National identity predicts public health support during a global pandemic

Changing collective behaviour and supporting non-pharmaceutical interventions is an important component in mitigating virus transmission during a pandemic. In a large international collaboration (Study 1, N = 49,968 across 67 countries), we investigated self-reported factors associated with public health behaviours (e.g., spatial distancing and stricter hygiene) and endorsed public policy interventions (e.g., closing bars and restaurants) during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic (April-May 2020). Respondents who reported identifying more strongly with their nation consistently reported greater engagement in public health behaviours and support for public health policies. Results were similar for representative and non-representative national samples. Study 2 (N = 42 countries) conceptually replicated the central finding using aggregate indices of national identity (obtained using the World Values Survey) and a measure of actual behaviour change during the pandemic (obtained from Google mobility reports). Higher levels of national identification prior to the pandemic predicted lower mobility during the early stage of the pandemic (r = −0.40). We discuss the potential implications of links between national identity, leadership, and public health for managing COVID-19 and future pandemics.publishedVersio

National identity predicts public health support during a global pandemic (vol 13, 517, 2022) : National identity predicts public health support during a global pandemic (Nature Communications, (2022), 13, 1, (517), 10.1038/s41467-021-27668-9)

Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2022.In this article the author name ‘Agustin Ibanez’ was incorrectly written as ‘Augustin Ibanez’. The original article has been corrected.Peer reviewe

National identity predicts public health support during a global pandemic.

Changing collective behaviour and supporting non-pharmaceutical interventions is an important component in mitigating virus transmission during a pandemic. In a large international collaboration (Study 1, N = 49,968 across 67 countries), we investigated self-reported factors associated with public health behaviours (e.g., spatial distancing and stricter hygiene) and endorsed public policy interventions (e.g., closing bars and restaurants) during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic (April-May 2020). Respondents who reported identifying more strongly with their nation consistently reported greater engagement in public health behaviours and support for public health policies. Results were similar for representative and non-representative national samples. Study 2 (N = 42 countries) conceptually replicated the central finding using aggregate indices of national identity (obtained using the World Values Survey) and a measure of actual behaviour change during the pandemic (obtained from Google mobility reports). Higher levels of national identification prior to the pandemic predicted lower mobility during the early stage of the pandemic (r = -0.40). We discuss the potential implications of links between national identity, leadership, and public health for managing COVID-19 and future pandemics

Bi-allelic Loss-of-Function CACNA1B Mutations in Progressive Epilepsy-Dyskinesia.

The occurrence of non-epileptic hyperkinetic movements in the context of developmental epileptic encephalopathies is an increasingly recognized phenomenon. Identification of causative mutations provides an important insight into common pathogenic mechanisms that cause both seizures and abnormal motor control. We report bi-allelic loss-of-function CACNA1B variants in six children from three unrelated families whose affected members present with a complex and progressive neurological syndrome. All affected individuals presented with epileptic encephalopathy, severe neurodevelopmental delay (often with regression), and a hyperkinetic movement disorder. Additional neurological features included postnatal microcephaly and hypotonia. Five children died in childhood or adolescence (mean age of death: 9 years), mainly as a result of secondary respiratory complications. CACNA1B encodes the pore-forming subunit of the pre-synaptic neuronal voltage-gated calcium channel Cav2.2/N-type, crucial for SNARE-mediated neurotransmission, particularly in the early postnatal period. Bi-allelic loss-of-function variants in CACNA1B are predicted to cause disruption of Ca2+ influx, leading to impaired synaptic neurotransmission. The resultant effect on neuronal function is likely to be important in the development of involuntary movements and epilepsy. Overall, our findings provide further evidence for the key role of Cav2.2 in normal human neurodevelopment.MAK is funded by an NIHR Research Professorship and receives funding from the Wellcome Trust, Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital Charity, and Rosetrees Trust. E.M. received funding from the Rosetrees Trust (CD-A53) and Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity. K.G. received funding from Temple Street Foundation. A.M. is funded by Great Ormond Street Hospital, the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), and Biomedical Research Centre. F.L.R. and D.G. are funded by Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre. K.C. and A.S.J. are funded by NIHR Bioresource for Rare Diseases. The DDD Study presents independent research commissioned by the Health Innovation Challenge Fund (grant number HICF-1009-003), a parallel funding partnership between the Wellcome Trust and the Department of Health, and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (grant number WT098051). We acknowledge support from the UK Department of Health via the NIHR comprehensive Biomedical Research Centre award to Guy's and St. Thomas' National Health Service (NHS) Foundation Trust in partnership with King's College London. This research was also supported by the NIHR Great Ormond Street Hospital Biomedical Research Centre. J.H.C. is in receipt of an NIHR Senior Investigator Award. The research team acknowledges the support of the NIHR through the Comprehensive Clinical Research Network. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR, Department of Health, or Wellcome Trust. E.R.M. acknowledges support from NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre, an NIHR Senior Investigator Award, and the University of Cambridge has received salary support in respect of E.R.M. from the NHS in the East of England through the Clinical Academic Reserve. I.E.S. is supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (Program Grant and Practitioner Fellowship)

