The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic brought about several features that increased the sense of fear and confusion, such as quarantine and financial losses among other stressors, which may have led to adverse psychosocial outcomes. The influence of such stressors took place within a broader sociocultural context that needs to be considered. The objective was to examine how the psychological response to the pandemic varied across countries and identify which risk/protective factors contributed to this response. An online survey was conducted from 29 May 2020–12 June 2020, among a multinational sample of 8806 adults from eight countries/regions (Canada, United States, England, Switzerland, Belgium, Hong Kong, Philippines, New Zealand). Probable generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and major depression episode (MDE) were assessed. The independent role of a wide range of potential factors was examined using multilevel logistic regression. Probable GAD and MDE were indicated by 21.0% and 25.5% of the respondents, respectively, with an important variation according to countries/regions (GAD: 12.2–31.0%; MDE: 16.7–32.9%). When considered together, 30.2% of the participants indicated probable GAD or MDE. Several factors were positively associated with a probable GAD or MDE, including (in descending order of importance) weak sense of coherence (SOC), lower age, false beliefs, isolation, threat perceived for oneself/family, mistrust in authorities, stigma, threat perceived for country/world, financial losses, being a female, and having a high level of information about COVID-19. Having a weak SOC yielded the highest adjusted odds ratio for probable GAD or MDE (3.21; 95% confidence interval (CI): 2.73–3.77). This pandemic is having an impact on psychological health. In some places and under certain circumstances, however, people seem to be better protected psychologically. This is a unique opportunity to evaluate the psychosocial impacts across various sociocultural backgrounds, providing important lessons that could inform all phases of disaster risk management.

Nearly a year after the classification of the COVID-19 outbreak as a global pandemic, it is clear that different factors have contributed to an increase in psychological disorders, including public health measures that infringe on personal freedoms, growing financial losses, and conflicting messages. This study examined the evolution of psychosocial impacts with the progression of the pandemic in adult populations from different countries and continents, and identified, among a wide range of individual and country-level factors, which ones are contributing to this evolving psychological response. An online survey was conducted in May/June 2020 and in November 2020, among a sample of 17,833 adults (Phase 1: 8806; Phase 2: 9027) from eight countries/regions (Canada, the United States, England, Switzerland, Belgium, Hong Kong, the Philippines, New Zealand). Probable generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and major depressive episode (MDE) were assessed. The independent role of potential factors was examined using multilevel logistic regression. Probable GAD or MDE was indicated by 30.1% and 32.5% of the respondents during phases 1 and 2, respectively (a 7.9% increase over time), with an important variation according to countries/regions (range from 22.3% in Switzerland to 38.8% in the Philippines). This proportion exceeded 50% among young adults (18–24 years old) in all countries except for Switzerland. Beyond young age, several factors negatively influenced mental health in times of pandemic; important factors were found, including weak sense of coherence (adjusted odds ratio aOR = 3.89), false beliefs (aOR = 2.33), and self-isolation/quarantine (aOR = 2.01). The world has entered a new era dominated by psychological suffering and rising demand for mental health interventions, along a continuum from health promotion to specialized healthcare. More than ever, we need to innovate and build interventions aimed at strengthening key protective factors, such as sense of coherence, in the fight against the adversity caused by the concurrent pandemic and infodemic.

Many scholars and practitioners claim that labeling groups or individuals as “terrorists” does not simply describe them but also shapes public attitudes, due to the label's important normative and political charge. Yet is there such a “terrorist label effect”? In view of surprisingly scant evidence, the present article evaluates whether or not the terrorist label—as well as the “Islamist” one—really impacts both the audience's perception of the security environment and its security policy preferences, and if yes, how and why. To do so, the article implements a randomized-controlled vignette experiment where participants (N = 481) first read one out of three press articles, each depicting a street shooting in the exact same way but labeling the author of the violence with a different category (“terrorist”/“shooter”/“Islamist”). Participants were then asked to report on both their perceptions and their policy preferences. This design reveals very strong effects of both the “terrorist” and “Islamist” categories on each dimension. These effects are analyzed through the lenses of social and cognitive psychology, in a way that interrogates the use of the terrorist category in society, the conflation of Islamism with terrorism, and the press and policymakers' lexical choices when reporting on political violence.

