The Psychological Science Accelerator's COVID-19 rapid-response dataset

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Psychological Science Accelerator coordinated three large-scale psychological studies to examine the effects of loss-gain framing, cognitive reappraisals, and autonomy framing manipulations on behavioral intentions and affective measures. The data collected (April to October 2020) included specific measures for each experimental study, a general questionnaire examining health prevention behaviors and COVID-19 experience, geographical and cultural context characterization, and demographic information for each participant. Each participant started the study with the same general questions and then was randomized to complete either one longer experiment or two shorter experiments. Data were provided by 73,223 participants with varying completion rates. Participants completed the survey from 111 geopolitical regions in 44 unique languages/dialects. The anonymized dataset described here is provided in both raw and processed formats to facilitate re-use and further analyses. The dataset offers secondary analytic opportunities to explore coping, framing, and self-determination across a diverse, global sample obtained at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which can be merged with other time-sampled or geographic data.

Psychometric Properties and Measurement Invariance of a Short Form of the Unified Multidimensional Calling Scale (UMCS)

Abstract. This paper reports on the development of a unidimensional short scale for measuring career calling (UMCS-7). The scale has been developed drawing from the theoretical model behind the Unified Multidimensional Calling Scale (UMCS; Vianello et al., 2018 ), according to which calling is composed of Passion, Prosociality, Purpose, Pervasiveness, Sacrifice, Transcendent Summons, and Identity. The UMCS-7 integrates classical and modern conceptualizations of career calling and can be used when time constraints prevent using the UMCS. The UMCS-7 has been validated in a sample of Italian workers ( N = 1,246) using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. A sample of US employees ( N = 165) was used to estimate measurement invariance across languages, establishing the equivalence of factor loadings, all but two intercepts, and all error variances. The UMCS-7 demonstrated nearly perfect convergent validity with the UMCS ( r = .97), excellent internal consistency (αItaly = .86; αUS = .87), and satisfactory concurrent validity with job satisfaction, life satisfaction, and turnover intentions.

Career Calling and Task Performance: The Moderating Role of Job Demand

The Work as a Calling Theory (WCT) predicts that career calling fosters job performance. A quantitative summary of previous work supports this prediction and shows that the relation between calling and job performance is moderate in size ( ρ = .29, K = 11, N = 2286) . Yet, the environmental conditions that modulate this relation are completely unknown. According to an interactionist perspective, we argue that calling may predict performance only when job demand is low. Results of a multisource study on salesmen and managers dyads ( N= 965) partially supported this prediction. We observed that highly demanding work environments, characterized by pressure to perform, high workload, and unachievable deadlines, suppress the positive relation between calling and self-reported performance. Job demand directly impairs performance and suppresses the positive effect of career calling. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.

A multi-country test of brief reappraisal interventions on emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic

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. PROTOCOL REGISTRATION: The stage 1 protocol for this Registered Report was accepted in principle on 12 May 2020. The protocol, as accepted by the journal, can be found at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4878591.v1.

Revealing the Complex Nature of Bonding in the Binary High-Pressure Compound FeO_{2}

Extreme pressures and temperatures are known to drastically affect the chemistry of iron oxides, resulting in numerous compounds forming homologous series nFeOmFe_{2}O_{3} and the appearance of FeO_{2}. Here, based on the results of in situ single-crystal x-ray diffraction, Mössbauer spectroscopy, x-ray absorption spectroscopy, and density-functional theory+dynamical mean-field theory calculations, we demonstrate that iron in high-pressure cubic FeO_{2} and isostructural FeO_{2}H_{0.5} is ferric (Fe^{3+}), and oxygen has a formal valence less than 2. Reduction of oxygen valence from 2, common for oxides, down to 1.5 can be explained by a formation of a localized hole at oxygen sites.

Many Labs 5: Registered Replication of Payne, Burkley, and Stokes (2008), Study 4

To rule out an alternative to their structural-fit hypothesis, Payne, Burkley, and Stokes (2008) demonstrated that correlations between implicit and explicit race attitudes were weaker when participants were put under high pressure to respond without bias than when they were placed under low pressure. This effect was replicated in Italy by Vianello (2015), although the replication effect was smaller than the original effect. In the current investigation, we examined the possibility that the source of a study’s sample moderates this effect. Teams from eight universities, four in the United States and four in Italy, replicated the original study (replication N = 1,103). Although we did detect moderation by the sample’s country, it was due to a reversal of the original effect in the United States and a lack of the original effect in Italy. We discuss this curious finding and possible explanations.

