that there are consistent individual differences in how people respond to equivalent situations, even when their personality trait scores have been taken into account.Peer Reviewe

Modeling dynamic personality theories in a continuous‐time framework: An illustration

Objective Personality psychology has traditionally focused on stable between-person differences. Yet, recent theoretical developments and empirical insights have led to a new conceptualization of personality as a dynamic system (e.g., Cybernetic Big Five Theory). Such dynamic systems comprise several components that need to be conceptually distinguished and mapped to a statistical model for estimation. Method In the current work, we illustrate how common components from these new dynamic personality theories may be implemented in a continuous time-modeling framework. Results As an empirical example, we reanalyze experience sampling data with N = 180 persons (with on average T = 40 [SD = 8] measurement occasions) to investigate four different effects between momentary happiness, momentary extraverted behavior, and the perception of a situation as social: (1) between-person effects, (2) contemporaneous effects, (3) autoregressive effects, and (4) cross-lagged effects. Conclusion We highlight that these four effects must not necessarily point in the same direction, which is in line with assumptions from dynamic personality theories.Peer Reviewe

The Berlin Aptitude Test for Psychology – BSF-P

Das Studium der Psychologie ist in Deutschland äußerst beliebt. Aufgrund begrenzt verfügbarer Studienplätze ist eine Auswahl der Bewerber_innen notwendig. Zur Selektion geeigneter Bewerber_innen wurde bisher vorwiegend die Note der Hochschulzugangsberechtigung verwendet. Dies ist seit einem Urteil des Bundesverfassungsgerichts von 2017 nicht mehr zulässig. Das Land Berlin erteilte daher den Auftrag zur Entwicklung eines Studierfähigkeitstests für das Fach Psychologie. Aufbauend auf einer ausführlichen Anforderungsanalyse wurde der Berliner Studierfähigkeitstest – Psychologie zur Erfassung studienfachbezogener Studierfähigkeit entwickelt und an zwei Konstruktionsstichproben revidiert. Die Messwerte des BSF-P zeigen gute Reliabilität und Validität und können zur Auswahl von Studierenden verwendet werden. Der Einsatz des Verfahrens erlaubt zudem eine faire Auswahl von Bewerber_innen und führt langfristig zu einer diverseren Studierendenschaft im Fach Psychologie.Studying psychology is extremely popular in Germany. Because of the limited number of available spots, selection of applicants is necessary. To date, grades on the high school diploma or an equivalent were mainly used to select suitable applicants. Following a ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court in 2017, however, this is no longer permissible. Therefore, the State of Berlin commissioned the development of a study aptitude test for the Bachelor of Psychology. Based on a detailed requirements analysis, the Berlin Aptitude Test for Psychology (BSF-P) was developed to assess subject-related study ability. The test was developed and revised on two different samples and finally applied for selecting applicants at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in 2021. The reliability and validity estimates of the test scores of the BSF-P suggest that the test is applicable for the selection of students in a high-stakes context. This procedure allows fair selection of applicants and in the long term leads to a more diverse student body in psychology.Peer Reviewe

AI is a viable alternative to high throughput screening: a 318-target study

: High throughput screening (HTS) is routinely used to identify bioactive small molecules. This requires physical compounds, which limits coverage of accessible chemical space. Computational approaches combined with vast on-demand chemical libraries can access far greater chemical space, provided that the predictive accuracy is sufficient to identify useful molecules. Through the largest and most diverse virtual HTS campaign reported to date, comprising 318 individual projects, we demonstrate that our AtomNet® convolutional neural network successfully finds novel hits across every major therapeutic area and protein class. We address historical limitations of computational screening by demonstrating success for target proteins without known binders, high-quality X-ray crystal structures, or manual cherry-picking of compounds. We show that the molecules selected by the AtomNet® model are novel drug-like scaffolds rather than minor modifications to known bioactive compounds. Our empirical results suggest that computational methods can substantially replace HTS as the first step of small-molecule drug discovery

