Changing collective behaviour and supporting non-pharmaceutical interventions is an important component in mitigating virus transmission during a pandemic. In a large international collaboration (Study 1, N = 49,968 across 67 countries), we investigated self-reported factors associated with public health behaviours (e.g., spatial distancing and stricter hygiene) and endorsed public policy interventions (e.g., closing bars and restaurants) during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic (April-May 2020). Respondents who reported identifying more strongly with their nation consistently reported greater engagement in public health behaviours and support for public health policies. Results were similar for representative and non-representative national samples. Study 2 (N = 42 countries) conceptually replicated the central finding using aggregate indices of national identity (obtained using the World Values Survey) and a measure of actual behaviour change during the pandemic (obtained from Google mobility reports). Higher levels of national identification prior to the pandemic predicted lower mobility during the early stage of the pandemic (r = −0.40). We discuss the potential implications of links between national identity, leadership, and public health for managing COVID-19 and future pandemics.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all domains of human life, including the economic and social fabric of societies. One of the central strategies for managing public health throughout the pandemic has been through persuasive messaging and collective behaviour change. To help scholars better understand the social and moral psychology behind public health behaviour, we present a dataset comprising of 51,404 individuals from 69 countries. This dataset was collected for the International Collaboration on Social & Moral Psychology of COVID-19 project (ICSMP COVID-19). This social science survey invited participants around the world to complete a series of moral and psychological measures and public health attitudes about COVID-19 during an early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic (between April and June 2020). The survey included seven broad categories of questions: COVID-19 beliefs and compliance behaviours; identity and social attitudes; ideology; health and well-being; moral beliefs and motivation; personality traits; and demographic variables. We report both raw and cleaned data, along with all survey materials, data visualisations, and psychometric evaluations of key variables.

At the beginning of 2020, COVID-19 became a global problem. Despite all the efforts to emphasize the relevance of preventive measures, not everyone adhered to them. Thus, learning more about the characteristics determining attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic is crucial to improving future interventions. In this study, we applied machine learning on the multi-national data collected by the International Collaboration on the Social and Moral Psychology of COVID-19 (N = 51,404) to test the predictive efficacy of constructs from social, moral, cognitive, and personality psychology, as well as socio-demographic factors, in the attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic. The results point to several valuable insights. Internalized moral identity provided the most consistent predictive contribution—individuals perceiving moral traits as central to their self-concept reported higher adherence to preventive measures. Similar was found for morality as cooperation, symbolized moral identity, self-control, open-mindedness, collective narcissism, while the inverse relationship was evident for the endorsement of conspiracy theories. However, we also found a non-negligible variability in the explained variance and predictive contributions with respect to macro-level factors such as the pandemic stage or cultural region. Overall, the results underscore the importance of morality-related and contextual factors in understanding adherence to public health recommendations during the pandemic.

The purpose of this study was to adapt Stirling Children’s Well-Being Scale (SCWBS) for measuring well-being of children of Bangladesh. Data were collected from 238 students, ages between 10 to 16 years of three different schools of Dhaka city. Psychometric properties were measured through Cronbach’s alpha (0.746), split-half (0.782), test-retest (0.791), which were satisfactory, respectively at 0.05, 0.05, and 0.01 level of significance. The demonstration of construct validity with Beck Self-Concept Inventory for Youth (BSCI-Y) and Beck Anxiety Inventory for Youth (BAI-Y) (two subtests of Adapted Bangla Beck Youth Inventories of Emotional and Social Impairment Scale) were 0.668 and –0.350, respectively, and item-total correlation (0.258 to 0.451) was also satisfactory. Thus psychometric results support that Bangla SCWBS is suitable for use in Bangladesh context. Mental health professionals can use Bangla SCWBS as a useful tool to assess changes in children’s wellbeing from a positive psychological perspective. Dhaka Univ. J. Biol. Sci. 25(2): 161-167, 2016 (July)

In this article the author name 'Agustin Ibanez' was incorrectly written as 'Augustin Ibanez'. The original article has been corrected.