Many Labs 5: Testing Pre-Data-Collection Peer Review as an Intervention to Increase Replicability

Replication studies in psychological science sometimes fail to reproduce prior findings. If these studies use methods that are unfaithful to the original study or ineffective in eliciting the phenomenon of interest, then a failure to replicate may be a failure of the protocol rather than a challenge to the original finding. Formal pre-data-collection peer review by experts may address shortcomings and increase replicability rates. We selected 10 replication studies from the Reproducibility Project: Psychology (RP:P; Open Science Collaboration, 2015) for which the original authors had expressed concerns about the replication designs before data collection; only one of these studies had yielded a statistically significant effect ( p < .05). Commenters suggested that lack of adherence to expert review and low-powered tests were the reasons that most of these RP:P studies failed to replicate the original effects. We revised the replication protocols and received formal peer review prior to conducting new replication studies. We administered the RP:P and revised protocols in multiple laboratories (median number of laboratories per original study = 6.5, range = 3–9; median total sample = 1,279.5, range = 276–3,512) for high-powered tests of each original finding with both protocols. Overall, following the preregistered analysis plan, we found that the revised protocols produced effect sizes similar to those of the RP:P protocols (Δ r = .002 or .014, depending on analytic approach). The median effect size for the revised protocols ( r = .05) was similar to that of the RP:P protocols ( r = .04) and the original RP:P replications ( r = .11), and smaller than that of the original studies ( r = .37). Analysis of the cumulative evidence across the original studies and the corresponding three replication attempts provided very precise estimates of the 10 tested effects and indicated that their effect sizes (median r = .07, range = .00–.15) were 78% smaller, on average, than the original effect sizes (median r = .37, range = .19–.50).

Healthcare professionals with calling are less likely to be burned out: the role of social worth and career stage

Purpose

The association of calling with burnout is not well understood. This study investigates how calling influences burnout and what the roles of social worth and career stage are in this relation. Drawing from the Conservation of Resources Theory, we expect that calling may be negatively associated with burnout through increased social worth and that career stage moderates these relationships.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on a sample of 566 healthcare professionals, we conducted regression analyses with bootstrapping procedures to test the proposed hypotheses.

Findings

The findings show that social worth mediates the negative relation between calling and burnout. Additionally, the positive relation between calling and social worth was more pronounced for late-career employees; yet, the negative relation between social worth and burnout was stronger for early-career employees.

Practical implications

The findings suggest that searching and pursuing a professional calling is beneficial for individuals. Additionally, social worth is crucial in this relation and could be used to actively prevent burnout.

Originality/value

The study advances our understanding of the consequences of calling for employees by explaining the underlying mechanism between calling and burnout and its importance at different career stages.

Linking Calling With Workaholism: Examining Obsessive and Harmonious Passion as Mediators and Moderators

Career calling is a positive construct that describes how much individuals see their work as a meaningful and consuming passion, experienced as a transcendent summons, that defines their identity, their life’s purpose, and contributes to the common good. Somewhat surprisingly, recent research suggested that calling fosters workaholism. In a cross-sectional study ( N = 235), we investigated obsessive and harmonious passion as mediators and moderators of the relation between calling and workaholism. Results suggested that the relation between calling and workaholism is completely mediated by obsessive passion and partially mediated by harmonious passion. In addition, we observed that obsessive passion moderates the relation between calling and workaholism, such that when obsessive passion is high, calling protects individuals from workaholism. These results put into question the so-called dark side of calling.

