Promocijas darbs

Elektroniskā versija nesatur pielikumusPromocijas darba mērķis bija izpētīt izpētīt saistības starp depresijas simptomiem un vairākām kognitīvām funkcijām - motoro ātrumu, darba atmiņu, vadības funkcijām, īstermiņa un ilgtermiņa atmiņas funkcijām, kontrolējot vecuma, izglītības un blakus traucējumu - stresa un trauksmes simptomus. Pētījumā vairākos posmos un apakšpētījumos piedalījās kopā 3761 dalībnieks. Izmantojot tīklveida struktūru analīzes modeļus un citas statistiskās analīzes metodes, novērots, ka indivīdu vidū novērota būtiska depresijas simptomu un kognitīvo funkciju mijsakarību heterogenitāte. Tas lika secināt, ka līdzšinējie pieņēmumi par depresijas simptomu un kognitīvo funkciju homgenitāti ir pārskatāmi un papildināmi, uzlabojot gan pētniecisko praksi depresijas pētniecībā, gan klīniskajā praksē.The aim of the thesis was to explore the relationship between depression symptoms and several cognitive functions - motor speed, working memory, executive functions, short-term and long-term memory functions, controlling for age, education and co-occurring disorders symptoms - stress and anxiety. A total of 3,761 participants participated in the study in several stages and sub-studies. Using network structure analysis models and other statistical analysis methods, it was observed that significant heterogeneity of interrelationships between depression symptoms and cognitive functions was observed among individuals. This led to the conclusion that the current assumptions about the homogeneity of depression symptoms and cognitive functions can be reviewed and supplemented, improving both research practices in depression scientific research and clinical practice

PAI-1 and t-PA/PAI-1 complex potential markers of fibrinolytic bleeding after cardiac surgery employing cardiopulmonary bypass

Background: Enhanced bleeding remains a serious problem after cardiac surgery, and fibrinolysis is often involved. We speculate that lower plasma concentrations of plasminogen activator inhibitor - 1 (PAI-1) preoperatively and tissue plasminogen activator/PAI-1 (t-PA/PAI-1) complex postoperatively might predispose for enhanced fibrinolysis and increased postoperative bleeding.Methods: Totally 88 adult patients (mean age 66 ± 10 years) scheduled for cardiac surgery, were enrolled into a prospective study. Blood samples were collected pre-operatively, on admission to the recovery and at 6 and 24 hours postoperatively. Patients with a surgical bleeding that was diagnosed during reoperation were discarded from the study. The patients were allocated to two groups depending on the 24-hour postoperative chest tube drainage (CTD): Group I > 500ml, Group II ≤ 500ml. Associations between CTD, PAI-1, t-PA/PAI-1 complex and D-dimer were analyzed with SPSS.Results: Nine patients were excluded because of surgical bleeding. Of the 79 remaining patients, 38 were allocated to Group I and 41 to Group II. The CTD volumes correlated with the preoperative plasma levels of PAI-1 (r = - 0.3, P = 0.009). Plasma concentrations of preoperative PAI-1 and postoperative t-PA/PAI-1 complex differed significantly between the groups (P < 0.001 and P = 0.012, respectively). Group I displayed significantly lower plasma concentrations of fibrinogen and higher levels of D-dimer from immediately after the operation and throughout the first 24 hours postoperatively.Conclusions: Lower plasma concentrations of PAI-1 preoperatively and t-PA/PAI-1 complex postoperatively leads to higher plasma levels of D-dimer in association with more postoperative bleeding after cardiac surgery.publishersversionPeer reviewe

Psicología social y moral de COVID-19 en 69 países

La pandemia de COVID-19 ha afectado a todos los ámbitos de la vida humana, incluido el tejido económico y social de las sociedades. Una de las estrategias centrales para gestionar la salud pública a lo largo de la pandemia ha sido el envío de mensajes persuasivos y el cambio de comportamiento colectivo. Para ayudar a los estudiosos a comprender mejor la psicología social y moral que subyace al comportamiento en materia de salud pública, presentamos un conjunto de datos compuesto por 51.404 individuos de 69 países. Este conjunto de datos se recopiló para el proyecto de la Colaboración Internacional en Psicología Social y Moral de COVID-19 (ICSMP COVID-19). Esta encuesta de ciencias sociales invitó a participantes de todo el mundo a completar una serie de medidas morales y psicológicas y actitudes de salud pública sobre COVID-19 durante una fase temprana de la pandemia de COVID-19 (entre abril y junio de 2020). La encuesta incluía siete grandes categorías de preguntas: Creencias sobre COVID-19 y conductas de cumplimiento; identidad y actitudes sociales; ideología; salud y bienestar; creencias morales y motivación; rasgos de personalidad; y variables demográficas. Presentamos los datos brutos y depurados, junto con todos los materiales de la encuesta, las visualizaciones de los datos y las evaluaciones psicométricas de las variables clave.The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all domains of human life, including the economic and social fabric of societies. One of the central strategies for managing public health throughout the pandemic has been through persuasive messaging and collective behaviour change. To help scholars better understand the social and moral psychology behind public health behaviour, we present a dataset comprising of 51,404 individuals from 69 countries. This dataset was collected for the International Collaboration on Social & Moral Psychology of COVID-19 project (ICSMP COVID-19). This social science survey invited participants around the world to complete a series of moral and psychological measures and public health attitudes about COVID-19 during an early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic (between April and June 2020). The survey included seven broad categories of questions: COVID-19 beliefs and compliance behaviours; identity and social attitudes; ideology; health and well-being; moral beliefs and motivation; personality traits; and demographic variables. We report both raw and cleaned data, along with all survey materials, data visualisations, and psychometric evaluations of key variables

Predicting attitudinal and behavioral responses to COVID-19 pandemic using machine learning

At the beginning of 2020, COVID-19 became a global problem. Despite all the efforts to emphasize the relevance of preventive measures, not everyone adhered to them. Thus, learning more about the characteristics determining attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic is crucial to improving future interventions. In this study, we applied machine learning on the multinational data collected by the International Collaboration on the Social and Moral Psychology of COVID-19 (N = 51,404) to test the predictive efficacy of constructs from social, moral, cognitive, and personality psychology, as well as socio-demographic factors, in the attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic. The results point to several valuable insights. Internalized moral identity provided the most consistent predictive contribution—individuals perceiving moral traits as central to their self-concept reported higher adherence to preventive measures. Similar results were found for morality as cooperation, symbolized moral identity, self-control, open-mindedness, and collective narcissism, while the inverse relationship was evident for the endorsement of conspiracy theories. However, we also found a non-neglible variability in the explained variance and predictive contributions with respect to macro-level factors such as the pandemic stage or cultural region. Overall, the results underscore the importance of morality-related and contextual factors in understanding adherence to public health recommendations during the pandemic.Peer reviewe

Addressing climate change with behavioral science:A global intervention tournament in 63 countries

Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interventions' effectiveness was small, largely limited to nonclimate skeptics, and differed across outcomes: Beliefs were strengthened mostly by decreasing psychological distance (by 2.3%), policy support by writing a letter to a future-generation member (2.6%), information sharing by negative emotion induction (12.1%), and no intervention increased the more effortful behavior-several interventions even reduced tree planting. Last, the effects of each intervention differed depending on people's initial climate beliefs. These findings suggest that the impact of behavioral climate interventions varies across audiences and target behaviors.</p

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

Addressing climate change with behavioral science: a global intervention tournament in 63 countries

Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interventions’ effectiveness was small, largely limited to nonclimate skeptics, and differed across outcomes: Beliefs were strengthened mostly by decreasing psychological distance (by 2.3%), policy support by writing a letter to a future-generation member (2.6%), information sharing by negative emotion induction (12.1%), and no intervention increased the more effortful behavior—several interventions even reduced tree planting. Last, the effects of each intervention differed depending on people’s initial climate beliefs. These findings suggest that the impact of behavioral climate interventions varies across audiences and target behaviors

Addressing climate change with behavioral science:A global intervention tournament in 63 countries

Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interventions' effectiveness was small, largely limited to nonclimate skeptics, and differed across outcomes: Beliefs were strengthened mostly by decreasing psychological distance (by 2.3%), policy support by writing a letter to a future-generation member (2.6%), information sharing by negative emotion induction (12.1%), and no intervention increased the more effortful behavior-several interventions even reduced tree planting. Last, the effects of each intervention differed depending on people's initial climate beliefs. These findings suggest that the impact of behavioral climate interventions varies across audiences and target behaviors.</p