The Interplay of Personality, Situations, Affect, and Behavior

Teil 1 dieser Dissertationsschrift fasst die Person-Situation Debatte zusammen und definiert stabile Persönlichkeitsmerkmale (Traits) sowie deren temporäre Expressionen (States). Zentrales Element der sogenannten Person-Situation Debatte war unter anderem das Konsistenzproblem, welches in der ersten empirischen Studie weiter beleuchtet wurde. Hierzu unterschieden wir Person- und Situation-Effekte auf Verhalten. Um diese Effekte zu differenzieren schlugen wir die Konzepte simple Konsistenz und residuale Konsistenz vor und zeigten, wie Verhalten in funktional äquivalenten Situationen auch nach Kontrolle des Einflusses von Persönlichkeit konsistent ist. Teil 2 befasst sich dann mit der Definition und Erfassung von Situationen, da diese zentral sind um Konsistenz im Verhalten zu untersuchen. Im Rahmen von zwei Buchkapiteln beschrieben wir die bisherige Entwicklung der Situationsforschung und zeigten Herausforderungen auf, welche während der Entwicklung von Situationsmaßen zu meistern sind. Anschließend stellten wir sowohl eine neue Taxonomie zur Beschreibung von Situationen vor, die Situation Five, als auch ein Messinstrument zur Erfassung von Situationswahrnehmung vor. Teil 3 adressiert die Validierung bestehender Situationsmaße und im Besonderen die mögliche Überschneidung von Situationswahrnehmung und Affekt. In zwei Studien wurde untersucht, ob beide Phänomene überlappen und dennoch jeweils Verhalten vorhersagen können. Hierbei konnten wir zeigen, dass dies nicht nur der Fall ist, sondern dass spezifische Verbindungen zwischen Verhalten und Situationswahrnehmung erst nach Berücksichtigung von Affekt sichtbar waren. Teil 4 diskutiert die Implikationen der vorliegenden Arbeit und zeigt auf, wie insbesondere die Überlappung von Affekt und Situationswahrnehmung durch Einschätzungs-Theorien der Emotionsforschung erklärt werden können. Teil 5 schlussendlich gibt einen Ausblick auf zukünftige Forschung und zeigt die Bedeutung der vorliegen Arbeit auf.Part 1 of the current work briefly reviews the person-situation debate and addresses the definition of personality traits and states. Central to the person situation debate was the definition of consistency. In the first empirical study presented here, we examined consistency in more detail. We introduced the concepts of simple and residual consistency, and showed how functionally equivalent situations may influence behavior, even after controlling for effects of personality. Part 2 is concerned with the definition and measurement of situations. In two book chapters, we reviewed the past development of situation research and specific challenges that can be faced during the construction of measures for situation dimensions. We then present a new taxonomy for the description of situations, the Situation Five, as well as a measurement tool to assess situation perception, a person’s interpretation and perception of situations. Part 3 addresses the validation of existing situation measures and, more specifically, the potential overlap of affect and situation perception. I the first empirical study, we examined this overlap, which turned out to be substantial. In the second study, we investigated if this overlap threatened the validity of situation measures: Would measures of situation perception predict behavior in daily life after controlling for affect? As it turned out, they did – and more importantly, controlling for affect unveiled specific, logically coherent links between situation perception and behavior. Part 4 then discusses implications of the current work. A special focus is placed on explaining why affect and situation perception were correlated and yet contributed uniquely to the explanation of variance in behavior. To summarize, appraisal theories of emotion may serve well as a general framework for understanding the processes involved in situation perception. Part 5 then briefly discusses implications of the current work for future research

Assessing Personality States: What to Consider when Constructing Personality State Measures

Repeated assessments of personality states in daily diary or experience sampling studies have become a more and more common tool in the psychologist's toolbox. However, and contrary to the widely available literature on personality traits, no best practices for the development of personality state measures exist, and personality state measures have been developed in many different ways. To address this, we first define what a personality state is and discuss important components. On the basis of this, we define what a personality state measure is and suggest a general guideline for the development of such measures. Following the ABC of test construction can then guide the strategy for obtaining validity and reliability evidence: (A) What is the construct being measured? (B) What is the intended purpose of the measure? And (C) What is the targeted population of persons and situations? We then conclude with an example by developing an initial item pool for the assessment of conscientiousness personality states.Peer Reviewe

Sometimes hot, sometimes not: the relations between selected situational vocational interests and situation perception

Vocational interests are traditionally conceived as stable preferences for different activities. However, recent theorizing suggests their intraindividual variability. This preregistered experience sampling study examined intraindividual variation in selected vocational interests states and related situation and person factors (N = 237). Results indicate that the three interest dimensions Investigative, Artistic, and Social interests did vary intraindividually but less so than other phenomena’s dimensions (e.g., personality and happiness). At the within-person level, the focused interest states were related to specific situation characteristics, also after controlling for related personality dimensions and happiness. These relations were either specified a priori, based on the concept of congruence or person-environment fit, and tested in a strictly confirmatory manner, or identified using a more exploratory approach. Furthermore, aggregated states of the three selected interest dimensions mainly varied below their corresponding trait levels. This suggests that interest trait levels could represent an upper limit for aggregated interest states that could be due to method-related or construct-related reasons. The results demonstrate the situational character of interests and provide novel approaches for studying vocational interest in daily life.Peer Reviewe