Effects of containment and closure policies on controlling the COVID‐19 pandemic in East Asia

Growing efforts have been made to pool coronavirus data and control measures from countries and regions to compare the effectiveness of government policies. We examine whether these strategies can explain East Asia’s effective control of the COVID‐19 pandemic based on time‐series data with cross‐correlations between the Stringency Index and number of confirmed cases during the early period of outbreaks. We suggest that multidisciplinary empirical research in healthcare and social sciences, personality, and social psychology is needed for a clear understanding of how cultural values, social norms, and individual predispositions interact with policy to affect life‐saving behavioural changes in different societies.     

Tool acceptance and acceptability: insights from a real tool use activity

Cognitive Processing - The issue of tool adoption has been the subject of many investigations, which focus either on acceptability (evaluating intention to use, a priori) or acceptance (evaluating...     

EDITORIAL Building bridges with mixed methods research?

Mixed methods refers to the use of both qualitative and quantitative approaches and methods in one study or sequentially in two or more studies. Without a mixed methods approach there is – to our minds ‐ a risk that only part of a phenomenon or experience is being explored. Our own involvement in mixed methods research has grown out of a shared interest in the concept ‘research‐practitioner’. Psychotherapy is a notoriously complex and ever‐developing field, and our growing sense has been that mixed methods research can contribute to a more complete – both broad and deep ‐ sense of knowledge and understanding.     

Active school travel is associated with fewer suicide attempts among adolescents from low-and middle-income countries

Background/Objective: This study explored the association between active school travel (AST) and suicide attempts among adolescents in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Method: We used the data from the Global School-based Health Survey, including 127,097 adolescents aged 13-17 years from 34 LMICs. A self-reported survey was used to collect data on AST and suicide attempts as well as some variables. Multivariable logistic regression was performed to assess the association between AST and suicide attempts. A meta-analysis with random effects was undertaken to identify the difference in the association between AST and suicide attempts. Results: Across all the adolescents, the prevalence of AST was 37% and the prevalence of suicide attempts was 11.60%. Adolescents who engaged in AST were less likely to have suicide attempts irrespective of gender. The country-wise analysis indicated a large inconsistency in the association between AST and suicide attempt across the countries. Conclusions: AST would appear to be a protective factor for reducing suicide attempts among adolescents. However, the association between AST and suicide attempts varied greatly across the countries. Future studies should confirm the association between AST and suicide attempts.     

Construct validation of the Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Questionnaire in Spanish-speaking countries: Assessment of the reliability,structural and external validity and cross-cultural equivalence

A recent re-operationalisation of grandiose narcissism has resulted in the distinction of two narcissistic strategies based on the cognitive, affective-motivational and behavioural dynamics: admiration (assertive self-enhancement) and rivalry (antagonistic self-protection). The Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Questionnaire (NARQ) was developed to assess this model with two higher-order dimensions. However, cross-validations of the NARQ have not been extensively conducted across diverse population groups and languages. This study aimed to test the internal and external validity (through the relation with envy and self-esteem), reliability and cross-cultural equivalence of the Spanish version of the NARQ. The psychometric properties were evaluated in a Spanish sample (N = 310), and cross-cultural equivalence was tested in participants from Chile (N = 234) and Colombia (N = 256). The results supported the reliability and validity of the Spanish NARQ, as well as the cross-cultural equivalence across Spanish-speaking countries. In addition, we discuss obtained differences across Spanish, Chilean and Colombian sample within two narcissistic strategies.     

Global Scientific Outputs of Brain Death Publications and Evaluation According to the Religions of Countries

In 1950s, the concept of brain death, which began to be discussed primarily in terms of medicine and then in terms of religion, law, and ethics, became a central topic in all world countries as it was an early diagnosis of death. Despite the fact that brain death (BD) diagnosis is of importance for benefitting from organ and tissue transplantation of patients in the world, the literature still involves no bibliometric studies that made a holistic evaluation of the publications about this issue. The present study aims to investigate the top-cited articles about BD published between 1980 and 2018, identify the citation collaboration of the journals, demonstrate the collaboration between the countries, define the relationship between organ transplantation and BD, and reveal the latest developments and trend topics about this issue. In addition, this study aims to investigate the relationship between religions of countries and brain death publication productivity. Documents for bibliometric analysis were downloaded from Web of Science. The literature search was performed using the keywords “brain death/dead” during 1980–2018. The correlations between gross domestic product (GDP), Human Development Index (HDI) and publication productivity of the countries on BD were investigated with Spearman’s correlation coefficient. There was a high-level, statistically significant correlation between the number of publications and GDP, and HDI and the number of publications about BD (r = 0.761, p < 0.001; r = 0.703, p < 0.001). The USA was the top country in terms of publication productivity, which was followed by developed countries such as Germany, Japan, France, and Spain. However, the contribution of the undeveloped or developing countries such as China, Brazil, Turkey, Iran, and South Africa was found to be considerably important. While many people in the world die with undamaged organs, many other people die needing those organs. Therefore, it is considered that the collaborations and thus multidisciplinary studies about BD should be increased in the world countries, and the countries should be involved in bigger collaborations instead of little clusters. Especially, Muslim countries should be encouraged to do research and publish studies about the issues of brain death and organ transplantation.

     

If you want to be one of us,then become like us: The evaluation of naturalization applicants by host nationals

Immigrant naturalization is a rite of passage, making assimilationist attitudes particularly pronounced among host nationals. Three experimental studies investigate whether heritage culture maintenance violates expectations that citizenship should be deserved by proving strong attachment to the host nation (i.e., neoliberal communitarianism). Study 1 (N = 293) demonstrates that naturalization applicants’ high degree of heritage culture maintenance impairs application evaluations. Perceived attachment to the host nation and citizenship deservingness mediated this effect. Study 2 (N = 220) replicates results across two national contexts and reveals that heritage culture maintenance impairs evaluations only among naturalization applicants from devalued countries. Study 3 (N = 117) manipulates attachment to the host nation and shows that perceived citizenship deservingness mediates the negative effects of naturalization applicants' low attachment to the host nation on application evaluations. Overall, assimilationist attitudes among host nationals are best explained by the combination of neoliberal and communitarian criteria of evaluation.     

Providing more or less detailed information in job advertisements—Does it matter?

Job advertising is a common and useful recruitment marketing method that is available to a wide range of candidates and offers a practical way to widen the applicant pool. Frequently, retail advertisements only briefly introduce job requirements, but others provide more detailed information. Existing message studies, however, are inconclusive about the effectiveness of message specificity. A scenario‐based experiment that included 164 participants revealed that the type of decision maker (maximizer or satisficer) moderates the specificity effects in recruitment messages. After receiving a detailed job message, more satisficers stop their search process, but only maximizers perceive the company as more attractive and increase intentions toward the advertised job. A follow‐up qualitative study involving 30 participants provided further insights.