Rice-farming areas report more anxiety across two years of the COVID-19 pandemic in China

Cultures responded to the COVID-19 pandemic differently. We investigated cultural differences in mental health during the pandemic. We found regional differences in people's reports of anxiety in China over two years from 2020 to 2021 (N = 1186). People in areas with a history of rice farming reported more anxiety than people in wheat-farming areas. Next, we explored more proximal mechanisms that could help link the distal, historical factor of rice farming to people's modern experience of anxiety. Rice areas scored higher on collectivism and tight social norms than wheat areas, and collectivism, rather than norm tightness, mediated the rice-anxiety relationship. These findings advance our understanding of the distal sources of cultural differences, the proximal mechanisms, and mental health problems during the pandemics.     

Stop the blame game: An analysis of blaming on Weibo during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in rice and wheat areas in China

In the pandemic era, social media has provided the public with a platform to make their voice heard. One of the most important public opinions online during a pandemic is blame. Blame can lead to stigma towards patients as well as potential patients and decrease social cooperation, which might impede prevention and control measures during epidemics. Thus, studying online blame during the early days of COVID-19 can facilitate the management and control of future pandemics. By analyzing 3791 posts from one of the most popular social media sites in China (Weibo) over the 10 days immediately after COVID-19 was declared to be a communicable disease, we found that there were four main agents blamed online: Individuals, corporations, institutions, and the media. Most of the blame targeted individual agents. We also found that there were regional-cultural differences in the detailed types of blamed individual agents, that is, between rice- and wheat-farming areas in China. After controlling influence of distance from the epicenter of Wuhan, there were still stable differences between regions: people in wheat areas had a higher probability of blaming agentic, harmful individuals, and people in rice areas had a higher probability of blaming individuals with low awareness of social norms for preventive health behavior. Findings have implications for preventing and predicting blame across cultures in future pandemics.     

Multi‐Criteria Evaluation for Collaborative Circulating Farming with Collective Operations Between Arable and Cattle Farmers

Tokachi sub‐prefecture in Hokkaido is one of the most famous dairy and crop farming regions in Japan. It is known that Tokachi is faced with various difficult problems such as soil degradation, water contamination and unpleasant odours because of the excessive use of chemical fertilizers and inappropriate treatment of livestock excretion. In this paper, we focus on Shihoro town where agricultural outputs are relatively large in Tokachi, and propose collaborative circulating farming with collective operations between arable and cattle farmers. Under the assumption that the decision‐maker in this problem is a representative of a farming organization who hopes for sustainable agricultural development and values the intentions of local residents including arable and cattle farmers in this region, we employ multi‐attribute utility theory in order to evaluate multiple alternatives of the farming management problem. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

个体主义/集体主义的影响因素:生态视角

个体主义/集体主义是衡量文化的重要维度。两者的价值取向有所区别,前者关注自我的独特性,而后者关注自我与他人的关系。近年来研究者发现了众多影响个体主义/集体主义的新因素并构建了理论。这些理论中有4个理论非常具有代表性:现代化理论、气候-经济理论、传染病理论以及大米理论。其中后3个理论从远因的角度来对个体主义/集体主义的成因进行了探讨,为研究者探究个体主义/集体主义成因提供了新思路。未来个体主义/集体主义影响因素的研究可以用多种测量方法综合的方式或者从基因的角度来进行探索。     

The use of antibiotics in veterinary medicine: Representations of antibiotics and biosecurity by pig farmers

The heavy reliance on antibiotics in livestock farming has contributed to the development of antimicrobial resistance. To tackle this phenomenon, it is important to know the determinants of their use. Thus, this study investigated the way in which French pig farmers perceive antibiotics and biosecurity depending on their farm's department and ALEA (Animal Level of Exposure to Antimicrobials). A qualitative study was carried out on 87 livestock farms of a French agricultural cooperative specialising in pig production. The results show a social representation of antibiotics organized around the notion of demedication (i.e. the elimination or reduction of reliance on antibiotics). Concerning biosecurity, “large consumers” of antibiotics associate it with the idea of constraints, regulatory standards and temporal distances separating them from this practice.     

农耕-游牧文化下风险偏好的差异：证据与分析框架

个体风险偏好是决策心理学的主要关注点之一, 其差异受个体因素及文化的影响。已有研究主要围绕集体主义-个体主义的文化分类研究个体风险偏好差异, 忽略了物质文化的影响。生态决策及社会生态研究者认为, 生态环境通过塑造物质文化(例如生存策略)影响个体经济偏好。基于对以往文献的分析发现, 不同生存策略主导的两大文化(农耕和游牧)对个体的风险偏好有不同影响, 属于农耕文化的个体更厌恶风险, 而属于游牧文化的个体具有更高的风险偏好。由于现有研究的局限和不足, 该推论值得进一步的因果研究证实。