Fully-automated in vivo single cell electrophysiology

In this work, we report progress in developing a device that allows fully autonomous sequential patch clamp experimentation. The machine works by integrating a storage magazine of pre-filled pipettes that can be accessed, and swapped, by the headstage at the conclusion of each experiment. In operation, following each neuron measurement, the program enters “swap” state where a set of programmed actuator movements take place. First, the headstage translates towards the pipette storage assembly and deposits its used pipette. The storage assembly rotates to index a fresh pipette, its is grasped, and finally, the headstage returns to its previously designated home position in preparation of subsequent experiments

A multi-country test of brief reappraisal interventions on emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased negative emotions and decreased positive emotions globally. Left unchecked, these emotional changes might have a wide array of adverse impacts. To reduce negative emotions and increase positive emotions, we tested the effectiveness of reappraisal, an emotion-regulation strategy that modifies how one thinks about a situation. Participants from 87 countries and regions (n = 21,644) were randomly assigned to one of two brief reappraisal interventions (reconstrual or repurposing) or one of two control conditions (active or passive). Results revealed that both reappraisal interventions (vesus both control conditions) consistently reduced negative emotions and increased positive emotions across different measures. Reconstrual and repurposing interventions had similar effects. Importantly, planned exploratory analyses indicated that reappraisal interventions did not reduce intentions to practice preventive health behaviours. The findings demonstrate the viability of creating scalable, low-cost interventions for use around the world

Greater traditionalism predicts COVID-19 precautionary behaviors across 27 societies

People vary both in their embrace of their society’s traditions, and in their perception of hazards as salient and necessitating a response. Over evolutionary time, traditions have offered avenues for addressing hazards, plausibly resulting in linkages between orientations toward tradition and orientations toward danger. Emerging research documents connections between traditionalism and threat responsivity, including pathogen-avoidance motivations. Additionally, because hazard-mitigating behaviors can conflict with competing priorities, associations between traditionalism and pathogen avoidance may hinge on contextually contingent tradeoffs. The COVID-19 pandemic provides a real-world test of the posited relationship between traditionalism and hazard avoidance. Across 27 societies (N = 7844), we find that, in a majority of countries, individuals’ endorsement of tradition positively correlates with their adherence to costly COVID-19-avoidance behaviors; accounting for some of the conflicts that arise between public health precautions and other objectives further strengthens this evidence that traditionalism is associated with greater attention to hazards

Greater traditionalism predicts COVID-19 precautionary behaviors across 27 societies.

People vary both in their embrace of their society's traditions, and in their perception of hazards as salient and necessitating a response. Over evolutionary time, traditions have offered avenues for addressing hazards, plausibly resulting in linkages between orientations toward tradition and orientations toward danger. Emerging research documents connections between traditionalism and threat responsivity, including pathogen-avoidance motivations. Additionally, because hazard-mitigating behaviors can conflict with competing priorities, associations between traditionalism and pathogen avoidance may hinge on contextually contingent tradeoffs. The COVID-19 pandemic provides a real-world test of the posited relationship between traditionalism and hazard avoidance. Across 27 societies (N = 7844), we find that, in a majority of countries, individuals' endorsement of tradition positively correlates with their adherence to costly COVID-19-avoidance behaviors; accounting for some of the conflicts that arise between public health precautions and other objectives further strengthens this evidence that traditionalism is associated with greater attention to hazards

Accordance and conflict between religious and scientific precautions against COVID-19 in 27 societies

Meaning-making systems underlie perceptions of the efficacy of threat-mitigating behaviors. Religion and science both offer threat mitigation, yet these two meaning-making systems are often considered incompatible. Do such epistemological conflicts swamp the desire to employ diverse precautions against threats? Or do individuals – particularly individuals who are highly reactive to threats – hedge their bets by using multiple threat-mitigating practices despite their potential epistemological incompatibility? Complicating this question, perceptions of conflict between religion and science likely vary across cultures; likewise, pragmatic features of precautions prescribed by some religions make them incompatible with some scientifically-based precautions. The COVID-19 pandemic elicited diverse precautionary behaviors, and thus provided an opportunity to investigate these questions. Across 27 societies from five continents (N = 7,844), in the majority of countries, individuals’ practice of religious precautions such as prayer correlates positively with their use of scientifically-based precautions. Prior work indicates that greater adherence to tradition likely reflects greater reactivity to threats. Unsurprisingly given associations between many traditions and religion, we find that valuing tradition is predictive of employing religious precautions. However, consonant with its association with threat reactivity, we also find that traditionalism predicts adherence to public health precautions – a pattern that underscores threat-avoidant individuals’ apparent tolerance for epistemological conflict in pursuit of safety

Large-scale cross-societal examination of real- and minimal-group biases

Biases in favor of culturally prevalent social ingroups are ubiquitous, but random assignment to arbitrary experimentally created social groups is also sufficient to create ingroup biases (i.e., the minimal group effect; MGE). The extent to which ingroup bias arises from specific social contexts versus more general psychological tendencies remains unclear. This registered report focuses on three questions. First, how culturally prevalent is the MGE? Second, how do critical cultural and individual factors moderate its strength? Third, does the MGE meaningfully relate to culturally salient real-world ingroup biases? We compare the MGE to bias in favor of a family member (first cousin) and a national ingroup member. We propose to recruit a sample of > 200 participants in each of > 50 nations to examine these questions and advance our understanding of the psychological foundations and cultural prevalence of ingroup bias