This N = 173,426 social science dataset was collected through the collaborative COVIDiSTRESS Global Survey – an open science effort to improve understanding of the human experiences of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic between 30th March and 30th May, 2020. The dataset allows a cross-cultural study of psychological and behavioural responses to the Coronavirus pandemic and associated government measures like cancellation of public functions and stay at home orders implemented in many countries. The dataset contains demographic background variables as well as measures of Asian Disease Problem, perceived stress (PSS-10), availability of social provisions (SPS-10), trust in various authorities, trust in governmental measures to contain the virus (OECD trust), personality traits (BFF-15), information behaviours, agreement with the level of government intervention, and compliance with preventive measures, along with a rich pool of exploratory variables and written experiences. A global consortium from 39 countries and regions worked together to build and translate a survey with variables of shared interests, and recruited participants in 47 languages and dialects. Raw plus cleaned data and dynamic visualizations are available.

A generalized climate of distrust in political institutions is not functional to healthy democracies. With the advent of social media, recent scholarly efforts attempt to better understand people's conspiracy theory beliefs in inhibiting institutional trust. This study contributes to this literature by considering the direct antecedent effects of uncertainty avoidance and the moderating role of active social media use—SMU (i.e., interactional SMU, informational SMU, and political expressive SMU). The former is theorized to enable conspiracy theories to thrive, while the latter should cushion the negative effects of conspiracy beliefs on institutional trust. Relying on diverse survey data across different cultures from Europe, the Americas, and New Zealand (N = 11,958) and applying structural equation modeling, findings supported the hypothesized model. In high uncertainty‐avoidance societies, where less well‐known situations are perceived as uncomfortable or downright threatening, conspiracy beliefs proliferate and negatively impact institutional trust. Active SMU attenuates these effects. Via social media, citizens have the ability to strengthen social relationships (interactional SMU), keep themselves informed about the community (informational SMU), and engage in political self‐expression (political expressive SMU), which mitigate conspiracy‐belief negative effects on institutional trust. Future research implications and key limitations of the study are all discussed.

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased negative emotions and decreased positive emotions globally. Left unchecked, these emotional changes might have a wide array of adverse impacts. To reduce negative emotions and increase positive emotions, we tested the effectiveness of reappraisal, an emotion-regulation strategy that modifies how one thinks about a situation. Participants from 87 countries and regions (n = 21,644) were randomly assigned to one of two brief reappraisal interventions (reconstrual or repurposing) or one of two control conditions (active or passive). Results revealed that both reappraisal interventions (vesus both control conditions) consistently reduced negative emotions and increased positive emotions across different measures. Reconstrual and repurposing interventions had similar effects. Importantly, planned exploratory analyses indicated that reappraisal interventions did not reduce intentions to practice preventive health behaviours. The findings demonstrate the viability of creating scalable, low-cost interventions for use around the world.

People often make inferences about the values of other people in their families, cities, and countries, but there are reasons to expect systematic biases in these inferences. Across four studies (N = 1,763), we examined people’s perceptions of the values of their families, fellow citizens of the cities in which they live, and compatriots across three nations (Brazil, Germany, the United Kingdom). Our results show that people systematically misperceive comparison groups’ values. People underestimate the importance that their compatriots ascribe to more important values and overestimate the importance of less important values. This occurs in comparison with their own values, the actual values of the people living in the same city and the actual values of their compatriots. The effect sizes were medium to large. Furthermore, the results occurred independently of participants’ culture, time spent in the culture, and the underlying value model used. These results consistently show that people’s speculations about values in their community and society are biased in a self- and family favoring direction. In addition, we found that the structure of values (e.g., as proposed by Schwartz) holds for perceived family, fellow citizens of the cities in which they live, and compatriots’ values. Overall, our findings suggest that the values of other people are more selfless than is often believed.

We propose a short and ultrashort version of the Vengeance Scale (Stuckless & Goranson, 1992). Across three samples, good psychometric properties and convergent validity for the new scales were found. Study 1 found in a Brazilian sample that the original 20 items can be reduced to both a 10 and 5 item version (VS-10 and VS-5), without losing psychometric quality. In Study 2, the one-factorial structure was confirmed in a Brazilian and a British sample. Also, (partial) measurement invariance was established across gender and countries for the VS-10, but not for the VS-5. Across both samples, the short-versions correlated as expected with the Big-5, Big-6, and Dark Triad. Overall, the 10-and 5-item versions of the vengeance scale exhibited comparable reliabilities and validities to the full version.

This study examines age and sex differences in human values, with GDP, GGI (Gender Gap Index), and individualism-collectivism as culture-level moderators, using representative data for age and sex across 20 countries with substantial cultural variability (N ϭ 21,362). Cross-sectional findings revealed that all values dimensions varied in importance over the life span and that men and women are slightly different across most life stages. Specifically, older adults scored higher than young adults in values with social (interactive and normative) and central goals (suprapersonal and existence), whereas values with personal goals (excitement and promotion) showed the opposite pattern. In general, women were higher on social and central goals and men were higher on personal goals. Interactions between age and sex showed that men and women were identical in excitement values when young, and in interactive values when old, but there were significant differences between them in almost all other life stages. There was almost no moderation effect of culture, supporting the life span development psychology idea that values reflect a universal pattern of human agency in facing challenges over the life span.

Immigration is a worldwide subject of interest, and studies about attitudes toward immigrants have been frequent due to immigration crises in different locations across the globe. We aimed at understanding individual‐level effects of human values and ideological beliefs (Right‐Wing Authoritarianism—RWA, and Social Dominance Orientation—SDO) on attitudes toward immigrants, and whether country‐level variables (perception of Islamic fundamentalism as a threat, perception of immigrants as a threat, and international migrant stock) moderate these relations. With representative samples from 20 countries (N = 21,362; the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Oceania), and using Multilevel Bayesian regressions, results showed the negative effect of RWA, SDO, and existence values on attitudes toward immigrants, and the positive effects of suprapersonal and interactive values. Cross‐level interactions indicated that the effects of RWA, SDO, and suprapersonal and existence values were intensified in countries with societally high levels of perceiving Islamic fundamentalism as a threat. International migrant stock served as a country‐level moderator for the effects of SDO and RWA only. When country‐level moderators were included simultaneously, Islamic fundamentalism as a threat was the most consistent moderator. Framing theory is offered as a plausible explanation of these results.

The COVID-19 pandemic is increasing negative emotions and decreasing positive emotions globally. Left unchecked, these emotional changes may have a wide array of adverse impacts. To reduce negative emotions and increase positive emotions, we will examine the impact of reappraisal, a widely studied and highly effective form of emotion regulation. Participants from 55 countries (expected N = 25,448) will be randomly assigned to one of two brief reappraisal interventions (reconstrual or repurposing), an active control condition, or a passive control condition. We predict that both reappraisal interventions will reduce negative emotions and increase positive emotions relative to the control conditions. We further predict that reconstrual will decrease negative emotions more than repurposing, and that repurposing will increase positive emotions more than reconstrual. We hope to inform efforts to create a scalable intervention for use around the world to build resilience during the pandemic and beyond.