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Most infectious diseases are zoonotic, "jumping" from animals to humans, with COVID-19 no exception. Although many zoonotic transmissions occur on industrial-scale factory farms, public discussions mainly blame wild animal ("wet") markets or focus on reactionary solutions, posing a psychological obstacle to preventing future pandemics. In two pre-registered studies early in the 2020 pandemic, we examined whether British adults fail to recognize factory farming in causing epidemics, and whether such dismissal represents motivated cognition. Cross-sectional data (Study 1, N = 302) confirmed that people blame factory farms and global meat consumption less than wild animal trade and consumption or lack of government preparedness, especially among meat-committed persons. Experimental exposure (Study 2, N = 194) to information blaming factory farms (vs. wild animal markets) produced lower endorsement of preventive solutions than of reactionary solutions, which was exacerbated among meat-committed persons. These findings suggest that people, especially those highly committed to eating meat, willfully disregard solutions targeting animal agriculture and global meat consumption to prevent future pandemics precisely because such solutions implicate their dietary habits. Better understanding motivated beliefs about the causes of and solutions to pandemics is critical for developing interventions.

Existing research highlights the roles of group identities and concerns about mass migration in explaining attitudes towards the European Union (EU). However, studies have been largely silent on whether EU attitudes are also shaped by people's attitudes towards the principles and practices of supranational governance. This research provides a first test of the nature and role of supranational attitudes. We introduce a new measure of supranationalism and, in two studies using samples drawn from the British population, test the psychometric properties of the supranationalism scale. We then identify the socioideological correlates (right‐wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation) of supranationalism, along with its effects in predicting EU attitudes and post‐Brexit preferences. Our core finding is that supranationalism predicts attitudes towards the EU over and above established factors such as national identity and immigrant threat. Our study thus shows the existence of supranational attitudes among individuals and the relevance of such attitudes to people's opinions about international organizations like the EU.

Accepted Date: 30/08/2016; Version: Author Manuscript / Post-Print; Exceptions: None. © 2016, European Journal of Personality. This is an author produced version of a paper published in/accepted for publication in European Association of Personality Psychology uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self- archiving policy. The final published version (version of record) is available online via Wiley Online Library at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/per.2069/abstract. Some minor differences between this version and the final published version may remain. We suggest you refer to the final published version should you wish to cite from it. ; Recent research and theorizing suggest that desires for group-based dominance underpin biases towards both human outgroups and (non-human) animals. A systematic study of the common ideological roots of human-human and human-animal biases is, however, lacking. Three studies (in Belgium, UK, and USA) tested the Social Dominance Human-Animal Relations Model (SD-HARM) proposing that Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) is a key factor responsible for the significant positive association between ethnic outgroup attitudes and speciesist attitudes towards animals, even after accounting for other ideological variables (that possibly confound previous findings). Confirming our hypotheses, the results consistently demonstrated that SDO, more than right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), is a key factor connecting ethnic prejudice and speciesist attitudes. Furthermore, Studies 2 and 3 showed that both SDO and RWA are significantly related to perceived threat posed by vegetarianism (i.e., ideologies and diets minimizing harm to animals), but with SDO playing a focal role in explaining the positive association between threat perceptions and ethnic prejudice. Study 3 replicated this pattern, additionally including political conservatism in the model, itself a significant correlate of speciesism. Finally, a meta-analytic integration across studies provided robust support for SD-HARM and offers important insights into the psychological parallels between human intergroup and human-animal relations.

Issues related to ethnic-cultural diversity often make the news headlines in popular media and have attracted extensive attention in the political arena, as well as in academic research in psychology, political sciences, and sociology. Political scientist Robert Putnam reported that increased diversity is associated with a range of negative outcomes, including less trust, a decreased sense of community, more prejudice, and more cynicism and mistrust toward politics and politicians. Yet given that follow-up studies have often revealed mixed results, a novel approach to understanding the effects of diversity is needed. Here, we address the impact of diversity from a Person × Context interaction perspective, demonstrating that diversity aggravates the negative attitudes that already exist among certain individuals. Specifically, we review the accumulated evidence showing that people high in authoritarian attitudes are particularly sensitive to diversity and prone to react with increased negativity to out-groups, politicians, the political system, and democracy. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Abstract. Putnam's (2007) constrict claim states that ethnic diversity has serious consequences for social cohesion, making people distrustful and leery. The present contribution extends this claim by including political cynicism and trust as side effects of diversity. Moreover, we nuance this claim by considering citizens' social-ideological attitudes as moderators of diversity effects. Using a Dutch nationally stratified sample (N = 628), we showed that both objective and perceived diversity were associated with more political cynicism and less trust, but only for those high in right-wing attitudes (i.e., social dominance orientation and particularly authoritarianism). Furthermore, only political cynicism was a unique predictor of greater populist party support. Implications for the ongoing debates on the rise in diversity and populist parties are discussed.

Abstract. Putnam's (2007) constrict claim states that ethnic diversity has serious consequences for social cohesion, making people distrustful and leery. The present contribution extends this claim by including political cynicism and trust as side effects of diversity. Moreover, we nuance this claim by considering citizens' social-ideological attitudes as moderators of diversity effects. Using a Dutch nationally stratified sample (N = 628), we showed that both objective and perceived diversity were associated with more political cynicism and less trust, but only for those high in right-wing attitudes (i.e. social dominance orientation and particularly authoritarianism). Furthermore, only political cynicism was a unique predictor of greater populist party support. Implications for the ongoing debates on the rise in diversity and populist parties are discussed. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published

The present study investigates patterns of event-related brain potentials following the presentation of attitudinal stimuli among political moderates (N = 12) and anarchists (N = 11). We used a modified oddball paradigm to investigate the evaluative inconsistency effect elicited by stimuli embedded in a sequence of contextual stimuli with an opposite valence. Increased late positive potentials (LPPs) of extreme political attitudes were observed. Moreover, this LPP enhancement was larger among anarchists than among moderates, indicating that an extreme political attitude of a moderate differs from an extreme political attitude of an anarchist. The discussion elaborates on the meaning of attitude extremity for moderates and extremists.