Data from a three-wave complete longitudinal design survey on career calling and related constructs (N = 6368)

This dataset provides de-identified raw responses to a non-anonymous three-wave online survey with a 12-month time lag. Data collection was part of a larger project on the development of career calling in Italian college students. The first wave was collected during the fall of 2014. Participants were bachelor's or master's students enrolled in 24 different study domains and 4 different universities. Sample sizes for each wave are N_T1 = 5,886, N_T2 = 1,700 and N_T3 = 881, 434 participants provided valid responses at all the three waves. Consent form was electronic. Dataset and codebook can be found here: https://osf.io/v56du/. The sample is mainly composed of women (63.8%, at Time 1). Participants' mean age at Time 1 was 23.37 years (SD = 5.39). The survey was in Italian and included multiple-item measures of career calling, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, social support, engaged learning, clarity of professional identity, and quality of mentorship. Socio-demographic information and academic performance indicators are provided. The dataset is necessary to reproduce previously published results (Vianello et al., 2018) and can be useful to 1) investigate cross-cultural differences between college students from Italy and other countries; 2) investigate person-level variability in predictors and consequences of change in the variables collected over time; 3) develop and/or validate new statistical models for longitudinal data; and 4) develop and/or test original theoretical hypotheses.

The Developmental Trajectories of Calling: Predictors and Outcomes

There are many open questions concerning the development of calling, and longitudinal empirical evidence is limited. We know that a calling is associated with many beneficial outcomes, but we do not know how it changes through time and what predicts these changes. Previous studies have shown that calling is relatively stable at the sample level. We show that, at the individual level, calling shows huge variations through time. We identified nine developmental trajectories that are typical across facets of calling, and we found evidence that the development of a calling is fostered by the extent to which individuals have lived it out. We also observed that the more a calling has grown over a 2-year period, the more it is lived out during the third year. These results provide support for a developmental model of calling according to which having a calling and living it out reciprocally influence each other. The practical and theoretical implications of these results are discussed.

High-pressure polymorphism of BaFe2Se3

BaFe₂Se₃ is a potential superconductor material exhibiting transition at 11 K and ambient pressure. Here we extended the structural and performed electrical resistivity measurements on this compound up to 51 GPa and 20 GPa, respectively, in order to distinguish if the superconductivity in this sample is intrinsic to the BaFe₂Se₃ phase or if it is originating from minor FeSe impurities that show a similar superconductive transition temperature. The electrical resistance measurements as a function of pressure show that at 5 GPa the superconducting transition is observed at around 10 K, similar to the one previously observed for this sample at ambient pressure. This indicates that the superconductivity in this sample is most likely intrinsic to the BaFe₂Se₃ phase and not to FeSe with T _c  >  20 K at these pressures. Further increase in pressure suppressed the superconductive signal and the sample remained in an insulating state up to the maximum achieved pressure of 20 GPa. Single-crystal and powder x-ray diffraction measurements revealed two structural transformations in BaFe₂Se₃: a second order transition above 3.5 GPa from Pnma (CsAg₂I₃-type structure) to Cmcm (CsCu₂Cl₃-type structure) and a first order transformation at 16.6 GPa. Here, γ-BaFe₂Se₃ transforms into δ-BaFe₂Se₃ (Cmcm, CsCu₂Cl₃-type average structure) via a first order phase transition mechanism. This transition is characterized by a significant shortening of the b lattice parameter of γ-BaFe₂Se₃ (17%) and accompanied by an anisotropic expansion in the orthogonal ac plane at the transition point.

Many Labs 2: Investigating Variation in Replicability Across Samples and Settings

We conducted preregistered replications of 28 classic and contemporary published findings, with protocols that were peer reviewed in advance, to examine variation in effect magnitudes across samples and settings. Each protocol was administered to approximately half of 125 samples that comprised 15,305 participants from 36 countries and territories. Using the conventional criterion of statistical significance ( p < .05), we found that 15 (54%) of the replications provided evidence of a statistically significant effect in the same direction as the original finding. With a strict significance criterion ( p < .0001), 14 (50%) of the replications still provided such evidence, a reflection of the extremely high-powered design. Seven (25%) of the replications yielded effect sizes larger than the original ones, and 21 (75%) yielded effect sizes smaller than the original ones. The median comparable Cohen’s ds were 0.60 for the original findings and 0.15 for the replications. The effect sizes were small (< 0.20) in 16 of the replications (57%), and 9 effects (32%) were in the direction opposite the direction of the original effect. Across settings, the Q statistic indicated significant heterogeneity in 11 (39%) of the replication effects, and most of those were among the findings with the largest overall effect sizes; only 1 effect that was near zero in the aggregate showed significant heterogeneity according to this measure. Only 1 effect had a tau value greater than .20, an indication of moderate heterogeneity. Eight others had tau values near or slightly above .10, an indication of slight heterogeneity. Moderation tests indicated that very little heterogeneity was attributable to the order in which the tasks were performed or whether the tasks were administered in lab versus online. Exploratory comparisons revealed little heterogeneity between Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) cultures and less WEIRD cultures (i.e., cultures with relatively high and low WEIRDness scores, respectively). Cumulatively, variability in the observed effect sizes was attributable more to the effect being studied than to the sample or setting in which it was studied.

