Community cohesion during the first peak of the COVID-19 pandemic: A social antidote to health anxiety and stress

Social support gained through community ties has been pivotal in dealing with stressful events. A cross-sectional community sample (N = 2,329) was gathered to assess community cohesion buffering against heath anxiety and perceived stress during the first peak of the pandemic in the UK, using structural equation modeling analyses. Community cohesion acted as a protective mechanism against both health anxiety and stress during the first national lockdown. A strong positive association was also found between health anxiety and stress. Stress and health anxiety scores peaked in the first weeks of the imposed quarantine; as the lockdown was extended, participants reported lower stress, health anxiety and community cohesion scores. The reduction of community cohesion scores was greater for those younger than 45 while the positive association between stress and health anxiety was stronger among males during the lockdown. While community cohesion effects against health anxiety were enhanced for females, community's buffering against stress were greater for males. Strengthening citizens' psychological sense of community through the publicization and support of local initiatives and mutual-aid groups and utilizing methodically green (and blue) spaces to boost neighborhood attraction might be viable strategies within which stress and health anxiety can be suppressed. Conversely, allowing community, regional and national cracks to deepen can exacerbate the impact of stressful events experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic.     

Reactive aggression tracks within‐participant changes in women's salivary testosterone

The relation between testosterone and aggression has been relatively well documented in men, but it is less well understood in women. Here we assessed the relationship between salivary testosterone and reactive aggression (i.e., rejection rate for unfair offers) in the Ultimatum Game. Forty naturally cycling women were tested twice, once in the late follicular phase (around ovulation) and once during the luteal phase. Ovulation was determined using urine test strips measuring luteinizing hormone levels. Salivary samples were assayed for testosterone, estradiol, progesterone, and cortisol at both test sessions. There was no association with the cycle, but multilevel modeling revealed a significant within‐participant association between testosterone and rejection rate for extremely unfair offers (i.e., high reactive aggression), indicating that women showed greater reactive aggression when their testosterone levels were higher. Additionally, we found that women with relatively high individual concentrations of testosterone were more likely to reject extremely unfair offers than women with relatively low concentrations of testosterone. This study is the first to demonstrate that women react more aggressively in response to provocation when their testosterone level is high than when their testosterone is low, suggesting that testosterone plays an important role in the regulation of women's aggressive behavior following social provocation.

     

Self-Concepts and Psychological Well-Being Assessed By Beck Youth Inventory Among Pupils with Reading Difficulties

This study investigated the self-image and psychological well-being in 67 children and adolescents age 10–16 years with severe reading difficulties and/or dyslexia. The participants were assessed with Beck Youth Inventory regarding symptoms of depression, anxiety, and negative self-image. The results showed that the participants do not depict negative self-image and showed few symptoms of depression or anxiety at group level in comparison to a norm group. These results could be seen as contradictory to previous research. A questionnaire regarding self-efficacy was also distributed and showed that the participants had low self-knowledge about their reading impairments. The results were interpreted as a possible increase in knowledge among teachers and subsequent change in pedagogical strategies. In addition, technological advances may have improved the academic situation for dyslexic children. This study was a partial study in a larger project that aimed to evaluate the efficiency of assistive technologies for dyslexic children.     

On the consistency of intramodal intensity matching in olfaction

Magnitude matchings of odor intensity were obtained for three chemical compounds (hydrogen sulfide, pyridine, and dimethyl disulfide) in four experiments. An equal-sensation function in the form of a power function described the data well. This equation can be written neglecting the multiplicative constant, Ф_i = Ф_k ^b _ik, where i and k represent two different odorants. The exponent b_ik, where the first index stands for matching continuum and the second index for reference continuum, was fairly well predicted according to the formulae, (ie, 264, 2) where i, j, and k are three different odorants. The results validate the equal-sensation function and indicate implicitly that intensity matchings between different intramodal continua are approximately transitive and symmetric with respect to odor.     

Goal disruption during COVID-19: Reimagining goals during a global pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a major source of professional and personal disruption and has had both direct and downstream consequences on almost every aspect of peoples' lives, including their personal goal pursuits. In the face of unexpected hardships and obstacles, people have had to find new paths to goal achievement. In the present work, we examined whether difficulty adjusting goal pursuit during the global disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic is related to negative affective, cognitive, and behavioral goal-related outcomes. Across two studies, we found that people who had more difficulty adjusting their goal pursuit during the pandemic experienced more negative feelings toward their goals, were less satisfied with the status of their goals, and were less likely to actually achieve their goals. Moreover, individual differences in planning tendencies, need for predictability, general adaptability, and perceived pandemic disruption were related to more difficulty adjusting goal pursuit. This work demonstrates the importance of flexibility in the face of setbacks and obstacles, especially during times of disruption and uncertainty.     

Effects of minor phrasing variations in traffic-related questionnaires – Comparison of objective equivalences and respondents’ subjective statements

This paper examines questionnaire-related issues of variations in the wording of questions and the objective accuracy of the response, in terms of three traffic-related phenomena (accident frequency, incident frequency, and speeding). ca. 900 survey respondents, living along four major arterial streets in Malmö, Sweden, estimated the occurrence of the phenomena in question. The dispatch consisted of two parallel questionnaires with minor variations in question wording which showed significant differences in the given estimates of accident and incident frequency depending on the phrasing. The correspondence between the subjective estimates and objectively measured accident and speeding figures is discussed along with the potential impact of wording, the phenomenon’s characteristics and response scales. Increased knowledge of these factors could ease communication with the public in the municipal traffic-planning process.     

Glen Pettigrove and Christine Swanton (eds.): Neglected Virtues

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice -