Although masks (face coverings) are a prime tool in fighting airborne pathogens, during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States the use of masks encountered resistance based on existing patterns of cultural division. We argue that mask wearing must be understood basis on existing cultural frames assessed at both the individual level and the state level. We relied on prominent frameworks in cultural psychology: individualism-collectivism as well as independent and interdependent self-construals, the tightness-looseness framework, U.S. honor cultures, and political orientation as predictors. Using multilevel modeling, in a sample of 633 respondents from 45 U.S. states we investigated mask-wearing behavior, masks' perceived utility, implications for well-being, and the social meaning attributed to masks. Conservatism was linked to lower mask wearing, and consistently unfavorable perceptions of mask wearing. Collective interdependence predicted favorable perceptions of masks, as did state-level differences in collectivism; both constructs were linked with viewing mask wearing to be normative. Independent self-construal predicted a greater intent to wear masks, even though masks were also evaluated less favorably. Mediation analyses revealed that a single mediator, the perceived utility of mask wearing, was implicated in translating the effects of different cultural predictors into behavior. Additional findings highlighted that in tightener (vs. looser) states masks wearing was conceived of as a civic duty, whereas in U.S. honor states mask were seen as spoiling one's public image. Our discussion focuses on the cultural and political context of mask wearing, argues that different communities in the U.S. respond to its symbolic and social meaning, and suggest strategies to increase mask wearing among those who are otherwise reluctant to do so.

Subjective well-being is a universal and vital element of human flourishing. The WHO-5 is one of the most widely used scales for assessing general well-being and depression. Despite translations in over 30 languages, no comprehensive study has thus far examined the measurement equivalence of the WHO-5 across countries and time. Lack of measurement invariance might occur because of the variation in how people in different societies respond to surveys or differences in the cultural norms surrounding the expression of well-being and emotions. In this study, we relied on three waves of the European Quality of Life Survey (2009, 2014, 2017a, 2017b) to determine to what extent the WHO-5 taps the same construct in an equivalent fashion across 36 European countries over an 8-year span. We found evidence for both configural and metric invariance across different conceptualizations of culture and indicators of response styles. Although scalar invariance was not reliably found in multigroup factor analysis, results from alignment optimization revealed adequate approximate invariance across groupings, suggesting that the WHO-5 is applicable for cross-cultural mean comparisons. However, it is debatable if approximate invariance is sufficient to establish a clinical criterion for depression/ impaired mental health. We discuss the implications of our results.

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Objectives : Political opportunity is considered an important factor in any kind of activism, as it represents the context or norms in which a movement operates. Much of the extant literature has focused on political opportunity on a case‐by‐case basis with little consistency in its operationalization. Our goal in this study is to build toward a generalizable measure of political opportunity. To do so, we measured opportunities as democracy and used data from 90+ countries over a 40‐year period, testing the long‐theorized inverse‐U relationship between opportunity and protest. Methods : We used all seven waves of the World Value Survey, which represents much of the world's countries, to examine the link between political opportunity and political behaviors (signing a petition, joining boycotts, and attending peaceful protests). Results : Results confirmed the inverse‐U effect on all three protest behaviors; that is, middle‐of‐the‐road democracies had the highest levels of protest participation, whereas the most representative and most repressive societies had the lowest levels of protest participation. Conclusion : Democracy can be used to represent important dimensions of political opportunity, as it was consistent with the long‐theorized inverse‐U. Moreover, our approach to using democracy, a cross‐national index, may serve as a stepping stone toward a unified and generalizable measure of political opportunity.

Communism substantially shaped the values and beliefs of those who grew up under its regime. We argue that, after the Soviet Union’s collapse and the rapid transition to democracy and capitalism, many older people in post-communist countries continued to abide by an “ethos of equality” that was part of their socialization. These individuals continue to believe that it is the government’s responsibility to establish social equality; hence, they should evaluate social and political institutions based on the level of inequality that exists in their country. Using the 2016 European Quality of Life Survey, we examined to what extent levels of social inequality moderated the effects of age on social views and personal outcomes in post-communist and non-communist societies. We found that, especially in highly unequal post-communist societies, older individuals were less satisfied with democracy and trusted societal institutions less than their younger counterparts, whereas this was much less likely to be the case in post-communist countries with low inequality. There was no link between age and social views in non-communist societies, regardless of levels of inequality. Other than suggested by some scholars, inequality did not have any implications for evaluations of one’s personal life. The discussion focuses on the implications of our findings and their contributions to current research on social inequality and on the legacy of communism.