Proscriptive injunctions (i.e., telling people what they ) have been found in research to elicit greater perceptions of a threat to freedom, and greater reactance (anger, irritation and annoyance), than prescriptive injunctions (i.e., telling people what they ), across several health and social behaviors. The current research investigated the effects of Injunction Type (proscriptive vs. prescriptive) and perceived legitimacy of the injunction, on intentions to comply with UK government behavioral guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic, and on reactance. In two online experimental studies (Study 1:  = 142; Study 2:  = 307), UK participants were presented with information about UK government COVID-19 guidelines that included either a proscriptive injunction or prescriptive injunction and reported their perceptions of the legitimacy of the injunction, their intentions to comply with government guidelines, and their reactance. In both Study 1 and Study 2, the effect of Injunction Type on intentions to comply and reactance was moderated by perceived legitimacy. In both studies, when perceived legitimacy was low, participants exposed to the proscriptive injunction indicated lower intentions to comply with UK government COVID-19 guidelines than did participants exposed to the prescriptive injunction. The findings imply that using a prescriptive injunction frame can elicit greater intentions to comply than using a proscriptive injunction frame when people perceive the injunction to be unreasonable. The results are discussed in relation to the role of legitimacy in determining the effectiveness of different types of injunctions on compliance with rules and guidelines.

The COVID-19 pandemic poses a substantial risk of disease spread among healthcare workers (HCWs), making it important to understand what impacts perceived risk of COVID-19 spread in hospital settings and what causes HCWs to mitigate COVID-19 spread by following COVID-19 safety measures. One determinant of risk perception and safe behaviors is the influence of seeing others as group members. The current study aims to (a) evaluate how social identification as an HCW and trust in co-workers may influence perceived risk of COVID-19 spread and (b) explore how communication transparency, trust in leaders, and identity leadership are associated with self-reported adherence to COVID-19 safety guidance. Using a correlational design, HCWs of a Scottish hospital were invited to participate in an online questionnaire measuring their perceptions of risk of COVID-19 transmission, measures of social identification as an HCW, perception of leaders as members of the team, trust in co-workers to follow the COVID-19 guidelines and perception of leaders to manage COVID-19 prevention effectively. Results showed that increased trust in co-workers was associated with reduced risk perception of COVID-19 transmission. Perceptions of transparent communication about COVID-19 were found to be associated with increased adherence to COVID-19 safety guidelines. Findings show the importance of the association between social identity processes and reduced risk perception and highlight the relationship between transparent communication strategies and self-reported adherence to COVID-19 guidelines, identity leadership, and trust in leaders to manage COVID-19 appropriately.

Although most protective behaviors related to the COVID-19 pandemic come with personal costs, they will produce the largest benefit if everybody cooperates. This study explores two interacting factors that drive cooperation in this tension between private and collective interests. A preregistered experiment ( = 299) examined (a) how the quality of the relation among interacting partners (social proximity), and (b) how focusing on the risk of self-infection versus onward transmission affected intentions to engage in protective behaviors. The results suggested that risk focus was an important moderator of the relation between social proximity and protection intentions. Specifically, participants were more willing to accept the risk of self-infection from close others than from strangers, resulting in less caution toward a friend than toward a distant other. However, when onward transmission was the primary concern, participants were more reluctant to effect transmission to close others, resulting in more caution toward friends than strangers. These findings inform the debate about effective nonclinical measures against the pandemic. Practical implications for risk communication are discussed.