Validity and measurement invariance of the Unified Multidimensional Calling Scale (UMCS): A three-wave survey study

The accumulation of scientific knowledge on calling is limited by the absence of a common theoretical and measurement framework. Many different models of calling have been proposed, and we do not know how much research results that refer to a specific model are generalizable to different theoretical accounts of calling. In this article, we investigate whether two leading models of calling tackle the same construct. The two models were merged into a comprehensive framework that measures calling across seven facets: Passion, Purposefulness, Sacrifice, Pervasiveness, Prosocial Orientation, Transcendent Summons, and Identity. We then developed the Unified Multidimensional Calling Scale (UMCS) drawing from previous published items. Across two surveys involving college students (N = 5886) and adult employees (N = 205) the UMCS was proved to be valid and reliable. We also observed that the UMCS is invariant across time and calling domains. Finally, we found that facets of calling have very different relationships with outcomes and concurrent measures, suggesting that results obtained with a smaller set of facets are not generalizable to the higher-order construct of calling or to a different model that does not share the same facets.

Bond compressibility and bond Grüneisen parameters of CdTe

Extended x-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) at the Cd K edge and diffraction patterns have been measured on CdTe as a function of pressure from 100 kPa (1 bar) to 5 GPa using a cell with nano-polycrystalline diamond anvils and an x-ray focussing scanning spectrometer. Three phases-zincblende (ZB), mixed cinnabar-ZB and rocksalt (RS)-are well distinguished in different pressure intervals. The bond compressibility measured by EXAFS in the ZB phase is slightly smaller than the one measured by diffraction and decreases significantly faster when the pressure increases; the difference is attributed to the effect of relative vibrations perpendicular to the Cd-Te bond. The parallel mean square relative displacement (MSRD) decreases, the perpendicular MSRD increases when the pressure increases, leading to an increasing anisotropy of relative atomic vibrations. A constant-temperature bond Grüneisen parameter (GP) has been evaluated for the ZB phase and compared with the constant-pressure bond GP measured in a previous experiment; an attempt is made to connect the bond GPs measured by EXAFS and the more familiar thermodynamic GP and mode GPs; the comparisons suggest the inadequacy of the quasi-harmonic approximation to deal with the local vibrational properties sampled by EXAFS.

Direct tomography imaging for inelastic X-ray scattering experiments at high pressure

A method to separate the non-resonant inelastic X-ray scattering signal of a micro-metric sample contained inside a diamond anvil cell (DAC) from the signal originating from the high-pressure sample environment is described. Especially for high-pressure experiments, the parasitic signal originating from the diamond anvils, the gasket and/or the pressure medium can easily obscure the sample signal or even render the experiment impossible. Another severe complication for high-pressure non-resonant inelastic X-ray measurements, such as X-ray Raman scattering spectroscopy, can be the proximity of the desired sample edge energy to an absorption edge energy of elements constituting the DAC. It is shown that recording the scattered signal in a spatially resolved manner allows these problems to be overcome by separating the sample signal from the spurious scattering of the DAC without constraints on the solid angle of detection. Furthermore, simple machine learning algorithms facilitate finding the corresponding detector pixels that record the sample signal. The outlined experimental technique and data analysis approach are demonstrated by presenting spectra of the Si L_2,3-edge and O K-edge of compressed α-quartz. The spectra are of unprecedented quality and both the O K-edge and the Si L_2,3-edge clearly show the existence of a pressure-induced phase transition between 10 and 24 GPa.