Positive and Negative Peace as Predictors of Pandemic Preparedness: Evidence from a Micro- and Macro-Level Investigation During the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated unprecedented human loss and financial difficulties worldwide. In line with recent calls for social sciences to help collective efforts to address COVID-19, we investigated the link between peace and pandemic preparedness, advancing the literatures on negative (i.e., absence of direct violence) and positive peace (i.e., absence of structural violence and presence of equality) and governments' crisis preparedness as well as crisis relief efforts. Two studies tested whether both positive and negative peace predict pandemic preparedness, operationalized as COVID-19 tests, cases, and positivity rates, during the onset of the pandemic. Study 1 did so at the national level across 155 countries; Study 2 did so at a local level, across 3144 counties within the United States. Even after controlling for population size, population density, GDP, and amount of air travel, higher levels of both negative and positive peace predicted a greater number of COVID-19 tests per one million people, fewer overall COVID-19 cases, and a lower positivity rate. These findings point to the possibility that by promoting peace, governments and the international community could potentially become better prepared to handle future pandemics and other crises.

The Morality of War: A Review and Research Agenda

What is judged as morally right and wrong in war? I argue that despite many decades of research on moral psychology and the psychology of intergroup conflict, social psychology does not yet have a good answer to this question. However, it is a question of great importance because its answer has implications for decision-making in war, public policy, and international law. I therefore suggest a new way for psychology researchers to study the morality of war that combines the strengths of philosophical just-war theory with experimental techniques and theories developed for the psychological study of morality more generally. This novel approach has already begun to elucidate the moral judgments third-party observers make in war, and I demonstrate that these early findings have important implications for moral psychology, just-war theory, and the understanding of the morality of war.

Promoting Inter-Ethnic Understanding and Empathy Using a Round Table Cinema Activity with Malaysian Malay and Chinese Students

The Round Table Cinema Activity (RTCA) is an intervention designed to promote improved multicultural understanding by having different social identity groups watch a carefully-selected film and take part in repeated dialogic exchanges. Here, we examined the efficacy of the RTCA paradigm at improving inter-ethnic understanding and empathy among members of different social identity groups from the same country (i.e., Malaysian Malays and Chinese). A total of 87 participants completed a measure of ethnocultural empathy before and after the RTCA paradigm, which involved watching the film Sepet, taking part in group discussions, and answering open-ended question about their experiences. Analyses of written responses suggested that the RTCA was successful at promoting intergroup dialogue and exchange of ideas. Analyses of quantitative data suggested significant and large improvements in ethnocultural empathy at post-intervention. Our findings suggest that the RTCA paradigm may be a useful tool for promoting inter-ethnic harmony in the Malaysian context.

Being nice isn’t enough: Prosocial orientation and perceptions of self-uniqueness jointly promote outgroup reparation

Using a real-life case of intergroup victimization (i.e., victimization of migrant workers in Korea), we tested our hypothesis that positive attitudes toward compensating a victimized outgroup and intention to participate in ingroup corrective actions would be facilitated when a prosocial orientation is combined with high levels of perceived self-uniqueness. In Study 1, we measured participants’ social value orientation and their self-attributed need for uniqueness as our independent variables ( N = 249) and found a predicted interaction effect, such that prosocials with high levels of perceived self-uniqueness were more likely to support outgroup compensation and more willing to engage in ingroup corrective actions than were prosocials with low levels of self-uniqueness. In contrast, for proselfs neither compensation nor intention to participate in ingroup correction varied as a function of self-uniqueness. We replicated these findings in Study 2 ( N = 106), in which we measured participants’ trait agreeableness as an index of prosocial orientation and manipulated self-uniqueness via priming. Implications of our findings for research on outgroup reparation and future directions are discussed.

Emotion regulation and prejudice reduction following acute terrorist events: The impact of reflection before and after the Boston Marathon bombings

Research suggests that regulating negative emotional responses to threatening events can help reduce outgroup bias. The present research examined the effect of emotion regulation strategies on outgroup bias during relatively benign versus threatening time periods. Participants were assigned to regulate their emotions (reflection, rumination, or control) while reading a reminder of a past terrorist event and then reported their anger and bias toward Muslims. The bombings at the 2013 Boston Marathon occurred during data collection, which allowed us to examine the effect of emotion regulation on bias before versus after these events via a 3 (emotion regulation) x 2 (timing of bombings) between-subjects design. A two-way interaction between emotion regulation condition and timing emerged on bias and anger. Reflection (compared to rumination or control) reduced bias and anger toward Muslims but only after the bombings. The reduction in anger mediated the effect of reflection on bias only after the bombings. The results provide evidence that reflection is effective at reducing bias when people are experiencing an intense outgroup threat.

Uncertainty as knowledge

This issue of Philosophical Transactions examines the relationship between scientific uncertainty about climate change and knowledge. Uncertainty is an inherent feature of the climate system. Considerable effort has therefore been devoted to understanding how to effectively respond to a changing, yet uncertain climate. Politicians and the public often appeal to uncertainty as an argument to delay mitigative action. We argue that the appropriate response to uncertainty is exactly the opposite: uncertainty provides an impetus to be concerned about climate change, because greater uncertainty increases the risks associated with climate change. We therefore suggest that uncertainty can be a source of actionable knowledge. We survey the papers in this issue, which address the relationship between uncertainty and knowledge from physical, economic and social perspectives. We also summarize the pervasive psychological effects of uncertainty, some of which may militate against a meaningful response to climate change, and we provide pointers to how those difficulties may be ameliorated.

Group interaction as the crucible of social identity formation: A glimpse at the foundations of social identities for collective action

Many of the world’s biggest problems are being tackled through the formation of new groups yet very little research has directly observed the processes by which new groups form to respond to social problems. The current paper draws on seminal research by Lewin (1947) to advance a perspective as to how such identities form through processes of small group interaction. Multilevel structural equation modelling involving 58 small group discussions (with N = 234) demonstrates that focused group discussion can boost the commitment to take collective action, beliefs in the efficacy of that action, and members’ social identification with other supporters of the cause. The results are consistent with the new commitment to action flowing from emergent social identities.