Although we are witnessing a new phase in the management of COVID-19, understanding what predicts adherence to preventive behaviors still remains crucial. In this study we focus on interpersonal relationships by specifically investigating whether engagement in preventive behaviors when in the presence of others may be a function of the type of relationship (in terms of closeness) one has with others. Because close others are often perceived similar to the self compared to strangers, we put forward that close relationships may inadvertently decrease COVID-19 risk perceptions which may ultimately decrease compliance with recommended behaviors when in their presence. To test this hypothesis, 747 Italian respondents were invited to answer one out of four versions of a questionnaire differing on the target (i.e., friends vs. parents vs. grandparents vs. strangers), including questions regarding COVID-19 risk perceptions and intentions to engage in preventive behaviors. Mediation analysis showed that close relationships (i.e., with friends, parents, and grandparents) compared to nonclose relationships (i.e., with strangers) predicted lower intentions to engage in preventive behaviors via lower risk perceptions. Altogether, these results shed light on the role played by closeness in indirectly shaping individuals' dis(engagement) in preventive behaviors and contribute to better understand possible unconscious biases which may undermine our safety during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Wearing face masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19 has proved controversial in many countries; conducting new research on the use of masks would be colored by this controversy. In 2012 (pre-COVID), we conducted an experiment on the effects of masks on social interaction. College students ( = 250) were assigned to find a previously unknown student in a lecture hall, converse, and evaluate the interaction. Half were assigned to wear a surgical mask, sunglasses, and a hat (all provided); half wore no extra gear. Mask wearing had no effect on the ease, authenticity, friendliness of the conversation, mood, discomfort, or interestingness of the interaction. There were no discernable consequences of political ideology on the partner selection process or the evaluation of the interaction. Mask-wearing did not disable successful social interaction in this setting.

Most previous studies that examined the effect of anxiety on hostility towards a distinct group have focused on cases in which we hate those we are afraid of. The current study, on the other hand, examines the relationship between anxiety in one domain and hostility towards a distinct group that is not the source of that anxiety. We focus here on symptoms of anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic, which have become increasingly frequent, and show that the implications of such mental difficulties are far-reaching, posing a threat to relationships between ideological groups. In two studies conducted in both Israel and the United States, we found that high levels of anxiety during the COVID-19 epidemic are associated with higher levels of hatred towards ordinary people from the respective political outgroups, lower levels of willingness to sustain interpersonal relations with these people (i.e., greater social distancing), and greater willingness to socially exclude them. This relationship was mediated by the perception of threat posed by the political outgroup. This study is the first to show that mental difficulty driven by an external threat can be a fundamental factor that explains levels of intergroup hostility.

Health preventative measures are important in reducing transmission of COVID-19, yet death-related thoughts might hinder preventative action. Using two online samples ( = 948), we examined how mortality salience (MS) may produce health-related proximal and distal defenses relevant to COVID-19, examining health optimism and appearance self-worth as moderators. MS decreased perceived vulnerability as a proximal defense for those with high health optimism (Study 1), while those with low health optimism decreased perceived response efficacy of face masks and intention to wear a protective face mask (Study 2). Additionally, those with high appearance self-worth displayed increased intention to wear an aesthetically appealing face mask as a distal defense to MS (Study 2). Our findings demonstrate the importance of considering how mortality concerns may channel health-defeating and health-promoting behaviors in respect to COVID-19 and provide insight into how to produce sustained engagement in health preventative action to combat the pandemic.

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments are attempting to vaccinate a large proportion of their adult population against the virus. While many people hurried to receive the vaccine, vaccination rates then started stagnating and governments are searching for solutions to motivate remaining citizens to receive the vaccine. Previous studies show that imagining oneself in the future can motivate health prevention behaviors, but our study is the first to use a future selves paradigm to study vaccination motivators. In two mixed methods studies we examine the effects of imagining of a future-vaccinated self (FVS) on vaccine attitudes, where participants were asked to think about what their life would be like once they had received the COVID-19 vaccine. In Study 1 ( = 114), we coded the most important categories of FVS. Several FVS were identified and related to increased social and leisure activities, reduced negative emotion and societal constraints, possible side effects of the vaccine, and societal changes. In Study 2 ( = 113), we used a 2 × 2 design in which participants' reflections on their FVS were guided or open and visualized from a first- or third-person perspective. The guided condition produced greater acceptance of the vaccine, and the first-person perspective produced greater behavioral intentions to be vaccinated. We discuss the effectiveness of future selves interventions for promoting vaccination in different societal contexts.

