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COVID-19 is a challenge faced by individuals (personal vulnerability and behavior), requiring coordinated policy from national government. However, another critical layer—intergroup relations—frames many decisions about how resources and support should be allocated. Based on theories of self and social identity uncertainty, subjective group dynamics, leadership, and social cohesion, we argue that this intergroup layer has important implications for people's perceptions of their own and others' situation, political management of the pandemic, how people are influenced, and how they resolve identity uncertainty. In the face of the pandemic, initial national or global unity is prone to intergroup fractures and competition through which leaders can exploit uncertainties to gain short-term credibility, power, or influence for their own groups, feeding polarization and extremism. Thus, the social and psychological challenge is how to sustain the superordinate objective of surviving and recovering from the pandemic through mutual cross-group effort.

Western citizens perceive human behaviour as a significant cause of climate change and increasingly adopt proenvironmental behaviours. However, such positively connoted behaviours can either increase (consistency) or decrease (compensation) the probability that one acts in a similar way in the future. Drawing from social influence and social identity literatures, we propose that numerical support for proenvironmental values (majority vs. minority) moderates the effect of past behaviour on intention to adopt proenvironmental behaviour. Across three studies ( N = 500), past behaviour, either measured (Study 1) or manipulated (Studies 2 and 3) interacted with numerical support, manipulated (Studies 1 and 2) or measured (Study 3), to predict proenvironmental intention and behaviour. Results showed that majority support results in balancing dynamics, whereas minority support results in a consistency effect. These findings highlight the importance of the normative context for proenvironmental behaviour adoption and offer leads for developing behaviour change strategies.

Abstract: Background: Individuals generally see doctors to get physically well, with potential benefits but also costs. We investigate ostracism (feeling ignored and excluded) as one possible factor for frequently seeing doctors. Aims: We test three different conceptual accounts: (1) Ostracism may impact health through stress and social pain processes (i.e., sickness account). (2) Seeing doctors may satisfy psychological needs that are typically threatened by ostracism, constituting a way of coping (i.e., coping account). (3) In the reverse direction, individuals who see doctors more frequently may be ostracized out of health stigmatization (i.e., stigmatization account). Method. Ostracism experiences, number of doctor visits, and medical diagnoses were assessed in a longitudinal, nationally representative panel survey of German adults ( N = 2,001, two waves). Results: In cross-lagged panel analyses, ostracism predicts more frequent doctor visits 3 years later, even when controlling for medical diagnoses, suggesting doctor visits as a way of coping with ostracism. Number of medical diagnoses, but not doctor visits, longitudinally predict ostracism reports, potentially as an expression of health stigmatization. Limitations: The present results have been accrued in one context (Germany). We used retrospective recall of doctor visits, although we do not expect systematic recall biases based on ostracism experiences that could have altered the results. Conclusion: Ostracism leads to more frequent health care utilization. We conclude that seeing doctors more frequently may be a response to ostracism and call for efforts to develop ostracism-specific treatments and interventions.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been an ideal breeding ground for conspiracy theories. Yet, different beliefs could have different implications for individuals' emotional responses, which in turn could relate to different behaviours and specifically to either a greater or lesser compliance with social distancing and health protective measures. In the present research, we investigated the links between COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs, emotions (anger, anxiety, and hope), attitudes towards government restrictions, and self-reported compliant behaviour. Results of a cross-sectional survey amongst a large UK sample (N = 1,579) provided support for the hypothesis that COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs showed a polarising relationship with compliant behaviour through opposing emotional pathways. The relation was mediated by higher levels of anger, itself related to a lesser perceived importance of government restrictions, and simultaneous higher levels of anxiety, related to a greater perceived importance. Hope was also related to conspiracy beliefs and to greater perceived importance but played a weaker role in the mediational model. Results suggest that the behavioural correlates of conspiracy beliefs might not be straightforward, and highlight the importance of considering the emotional states such beliefs might elicit, when investigating their potential impact.

People comply with governmental restrictions for different motives, notably because they are concerned about the issue at hand or because they trust their government to enact appropriate regulations. The present study focuses on the role of concern and political trust in people's willingness to comply with governmental restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic. We conducted a survey amongst Italian and French participants ( N = 372) in March 2020 while both countries had imposed full lockdown. Moreover, a subsample of participants reported on their actual levels of compliance one week later ( N = 130). We hypothesised that either concern or trust should be sufficient to sustain participants' willingness to comply and actual behaviour, but that the absence of both (distrustful complacency) would reduce compliance significantly. Results supported this hypothesis. We discuss implications of the interaction between concern and trust for public behaviour strategies as the pandemic progresses.

People comply with governmental restrictions for different motives, notably because they are concerned about the issue at hand or because they trust their government to enact appropriate regulations. The present study focuses on the role of concern and political trust in people's willingness to comply with governmental restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic. We conducted a survey amongst Italian and French participants (N = 372) in March 2020 while both countries had imposed full lockdown. Moreover, a subsample of participants reported on their actual levels of compliance one week later (N = 130). We hypothesised that either concern or trust should be sufficient to sustain participants' willingness to comply and actual behaviour, but that the absence of both (distrustful complacency) would reduce compliance significantly. Results supported this hypothesis. We discuss implications of the interaction between concern and trust for public behaviour strategies as the pandemic progresses.

