Many challenges faced by humans require large-scale cooperation for communal benefits. We examined what motivates such cooperation in the context of social distancing and mask wearing to reduce the transmission intensity of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). We hypothesized that collectivism, a cultural variable characterizing the extent that individuals see themselves in relation to others, contributes to people’s willingness to engage in these behaviors. Consistent with preregistered predictions, across three studies (n=2864), including a U.S. nationally representative sample, people’s collectivist orientation is positively associated with intentions, positive beliefs, norm perceptions, and policy support for the preventive behaviors. In separate analyses at the country level (n=69 countries), more collectivist countries demonstrated lower growth rate in both COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths. Together, these studies demonstrate the positive role of collectivism at the individual- and country-level in reducing COVID-19 transmission, and highlight the need to consider culture in public health policies and communications.

Information sharing is a ubiquitous social behavior. What causes people to share? Mentalizing, or considering the mental states of other people, has been theorized to play a central role in information sharing, with higher activity in the brain’s mentalizing system associated with increased likelihood to share information. In line with this theory, we present novel evidence that mentalizing causally increases information sharing. In three pre-registered studies (n = 400, 840, and 3500 participants), participants who were instructed to consider the mental states of potential information receivers indicated higher likelihood to share health news compared to a control condition where they were asked to reflect on the content of the article. Certain kinds of mentalizing were particularly effective; in particular, considering receivers’ emotional and positive mental states, led to the greatest increase in likelihood to share. The relationship between mentalizing and sharing was mediated by feelings of closeness with potential receivers. Mentalizing increased feelings of connectedness to potential receivers, and in turn, increased likelihood of information sharing. Considering receivers’ emotional, positive, and inward-focused mental states was most effective at driving participants to feel closer with potential receivers and increase sharing. Data provide evidence for a causal relationship between mentalizing and information sharing and provide insight about the mechanism linking mentalizing and sharing. Taken together, these results advance theories of information sharing and shed light on previously observed brain-behavior relationships.

Objective: Alcohol is theorized to be motivated by desires to regulate negative affect and/or to enhance positive affect. We tested the association between momentary affect and alcohol use in the daily lives of college students, hypothesizing that alcohol use would be more likely to follow increases in positive affect and that alcohol use would not be strongly associated with negative affect. Method: Using two ecological momentary assessment (EMA) studies consisting of two prompts per day for 28 days, we used multilevel hurdle models to test for lagged associations between positive and negative affect and alcohol use. There were 108 participants (60.19%; mean age = 20.20, SD=1.69) in EMA study 1 and 268 participants (60.03%women, mean age = 20.22, SD=1.96) in EMA study 2. To provide context for the affect-alcohol associations, we collected data on whether participants drank alone or with others at each drinking occasion and the drinking motives of participants using the Drinking Motives Questionnaire. Results: Alcohol use was more likely to occur following increases in positive affect. No significant associations emerged between fluctuations in negative affect and alcohol use. This pattern of findings was observed across both ecological momentary assessment studies. The majority of alcohol use occurred in social contexts. Conclusions: College students who report primarily social and enhancement motives for drinking and who seldom drink alone are more likely to drink following increases in positive affect.

There are marked individual differences in the impact of daily stress on health. We use trait measures of well-being, here quantified as flourishing, and daily reports of stress and negative mood to test (i) the moderating effects of flourishing on affective reactivity and recovery in response to increases in daily stress. To examine whether high curiosity acts as a resource to diminish stress effects, we additionally test (ii) the association between flourishing and curiosity and (iii) the associations between day’s curiosity and both affective reactivity and recovery. We then test for (iv) prospective associations between affective reactivity and recovery and change in flourishing over 3 months. People high in flourishing show lower affective reactivity and augmented recovery. Participants high in flourishing exhibit more frequent days of high curiosity and high curiosity buffers the effects of stress on day’s mood. Finally, greater affective reactivity is associated with longitudinal decreases in flourishing.

Quitting smoking is notoriously difficult. Models of nicotine dependence posit that deficits in cognitive control contribute to failures to maintain smoking abstinence during smoking cessation attempts. We examine the role for large-scale functional brain systems associated with cognitive control in smoking lapse. We use data from 70, five-minute functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans in 17 daily smokers (5 female) undergoing a smoking lapse paradigm after 12 hours of smoking abstinence. Cox regression results indicate that decreased segregation of the default mode system from the frontoparietal system undermine the ability to resist smoking. Results lend support to the hypothesis that large-scale functional brain systems associated with cognitive control are implicated in smoking lapse behavior and point to the importance of cognitive control as a mechanism underlying smoking relapse.