Although social distancing measures could be potentially perceived as thwarting conditions for basic psychological needs and thus causing psychological distress, off(on)line social support could compensate for this frustration by providing psychological proximity. Using self-determination theory, in this study, we aimed (a) to evaluate the change of perception in need satisfaction over time (before and during home-confinement and after a month of lockdown) and (b) to test the short-term longitudinal association between off(on)line social support, basic needs, and anxiety during social distancing measures in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. During the lockdown period decreed by Italy in March 2019 to confront the COVID-19 emergency, 1344 participants completed an online questionnaire and 131 participants completed a follow-up after 1 month. Results showed a decrease in need satisfaction during home confinement and a further reduction after a month of lockdown. Cross-sectional path analysis showed that both online and offline social support were associated with higher need satisfaction, which, in turn, was related to a lower level of anxiety. Longitudinal paths also confirmed the association between need satisfaction and anxiety. Collectively, these results suggest that maintaining psychological proximity despite social distancing measures may provide important avenues for reducing negative outcomes during forced home confinement.

In dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, government officials often encounter two concurrent concerns: they have to enforce necessary public health and safety measures to manage COVID-19. Meanwhile, they also have to mitigate conspiracy beliefs about COVID-19. To shed light on these issues, we conducted two studies to investigate national identity certainty (i.e., the extent to which people are certain about their national identity) as a predictor of (a) support for restrictive measures to curtail COVID-19 and (b) conspiracy beliefs about an outgroup as the culprit of COVID-19. Study 1 was a three-week longitudinal study ( = 301) where we investigated the relationships both on a between-person level (differences between individuals) and on a within-person level (week-by-week fluctuations of the same individual). We found that individual differences in national identity certainty predicted increased support for restrictive measures and increased outgroup conspiracy beliefs. These relationships emerged, even when we controlled for national identity positivity, that is, the extent to which people see their national identity in positive light. In Study 2 ( = 316), we used a cross-sectional correlational design and replicated the findings of Study 1. Moreover, we found that the relationships were explained by distinct threat perceptions: realistic threat explained the increased support for restrictive measures, whereas symbolic threat explained the increased outgroup conspiracy beliefs. Overall, our findings suggest that support for restrictive measures and outgroup conspiracy beliefs can be seen as attempts of people high in national identity certainty to address the distinct threats of COVID-19.

Decisions about one's health are often accompanied by uncertain outcomes, which may be either positively or negatively valenced. The presence of this uncertainty, which can range along a continuum from risk to ambiguity (i.e., decisions in which the outcome probabilities are known or unknown), can be perceived as threatening, and individuals tend to be averse to uncertain outcomes, and will attempt to avoid uncertainty when possible. We proposed that one way to reduce uncertainty aversion could be to provide opportunities to affirm one's core values, or "self-affirmation." Prior research has suggested that self-affirmation promotes health behaviour by providing a buffer against potential threats to the self. However, the degree to which self-affirmation affects decision-making is still unclear. Across two studies, we tested the effects of a self-affirmation manipulation on risk (Study 1) and ambiguity (Study 2) preferences for both potential gains and losses. In both studies, we found that, compared to the non-affirmed group, affirmed individuals were more accepting of uncertainty when the decision involved potential gains, but not for potential losses. Further, for risky decisions, the increased acceptance of uncertainty came at the expense of making choices consistent with expected value, such that self-affirmed individuals made more disadvantageous choices than non-affirmed individuals. Our results suggest both benefits and costs of self-affirmation in the context of risky choice, an important finding given the many applications of self-affirmation in behavioral decision making contexts.

The Gateway Belief Model (GBM) places perception of a scientific consensus as a key "gateway cognition" with cascading effects on personal beliefs, concern, and ultimately support for public policies. However, few studies seeking to evaluate and extend the model have followed the specification and design of the GBM as originally outlined. We present a more complete test of the theoretical model in a novel domain: the COVID-19 pandemic. In a large multi-country correlational study ( = 7,206) we report that, as hypothesized by the model, perceptions of scientific consensus regarding the threat of COVID-19 predict personal attitudes toward threat and worry over the virus, which are in turn positively associated with support for mitigation policies. We also find causal support for the model in a large pre-registered survey experiment ( = 1,856): experimentally induced increases in perceived consensus have an indirect effect on changes in policy support mediated via changes in personal agreement with the consensus. Implications for the role of expert consensus in science communication are discussed.

