The COVID-19 pandemic and seeking information about condoms online: an infodemiology approach

Heightened religiosity proactively and reactively responds to the COVID-19 pandemic across the globe: Novel insights from the parasite-stress theory of sociality and the behavioral immune system theory

“…Thus, this research used Google Trends, a big data tool tracking real-time online searches on specific topics ( Arora et al, 2019 ), to capture people’s real-time intrinsic religiosity ( Alper, 2019 , Pelham et al, 2018 ). As detailed in recent studies, Google Trends data collection approaches ( Ma, 2022 , Ma and Ye, 2021a , Sousa-Pinto et al, 2020 , Sousa-Pinto et al, 2021 ) were followed.…”

“…As discussed in recent studies ( Ma, 2022 , Ma and Ye, 2021a , Ma and Ye, 2022 , Sousa-Pinto et al, 2020 , Sousa-Pinto et al, 2021 ), topic search terms were appropriate for cross-national comparative research, because such terms include the search volumes for all specific search terms that share similar concepts into the specific topics ( Choi & Varian, 2012 ), irrespective of which languages are used to search these terms ( Dilmaghani, 2020 , Yeung, 2019 ). Therefore, using topic search terms can 1) capture similar concepts related to the religious search terms (e.g., Christ was related to Jesus ), 2) rule out linguistic influences (e.g., different languages could be used to search for the religious terms), and 3) minimize the influences of noises (e.g., taboo words such as “Jesus Christ"; see Jay, 2009 ).…”

“…First, COVID-19 severity index in the preceding day (day t – 1) was controlled to rule out the temporal autocorrelation structure of the dependent variable ( Alper, 2019 , Ma, 2022 , Ma and Ye, 2021a , Pelham et al, 2018 ). Second, day was controlled to account for time-trend effect on the outcome variable.…”

“…Indeed, Ma and Ye (2021b) have tested the parasite-stress theory of sociality from the BIS perspective and showed that strong family ties and heightened religiosity, two extended elements of in-group assortative sociality ( Fincher & Thornhill, 2012 ), significantly and negatively predicted COVID-19 severity across American states. Using Google Trends, a big data tool which is frequently employed to track the public interests on specific topics during the pandemic ( Adam-Troian and Bagci, 2021 , Ma, 2022 , Ma and Ye, 2021a , Ma and Ye, 2021b ), Ma and Ye (2021b) found that increases in collective concerns regarding the threat of COVID-19 predicted increases in American people’s interests in searching for information related to family ties and religions. Importantly, heightened religiosity, compared with strong family ties, was more strongly related to the COVID-19 pandemic ( Ma & Ye, 2021b ).…”

“…Therefore, if heightened religiosity does indeed serve an anti-pathogen function ( Fincher and Thornhill, 2008 , Fincher and Thornhill, 2012 ), countries/territories with more religions/ethnoreligions and more religious searches, compared with less religious countries/territories, could have better control of the COVID-19 outbreak. On the other hand, recent development of Internet technologies and ease of retrieving online query data enable social and cross-cultural psychologists to test the effects of COVID-19 pandemic on influencing human psychology across different populations ( Brodeur et al, 2021 , Husain et al, 2020 , Husnayain et al, 2020 , Ma, 2021b , Ma, 2022 , Ma and Ye, 2021a , Ma and Ye, 2021b , Ma and Ye, 2022 ). If indeed heightened religiosity is for pathogen avoidance ( Fincher and Thornhill, 2008 , Fincher and Thornhill, 2012 ), religious searches would be responsive to heightened COVID-19 threat, given that intrinsic religiosity assesses the extent to which people are intrinsically motivated to be religious ( Allport and Ross, 1967 , Cohen et al, 2017 ).…”