Research has consistently observed that social cohesion (the strength of relationship between the individual and the state, and between individuals and their fellow citizens) rises in the aftermath of natural disasters or mass tragedies. However, this sense of "coming together" is often short-lived and comes back to pre-disaster level within a matter of weeks. But what happened in the UK as the Covid-19 pandemic progressed? The first stages of the Covid-19 pandemic saw an extraordinary increase in kindness and social connection with people organising spontaneously to support those affected through neighbourhood support groups, reaching out to isolated community members through telephone calls, and the 'clap for carers'. However, as months pass social tensions appear to be rising again, along with increasing distrust of central government. Minority ethnic and religious communities have been accused of spreading the virus by not taking recommendations seriously, as have younger people – potentially fuelling increased tensions between groups within and across local communities. As the impact of the pandemic persists, so do the challenges for local authorities. Strong connections, local community knowledge and good relations have already proved important for local test, track and trace systems and to tailor health messages for diverse local groups and communities. With winter and tighter lockdown rules both imminent, we believe cohesion and integration will remain crucial in helping communities through the next six months and beyond. The "Beyond Us & Them" research project funded by the Nuffield Foundation aims to track people's perceptions of social cohesion in different places in the UK. An important feature of the project is that we collect the views of people living in six different local authority areas (five of which are a part of the government Integration Area programme and all of which have invested in social cohesion over the last two years), as well as other places and regions. This brief report ...

Abstract. In the context of nationals' attitudes toward immigrants, three studies investigated the moderating role of normative context and justification for prejudice on licensing effects. Justification for prejudice was either assessed (Studies 1 and 2) or experimentally induced (Study 3). The normative context (egalitarian vs. discriminatory) and the possibility to obtain (or not) credentials as a nonprejudiced person were manipulated in all studies. A licensing effect (i.e., greater prejudice in the credentials as compared to the no-credentials conditions) was observed only in the egalitarian norm condition when justification for prejudice was high. Thus, credentials appear to provide a way for establishing a normative self-image as nonprejudiced when justification for prejudice is high, which reduces conformity to an egalitarian norm.

In the month approaching the 2014 Scottish Independence referendum, we tested the Identity‐Deprivation‐Efficacy‐Action‐Subjective Well‐Being model using an electorally representative survey of Scottish adults (N = 1,156) to predict voting for independence and subjective well‐being. Based on social identity theory, we hypothesized for voting intention that the effects of collective relative deprivation, group identification, and collective efficacy, but not personal relative deprivation (PRD), should be fully mediated by social change ideology. Well‐being was predicted to be associated with PRD (negatively) and group identification (positively and, indirectly, negatively). Unaffected by demographic variables and differences in political interest, nested structural equation model tests supported the model, accounting for 82% of the variance in voting intention and 31% of the variance in subjective well‐being. However, effects involving efficacy depended on its temporal framing. We consider different ways that social identification can simultaneously enhance and diminish well‐being and we discuss ramifications of the model for collective mobilization and separatist nationalism. Findings also suggest new directions for research on social identity, collective efficacy, and collective action.

In the month approaching the 2014 Scottish Independence referendum, we tested the Identity‐Deprivation‐Efficacy‐Action‐Subjective Well‐Being model using an electorally representative survey of Scottish adults (N = 1,156) to predict voting for independence and subjective well‐being. Based on social identity theory, we hypothesized for voting intention that the effects of collective relative deprivation, group identification, and collective efficacy, but not personal relative deprivation (PRD), should be fully mediated by social change ideology. Well‐being was predicted to be associated with PRD (negatively) and group identification (positively and, indirectly, negatively). Unaffected by demographic variables and differences in political interest, nested structural equation model tests supported the model, accounting for 82% of the variance in voting intention and 31% of the variance in subjective well‐being. However, effects involving efficacy depended on its temporal framing. We consider different ways that social identification can simultaneously enhance and diminish well‐being and we discuss ramifications of the model for collective mobilization and separatist nationalism. Findings also suggest new directions for research on social identity, collective efficacy, and collective action.

We test the hypothesis that COVID‐19 vaccine hesitancy is attributable to distrustful complacency—an interactive combination of low concern and low trust. Across two studies, 9,695 respondents from different parts of Britain reported their level of concern about COVID‐19, trust in the UK government, and intention to accept or refuse the vaccine. Multilevel regression analysis, controlling for geographic area and relevant demographics, confirmed the predicted interactive effect of concern and trust. Across studies, respondents with both low trust and low concern were 10%–22% more vaccine hesitant than respondents with either high trust or high concern, and 26%–29% more hesitant than respondents with both high trust and high concern. Results hold equally among White, Black, and Muslim respondents, consistent with the view that regardless of mean‐level differences, a common process underlies vaccine hesitancy, underlining the importance of tackling distrustful complacency both generally and specifically among unvaccinated individuals and populations.