Through two studies ( = 602) conducted in Italy between February and March 2020, we examined the impact of the COVID-19 emergency on biologization-a form of dehumanization that involves the perception of others as contagious entities-and outgroup prejudice. Overall, results showed that higher emergency perception was associated with greater biologization toward the groups most affected by the virus, namely the Chinese outgroup and the Italian ingroup. In turn, biologization toward the outgroup increased prejudice against that group. We also found that when the pandemic hit Italy, the greater emergency perception was associated with increased emotional closeness with Chinese people, resulting in reduced biologization and prejudice toward them. However, these results held true only for Italian respondents who reported higher levels of ingroup biologization. Taken together, our findings contribute to the knowledge gaps of biologization and prejudice by also providing relevant insights into the ongoing health emergency.

The Covid-19 pandemic has significantly changed the lives of most people. It has been described as the most severe global health disaster of modern times by the United Nations. No doubt such a major crisis influences what citizens think of different policies, and how they become politically active, not to mention, the forceful emotional experiences that the Covid-19 pandemic brings. This study evaluates how emotions affect support for policies related to restricting the spread of the virus and economic assistance, and how emotions affect intentions to engage politically. In an experiment ( = 1,072), we manipulated emotional reactions to threat by highlighting different aspects of the pandemic. Our findings show that different experimental treatments elicit different emotions, and that fear, anxiety, and anger are all related to policy support and political action intentions, but in different ways. Fear and anger predict support for restrictive policies to limit the spread of the virus, while anxiety predicts support for economic policies. Anger and anxiety, but not fear, increase intentions to engage politically. Hence, we find support for a mechanism where different aspects of the Covid-19 crisis evoke different emotional reactions, which in turn affects policy support and political actions differently.

Social support gained through community ties has been pivotal in dealing with stressful events. A cross-sectional community sample ( = 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.

Research suggests that emerging information about infection-acquired COVID-19 immunity should be interpreted with caution. The introduction of "immunity passports" that would enable people who have recovered from COVID-19 to travel freely and return to work may therefore have detrimental consequences if not managed carefully. In two studies, we examined how perceived (suspected or imagined) recovery from COVID-19, and the concept of immunity passports, influence people's intentions to engage in behaviors aimed to reduce the spread of COVID-19. We also consider ways to lessen potential negative effects. In Study 1 ( = 1604), participants asked to imagine that they had recovered from COVID-19 reported lower social distancing intentions compared to a control condition. Participants who suspected (versus imagined) that they had recovered from past infection did not report lower preventative intentions compared to the control condition, even at high levels of certainty of past infection. In Study 2 ( = 1732), introducing the idea of immunity passports also reduced social distancing intentions compared to a control condition. The latter effect was, however, attenuated when cautious information about the equivocal science on COVID-19 was also presented to participants. Participants who suspected that they had COVID-19 in the past (compared to the control condition) revealed a similar pattern of results, but only at higher levels of certainty of past infection. Caution regarding infection-acquired COVID-19 immunity and immunity passports will be crucial in the COVID-19 response. Implications for premature pandemic announcements, as well as their potential remedies, are discussed.

Are disaster relief appeals more successful if they emphasize the material cost of disaster events in terms of economic damages and need for shelter, food, and health care, or if they emphasize the human cost in terms of psychological suffering and trauma caused? Although giving patterns seem to suggest that large-scale events that cause widespread material damage (e.g., the Asian Tsunami of 2004) are more successful at eliciting donations than smaller scaled events, it is argued that this pattern is explained by the fact that large perceived material damage leads to more perceived human suffering. In other words, it is the perceived human suffering which is the proximal driver of donations, rather than the material damage itself. Therefore, relief appeals that emphasize the human cost of events are more successful at eliciting donations than appeals that emphasize the material cost of events. This was demonstrated in a study focusing on donations by British participants ( = 200) to the Syrian refugee crisis in 2020, a study focusing on donations by British participants to victims of severe weather events in Eastern and Southern Africa in 2020 ( = 210), and a study among British participants focusing on a fictitious event ( = 150).