Since the WHO declared the COVID-19 pandemic on March 11, 2020, the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, has profoundly impacted public health and the economy worldwide. But there are not the only ones to be hit. The COVID-19 pandemic has also substantially altered mental health, with anxiety symptoms being one of the most frequently reported problems. Especially, the number of people reporting anxiety symptoms increased significantly during the first lockdown-phase compared to similar data collected before the pandemic. Yet, most of these studies relied on a unitary approach to anxiety, wherein its different constitutive features (i.e., symptoms) were tallied into one sum-score, thus ignoring any possibility of interactions between them. Therefore, in this study, we seek to map the associations between the core features of anxiety during the first weeks of the first Belgian COVID-19 lockdown-phase (n = 2,829). To do so, we implemented, in a preregistered fashion, two distinct computational network approaches: a Gaussian graphical model and a Bayesian network modelling approach to estimate a directed acyclic graph. Despite their varying assumptions, constraints, and computational methods to determine nodes (i.e., the variables) and edges (i.e., the relations between them), both approaches pointed to excessive worrying as a node playing an especially influential role in the network system of the anxiety features. Altogether, our findings offer novel data-driven clues for the ongoing field’s larger quest to examine, and eventually alleviate, the mental health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Danilo Martuccelli est chargé de recherche au CNRS-CLERSE-IFRESI. Il vient de publier Forgé par l’épreuve. L’individu dans la France contemporaine aux éditions Armand Colin. Ces propos furent recueillis par Grégoire Lits à l’occasion de la venue du professeur Martuccelli à Louvain-la-Neuve les 3 et 4 décembre 2008 dans le cadre des conférences Jacques Leclercq organisées par l’unité d’anthropologie et de sociologie de l’UCL et le Laboratoire LaGIS (Laboratoire « Globalisation, Institution, Subjectivation »).

L’analyse de la carrière du problème des déchets radioactifs laisse apparaître une rupture importante dans le mode de traitement qui en est fait. Problème à l’origine considéré comme principalement technique, il s’est transformé, suite à un lent processus de « mise en politique », en problème sociotechnique. Gérer les aspects techniques du problème ne suffit plus. Il faut également gérer ce qui sera identifié comme ses « aspects sociaux ». Suite à ce tournant, on observe aujourd’hui l’émergence d’un consensus parmi les acteurs des décisions nucléaires. Pour gérer les « aspects sociaux », il est utile, voire nécessaire, de mobiliser l’expertise des chercheurs en sciences sociales. Ce consensus appelle donc à la collaboration entre experts en sciences sociales et experts nucléaires pour résoudre le problème des déchets radioactifs. Sur base d’une analyse de la littérature et de données ethnographiques recueillies principalement en Belgique depuis 2009, cet article propose une analyse des différents modes d’engagement des experts en sciences sociales dans la gestion des déchets radioactifs. Cette analyse permettra, dans un premier temps, de mettre en évidence l’existence d’une contradiction latente opposant, dès la fin des années 1940, sociologues et ingénieurs quant à leurs rôles respectifs dans la gestion des « aspects sociaux » du nucléaire. L’analyse des critiques portées par les chercheurs en sciences sociales permettra, ensuite, d’identifier l’existence de deux soubassements normatifs – deux visions de l’organisation souhaitable du monde social – permettant d’identifier les causes d’une possible difficulté de collaboration. Finalement, l’analyse de la littérature permet de dégager trois figures idéales typiques de l’engagement des chercheurs en sciences sociales. Ce modèle idéal-typique pourrait être utilisé dans le futur pour analyser des situations réelles d’engagement de chercheurs en sciences sociales dans la gouvernance de questions sociotechniques.