The deteriorating state of the environment and global warming pose a serious and unprecedented threat to humanity. Yet, public response and personal behavior do not reflect the proportions of such a threat. In the present research we explored possible reasons for this discrepancy. Past research has shown that people perceive events as more threatening based on their immediacy, certainty, or personal implications. Liberman and Trope (2008) developed the concept of “psychological distance” (PD), according to which more immediate events are seen as “closer in time,” more certain events as “closer in probability,” and events with greater potential for personal harm as “socially closer.” Adopting this concept, we examined how distant, in terms of PD, people perceive environmental threats to be. Using a structural equations model, we measured how PD influences environmental threat perception. In a sample of 305 Israeli students who completed a computerized questionnaire, we found that environmental threats were perceived as psychologically distant in all of the PD dimensions, and that PD strongly affected perceived severity of environmental threats and willingness to engage in pro-environmental behavior. The reasons for the psychological remoteness of environmental threats and possible approaches to cope with its implications are discussed.

This article focuses on limited knowledge regarding the associations among three levels of resilience and the importance of these associations: individual, community, and national. The few studies that have examined these associations indicated the following: (a) There are significant positive low correlations among individual, community, and national resilience. (b) Some demographic variables significantly predict all three of them. (c) There is limited knowledge whether and to what degree there are mutual influences among these levels of resilience. (d) All three levels of resilience predict individual well-being and successful coping with potential traumatic events.

The COVID-19 pandemic is an ongoing epidemic of coronavirus disease, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome, which has spread recently worldwide. Efforts to prevent the virus from spreading include travel restrictions, lockdowns as well as national or regional quarantines throughout the international community. The major negative psychological outcome of the COVID-19 pandemic is the anxiety caused by it. The aim of the present study was to examine the level of concern and the contributions of modes of resilience, well-being and demographic attributes towards decreasing or enhancing anxiety and depression among two samples: Israeli Jews (majority group) and Israeli Arabs (minority group). These random samples included 605 Jews and 156 Arabs who participated in an internet survey. A previous study, which has been conducted in the context of terror attacks, has shown that compared to Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs expressed a higher level of fear of war and lower levels of resilience supporting personality attributes. The results of the current study indicated a similar pattern that emerged in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic: the Israeli Arabs reported a higher level of distress and a lower level of resilience and well-being.

Considering the potential impact of COVID-19 on the civil society, a longitudinal study was conducted to identify levels of distress, resilience, and the subjective well-being of the population. The study is based on two repeated measurements conducted at the end of the pandemic’s “first wave” and the beginning of the “second wave” on a sample (n = 906) of Jewish Israeli respondents, who completed an online questionnaire distributed by an Internet panel company. Three groups of indicators were assessed: signs of distress (sense of danger, distress symptoms, and perceived threats), resilience (individual, community, and national), and subjective well-being (well-being, hope, and morale). Results indicated the following: (a) a significant increase in distress indicators, with effect sizes of sense of danger, distress symptoms, and perceived threats (Cohen’s d 0.614, 0.120, and 0.248, respectively); (b) a significant decrease in resilience indicators, with effect sizes of individual, community, and national resilience (Cohen’s d 0.153, 0.428, and 0.793, respectively); and (c) a significant decrease in subjective well-being indicators with effect sizes of well-being, hope, and morale (Cohen’s d 0.116, 0.336, and 0.199, respectively). To conclude, COVID-19 had a severe, large-scale impact on the civil society, leading to multidimensional damage and a marked decrease in the individual, community, and national resilience of the population.