Across three studies, we investigated who expresses concern for COVID-19, or coronavirus, and engages in behaviors that are consistent with slowing the spread of COVID-19. In Studies 1 and 2 ( = 415,  = 199), those with warmer feelings toward scientists were more concerned and engaged in greater COVID-preventative behaviors, regardless of partisanship. That is, an anti-scientists bias was related to lessened concern and toward less preventive behaviors. Furthermore, those who were the most optimistic about hydroxychloroquine, a purported but unproven treatment against the virus, were less likely to engage in behaviors designed to decrease the spread of COVID-19. In Study 3 ( = 259), asking participants to watch a scientist discuss hydroxychloroquine on Fox News led people to greater endorsement of COVID behaviors. In short, positive feelings toward scientists, rather than political attitudes or knowledge, related to who was concerned and those willing to engage in pandemic reducing behaviors. These behaviors were not immutable and can be changed by scientific out-reach.

Vaccinations remain a critical, albeit surprisingly controversial, health behavior, especially with the promise of widely available COVID-19 vaccine. Intellectual humility, a virtue characterized by nonjudgmental recognition of one's own intellectual fallibility, may counter rigidity associated with anti-vaccination attitudes and help promote vaccine-related behaviors. This study investigated whether intellectual humility is related to anti-vaccination attitudes and intentions to vaccinate against COVID-19, and whether intellectual humility can predict unique variance in these outcomes beyond participant demographic and personal factors. Participants ( = 351, 57.23% male, mean age = 37.41 years,  = 11.51) completed a multidimensional measure for intellectual humility, the anti-vaccination attitudes (VAX) scale, and a two-item COVID-19 vaccination intention scale. Bivariate correlations demonstrated that intellectual humility was negatively related with anti-vaccination attitudes overall, (349) = -.46,  < .001, and positively related to intentions to vaccinate against COVID-19, (349) = .20,  < .001. Hierarchical multiple regression revealed that intellectual humility predicted all four types anti-vaccination attitudes, overall anti-vaccination attitudes, and COVID-19 vaccination intentions above and beyond demographic and personal factors (i.e., sex, race/ethnicity, age, education, socioeconomic status, and political orientation), Δ between .08 and .18, s < .001. These results bolster intellectual humility as a malleable psychological factor to consider in efforts to combat anti-vaccination attitudes and promote COVID-19 vaccination uptake.

During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic takeaway food orders generally increased, yet sales of Chinese and Italian food declined. At this time, news sources ran stories on the safety of cuisine from these countries, frequently juxtaposed with communications on mortality-related information related to the virus. Terror management theory suggests mortality concerns can lead people to defend against the psychological threat of death by bolstering positive evaluations of products and values of their own culture, and by disparaging products and values of other cultures. This translates to food preferences, with death reminders heightening consumption of food from one's own (vs. others') culture. However, whether this extends to food safety perceptions has not yet been probed. In the present experimental study, we examine whether death reminders (vs. a control topic) led U.S. participants to view American takeaway food as safer to consume, relative to Chinese and Italian food. Results indicate that across conditions, American food was evaluated as safer relative to Chinese and Italian takeout. Further, American takeaway was seen as safer after mortality reminders (vs. a control topic), with no differences in safety evaluations for Chinese or Italian takeout. Results are discussed in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The first months of 2020 rapidly threw people into a period of societal turmoil and pathogen threat with the COVID-19 pandemic. By promoting epistemic and existential motivational processes and activating people's behavioral immune systems, this pandemic may have changed social and political attitudes. The current research specifically asked the following question: As COVID-19 became pronounced in the United States during the pandemic's emergence, did people living there become more socially conservative? We present a repeated-measures study ( = 695) that assessed political ideology, gender role conformity, and gender stereotypes among U.S. adults before (January 25-26, 2020) versus during (March 19-April 2, 2020) the pandemic. During the pandemic, participants reported conforming more strongly to traditional gender roles and believing more strongly in traditional gender stereotypes than they did before the pandemic. Political ideology remained constant over time. These findings suggest that a pandemic may promote the preference for traditional gender roles.

