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.

One key motivating force for bonding across animals is their need to regulate body temperature, also called social thermoregulation. This phenomenon has been extensively documented in animals, but only recently its existence has been suggested in humans. Psychology, however, has been faced with conflicting findings and the social thermoregulation literature has been no exception. We conducted a meta-analysis of the social thermoregulation literature in humans with the goal of estimating bias-corrected effect sizes and examining the evidential value. We included studies in English on humans and coded studies based on three theoretical frameworks (Bargh, Lakoff, and IJzerman). We found that temperature can be “primed” and that support for “compensation” is mixed. Social thermoregulation’s effect sizes are symmetrical and bidirectional and there was insufficient data available to examine claims about moderation by attachment and latitude. Further, based on the available information in the literature, we cannot establish whether social thermoregulatory behaviors and cognitions are automatic. Results for different subfields (e.g., Emotion, Interpersonal) and methods (e.g., verbal/visual or tactile prime) were mixed. Results for the full dataset were moderated by proportion of women in the dataset, but no moderation by climate was detected. Standard error also decreased over the years, meaning that publication practices in this literature are slightly improving, but heterogeneity is substantial. Better measurements, more diverse samples, and Registered Reports will be necessary for a higher-quality social thermoregulation literature.

Significance Communicating in ways that motivate engagement in social distancing remains a critical global public health priority during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study tested motivational qualities of messages about social distancing (those that promoted choice and agency vs. those that were forceful and shaming) in 25,718 people in 89 countries. The autonomy-supportive message decreased feelings of defying social distancing recommendations relative to the controlling message, and the controlling message increased controlled motivation, a less effective form of motivation, relative to no message. Message type did not impact intentions to socially distance, but people’s existing motivations were related to intentions. Findings were generalizable across a geographically diverse sample and may inform public health communication strategies in this and future global health emergencies.

We conducted a pre-registered meta-analysis to appraise available evidence on two stress regulation strategies: Self-administered mindfulness meditation and heart rate variability biofeedback. We used a combination of keywords to find as many experimental and observational studies as possible, all of which highlighted a link between the two strategies and different components of stress (physiological, affective, and cognitive) and affective consequences of stress. To provide publication bias-corrected estimates, we employed multilevel regression-based methods and permutation-based selection models. We found no evidence for the efficacy of either strategy, which is mostly due to the low quality of the literature, high heterogeneity, high risk of bias, and the lack of Registered Reports. We recommend against relying on these interventions prior to obtaining a more reliable evidence base.

No abstract