Going Viral: How Fear, Socio-Cognitive Polarization and Problem-Solving Influence Fake News Detection and Proliferation During COVID-19 Pandemic

In times of uncertainty, people often seek out information to help alleviate fear, possibly leaving them vulnerable to false information. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we attended to a viral spread of incorrect and misleading information that compromised collective actions and public health measures to contain the spread of the disease. We investigated the influence of fear of COVID-19 on social and cognitive factors including believing in fake news, bullshit receptivity, overclaiming, and problem-solving—within two of the populations that have been severely hit by COVID-19: Italy and the United States of America. To gain a better understanding of the role of misinformation during the early height of the COVID-19 pandemic, we also investigated whether problem-solving ability and socio-cognitive polarization were associated with believing in fake news. Results showed that fear of COVID-19 is related to seeking out information about the virus and avoiding infection in the Italian and American samples, as well as a willingness to share real news (COVID and non-COVID-related) headlines in the American sample. However, fear positively correlated with bullshit receptivity, suggesting that the pandemic might have contributed to creating a situation where people were pushed toward pseudo-profound existential beliefs. Furthermore, problem-solving ability was associated with correctly discerning real or fake news, whereas socio-cognitive polarization was the strongest predictor of believing in fake news in both samples. From these results, we concluded that a construct reflecting cognitive rigidity, neglecting alternative information, and black-and-white thinking negatively predicts the ability to discern fake from real news. Such a construct extends also to reasoning processes based on thinking outside the box and considering alternative information such as problem-solving.

Surviving and Thriving: Fundamental Social Motives Provide Purpose in Life

Purpose in life (PIL) is often associated with grand achievements and existential beliefs, but recent theory suggests that it might ultimately track gainful pursuit of basic evolved goals. Five studies ( N = 1,993) investigated the relationships between fundamental social motives and PIL. In Study 1, attribution of a life goal pursuit to disease avoidance, affiliation, or kin care motives correlated with higher PIL. Studies 2 and 3 found correlations of self-protection, disease avoidance, affiliation, mate retention, and kin care motives with PIL after controlling for potential confounds. Study 4 showed that writing about success in the status, mating, and kin care domains increased PIL. Study 5 replicated the effect for mating and kin care, but not for status. Results imply that fundamental motives link to PIL through a sense of progress, rather than raw desire. Overall, this set of studies suggests that pursuit of evolved fundamental goals contributes to a purposeful life.

Worldviews in Myanmar: A Missiological Perspective

Each of the many ethnic groups in Myanmar has its own unique worldview; however, these are all principally related, in some respects, to the three primary worldviews in Myanmar, as informed by the culture historically: animism, Buddhism, and, to a lesser extent, Hinduism. For the purposes of this article, I am defining “worldview” as: A culturally-informed, yet personal, system of thought, wherein are held existential beliefs, such as regards the existence or non-existence of a god or gods; evaluative beliefs, such as regards proper and improper expressions of social intercourse; and prescriptive beliefs, such as regards value and purpose. In light of this definition, the worldviews in Myanmar will be explored as to their existential, evaluative, and prescriptive beliefs, with a summary statement, addressing the missiological challenges, which those worldviews present, in particular, to Christian unity.

Lost in translation: Adolescents and young adults use words of hope to express their spirituality.

185 Background: Adolescents and Young Adults (AYAs) with cancer are at risk for poor psychosocial outcomes, in part because cancer may disrupt developmental processes such as spiritual questioning. Indeed, spirituality may enable hope, meaning, and purpose, in turn facilitating the adjustment to cancer. The need to address spirituality has been established among adult patients, how to do so in an AYA age-appropriate manner has not been described. We aimed to better understand the language and perspectives of AYAs regarding spirituality. Methods: AYA patients (ages 14-25 years) were eligible if they had been diagnosed with cancer within the past 60 days. Demographic surveys including self-reported spirituality and religiousness were completed at the time of enrollment. Semi-structured, 1:1 interviews were conducted at the time of enrollment, 6-12, and 12-18 months later. Verbatim transcripts were coded by three independent coders using directed content analysis for instances of spirituality, religiosity, hope, and fear. Additional deductive analyses used a priori coding themes defined from prior conceptualizations of AYA hope: forced effort, personal possibilities, expectations of a better tomorrow, and anticipation of a better tomorrow Results: Seventeen patients completed 44 interviews with > 100 hours of transcript-data. Their mean age was 17.1 (±2.7); 8 (47%) were male, their diagnoses were sarcoma (n = 8), acute leukemia (n = 6), and lymphoma (n = 3). At enrollment 10 (58%) & 6 (35%) endorsed personal spirituality and religiousness in surveys, respectively, few verbal narratives included explicit self-identification of either construct. Further, while many AYAs denied spiritual beliefs, all of them endorsed hopes, often as a source of strength, meaning, or self-expression. Longitudinal analyses suggested an evolution of spiritual beliefs and self-identities, even when patients selected other language to describe such processes. Conclusions: AYAs with cancer are trying to work-through complex existential beliefs and questions. Often, instead of defining themselves as spiritual or religious or using explicit spiritual language, they articulate their existential feelings with the language of hope.

Flexibility in Existential Beliefs and Worldviews

Being open to questioning and changing one’s own existential beliefs and worldviews is an understudied epistemological tendency we call “existential quest.” We found that existential quest is a specific construct that can be distinguished from related constructs such as searching for meaning in life, readiness to question proreligious beliefs (i.e., religious quest), need for closure, and dogmatism. In five studies, we tested the psychometric qualities of a newly developed 9-item scale and the relationship of existential quest with individual difference variables reflecting ideological and epistemological needs (such as authoritarianism or regulatory focus) and behavioral tendencies (myside bias in an argument generation task). Existential quest showed incremental validity over and above established constructs regarding the prediction of relevant cognitive biases and empathy. The findings indicate the relevance of existential quest as an epistemological construct that seems particularly interesting for research in the developing field of existential psychology.

L'intervista: Simona Argentieri

- In this section a therapist from outside the Ruolo Terapeutico group is interviewed. The same question format is presented each time and is designed to bring out the persons' stages of training, their reading, their teachers and mentors, their personal philosophy about their work and their existential beliefs.key words: therapeutic function, ethical responsibility, difference between psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, future of psychoanalysis

L'intervista: Marco Bianciardi

- this section a therapist from outside the Ruolo Terapeutico group is interviewed. The same question format is presented each time and is designed to bring out the persons' stages of training, their reading, their teachers and mentors, their personal philosophy about their work and their existential beliefs. [KEY WORDS: therapeutic function, ethical responsibility, difference between psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, future of psychoanalysis]