Based on the existing research, being excluded from information (i.e., being out of the loop) produces similar consequences as being ignored or excluded from activities. Consequently, one might wonder whether it is necessary to measure or study different types of exclusion in the workplace context, rather than just assessing a single type of exclusion. The current research investigated the associations between two types of workplace exclusion (i.e., being ostracized and being left out of the loop) and various workplace outcomes, with the purpose of determining whether these different types of exclusion predict unique or redundant variance in these workplace outcomes. In Study 1, we obtained better model fit when we assigned items measuring out-of-the-loop experiences at work to a different factor than items assessing experiences with ostracism at work. In Study 2, we observed that measuring employees' experiences with being out of the loop predicted unique variance in workplace outcomes (e.g., job satisfaction), above and beyond experiences with ostracism at work. Relative weight analyses suggested that both ostracism and out-of-the-loop experiences were equally important predictors of these outcomes. Together, these studies indicate that being ostracized and being left out of the loop may be distinct exclusion experiences and better predictions about workplace outcomes can be made by assessing both types of exclusion. On a practical level, measuring different types of exclusion may prove useful, because organizations may need to implement different interventions for addressing distinct types of exclusion.

Although stigma is a major barrier to treatment for those with mental health concerns, it is poorly understood stigma is more or less influential in mental health treatment decisions. In the current work, we examined whether psychological distance - the removal of an event from direct experience - reduced the influence of internalized stigma on willingness to seek treatment. Specifically, we tested the hypothesis that psychological distance versus proximity (e.g., seeking treatment in three months vs. in two days, respectively) decreases the negative influence of stigma on willingness to seek treatment. We focused on a population for whom mental health treatment decisions are personally-relevant: individuals who had previously sought mental health treatment. Experiment 1 showed that the extent to which these individuals internalized (i.e., personally endorsed) stigma about mental illness predicted lower intentions to make an appointment with a mental health care provider for themselves (but not another person). Experiment 2 replicated this result using a different measure of psychological distance (temporal distance) and extended this finding to behavior (time spent reading mental health resources). Overall, this research demonstrated that internalized stigma disrupts mental health treatment-seeking intentions and behaviors when they are psychologically proximal, but not when they are distant. Potential applications of these results are discussed.

Evidence supporting the incorporation of affective constructs, such as affective attitudes and anticipated regret, into theoretical models of health behavior has been mounting in recent years; however, the role of positive anticipated affective reactions (e.g., pride) has been largely unexplored. The purpose of the present investigation was to assess how affective attitudes and anticipated affective reactions (both pride and regret for performing a behavior or not) may provide distinct utility for understanding intentions to perform health-promoting and health risk behaviors over and above cognitive attitudes and other established theoretical constructs from the theory of planned behavior (TPB). Participants ( = 210) were recruited via Amazon's Mechanical Turk to complete a one-time online battery assessing TPB and affective constructs. Self-reported intentions served as the main outcome measure, and hierarchical linear modeling was used to examine the effects of TPB and affective constructs across behaviors. Controlling for TPB constructs, more positive affective attitudes and greater anticipated regret, but not anticipated pride, predicted intentions to engage in future health behaviors. Anticipated affective reactions contributed explanatory variance for intentions to perform health risk behaviors, but anticipated pride and regret were not associated with intentions to perform health risk behaviors. Contributions made via the inclusion of both positively and negatively valence anticipated affective reactions for both action and inaction (performing a behavior or not) across a range of health promoting and health risk behaviors are discussed, as well as implications for future intervention work.