Author Correction: National identity predicts public health support during a global pandemic

Correction to: Nature Communications https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-27668-9, published online 26 January 2022

Caring is Costly: People Avoid the Cognitive Work of Compassion

Compassion—the warm, caregiving emotion that emerges from witnessing the suffering of others—has long been considered an important moral emotion for motivating and sustaining prosocial behavior. Some suggest that compassion draws from empathic feelings to motivate prosocial behavior, while others try to disentangle these processes to examine their different functions for human pro-sociality. Many suggest that empathy, which involves sharing in others’ experiences, can be biased and exhausting, whereas warm compassionate concern is more rewarding and sustainable. If compassion is indeed a warm and positive experience, then people should be motivated to seek it out when given the opportunity. Here, we ask whether people spontaneously choose to feel compassion, and whether such choices are associated with perceiving compassion as cognitively costly. Across all studies, we found that people opted to avoid compassion when given the opportunity; reported compassion to be more cognitively taxing than empathy and objective detachment; and opted to feel compassion less often to the degree they viewed compassion as cognitively costly. We also revealed two important boundary conditions: first, people were less likely to avoid compassion for close (vs. distant) others, and this choice difference was associated with viewing compassion for close others as less cognitively costly. Second, in the final study we found that with more contextually enriched and immersive pleas for help, participants preferred to escape feeling compassion, though their preference did not differ from also escaping remaining objectively detached. These results temper strong arguments that compassion is an easier route to prosocial motivation

Stereotypes about Compassion Across the Political Spectrum

To what extent are ideological differences in compassion real or exaggerated, and who is more likely to engage in stereotyping about such differences? In five studies, including three online studies and two field studies of voters at the Iowa Caucus and U.S. Presidential Election in 2016, we find evidence for political stereotyping about compassion. Although Democratic and Republican participants did not consistently rate themselves as feeling different amounts of compassion on a single-item self-assessment, there was a stereotype that the average Democrat/liberal is more compassionate than the average Republican/conservative. Importantly, this stereotype exaggerated the extent of self-reported differences in compassion across parties in these samples, and Democratic participants engaged in stronger stereotype exaggeration. These results suggest that although there can be ideological variability in compassion, the perceived difference may exaggerate this reality

Empathy is hard work: People choose to avoid empathy because of its cognitive costs

Empathy is considered a virtue, yet fails in many situations, leading to a basic question: when given a choice, do people avoid empathy? And if so, why? Whereas past work has focused on material and emotional costs of empathy, here we examined whether people experience empathy as cognitively taxing and costly, leading them to avoid it. We developed the Empathy Selection Task, which uses free choices to assess desire to empathize. Participants make a series of binary choices, selecting situations that lead them to engage in empathy or an alternative course of action. In each of 11 studies (N=1,204) and a meta-analysis, we found a robust preference to avoid empathy, which was associated with perceptions of empathy as effortful, aversive, and inefficacious. Experimentally increasing empathy efficacy eliminated empathy avoidance, suggesting cognitive costs directly cause empathy choice. When given the choice to share others’ feelings, people act as if it’s not worth the effort