Productive procrastination replaces one adaptive behavior with another adaptive-albeit less important-behavior (e.g., organizing notes instead of studying for an exam). We identified adaptive and maladaptive procrastination styles associated with academic and alcohol outcomes in 1106 college undergraduates. Cluster analysis identified five academic procrastination styles-, , , and . Procrastination style differentially predicted alcohol-related problems, cravings, risk of alcohol use disorders, and GPA (all < .01). Non-procrastination and academic productive procrastination were most adaptive overall; non-academic productive procrastination, non-academic procrastination, and classic procrastination were least adaptive. Productive procrastination differed from other procrastination strategies, and maladaptive procrastination styles may be a useful risk indicator for preventative and intervention efforts.

Pain judgments are the basis for pain management. The purpose of this study was to assess Black and White participants' race-related pain stereotypes. Undergraduates (=551) rated the pain sensitivity and willingness to report pain for the typical Black person, White person, and themselves. Participants, regardless of race, rated the typical White person as being more pain sensitive and more willing to report pain than the typical Black person. White participants rated themselves as less sensitive and less willing to report pain than same-race peers; however, Black participants rated themselves as more pain sensitive and more willing to report pain than same-race peers. These findings highlight similarities and differences in racial stereotypic pain beliefs held by Black and White individuals.

Research to-date on generalized prejudice has focused primarily on personality factors. Further work is needed identifying manipulable variables that directly inform antiprejudice interventions. This study examined three such variables: empathic concern, perspective taking, and psychological inflexibility/flexibility with prejudiced thoughts, as a test of the flexible connectedness model. A sample of 604 undergraduate students completed online surveys. A model indicated prejudice measures loaded onto a latent variable of generalized prejudice. In a second model, psychological inflexibility, flexibility, empathic concern, and perspective taking were all significant, independent predictors of generalized prejudice. Psychological inflexibility also predicted prejudice above and beyond personality and general inflexibility variables. Results suggest the three components of the flexible connectedness model may be important targets for prejudice interventions.

Previous research into the relationship between attributions and academic performance has produced contradictory findings that have not been resolved. The present research examines the role of specific dimensions of attributional style in predicting subsequent academic performance in a sample of pupils ( = 979) from both high- and low-achieving schools. Hierarchical regression and moderation analyses indicate that internal, stable, and global, attributional styles for positive events predict higher levels of academic performance. Global attributions for negative events were related to poorer performance across all schools. Stable attributions for negative events were related to higher levels of performance in high-achieving schools but not in low-achieving schools. Higher levels of internality for negative events were associated with higher performance only in low achieving schools.

To remain competitive in the global economy, the United States (and other countries) is trying to broaden participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) by graduating an additional 1 million people in STEM fields by 2018. Although communion (working with, helping, and caring for others) is a basic human need, STEM careers are often (mis)perceived as being uncommunal. Across three naturalistic studies we found greater support for the communal affordance hypothesis, that perceiving STEM careers as affording greater communion is associated with greater STEM career interest, than two alternative hypotheses derived from goal congruity theory. Importantly, these findings held regardless of major (Study 1), college enrollment (Study 2), and gender (Studies 1-3). For undergraduate research assistants, mid-semester beliefs that STEM affords communion predicted end of the semester STEM motivation (Study 3). Our data highlight the importance of educational and workplace motivational interventions targeting communal affordances beliefs about STEM.

Music with lyrics about helping is shown to reduce aggression in the laboratory. This paper tests whether the prosocial lyric effect generalizes to reducing customer aggression in the workplace. A field experiment involved changing the hold music played to customers of a call center. The results of a 3 week study suggested that music significantly affected customers, but not in the way suggested by previous laboratory experiments; compared with days when instrumental background music was played, caller anger and employee exhaustion were lower on days when callers were played popular music with neutral, but not prosocial, lyrics. The findings suggest that music influences customer aggression, but that the prosocial lyric effect may not generalize from the laboratory to the call center.