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By September 2020, COVID-19 had claimed the lives of almost 1 million people worldwide, including more than 400,000 in the U.S. and Europe [1] To slow the spread of the virus, health officials advised social distancing, regular handwashing, and wearing a face covering [2]. We hypothesized that public adherence to the health guidance would be influenced by prevailing social norms, and the prevalence of these behaviors among others. We focused on mask-wearing behavior during fall 2020, and coded livestream public webcam footage of 1,200 individuals across seven cities. Results showed that only 50% of participants were correctly wearing a mask in public, and that this percentage varied as a function of the mask-wearing behavior of close and distant others in the immediate physical vicinity. How social normative information might be used to increase mask-wearing behavior is discussed. “Cloth face coverings are one of the most powerful weapons we have to slow and stop the spread of the virus—particularly when used universally within a community setting” CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield in July 2020.

Living near, recreating in, and feeling psychologically connected to, the natural world are all associated with better mental health, but many exposure-related questions remain. Using data from an 18-country survey ( n  = 16,307) we explored associations between multiple measures of mental health (positive well-being, mental distress, depression/anxiety medication use) and: (a) exposures (residential/recreational visits) to different natural settings (green/inland-blue/coastal-blue spaces); and (b) nature connectedness, across season and country. People who lived in greener/coastal neighbourhoods reported higher positive well-being, but this association largely disappeared when recreational visits were controlled for. Frequency of recreational visits to green, inland-blue, and coastal-blue spaces in the last 4 weeks were all positively associated with positive well-being and negatively associated with mental distress. Associations with green space visits were relatively consistent across seasons and countries but associations with blue space visits showed greater heterogeneity. Nature connectedness was also positively associated with positive well-being and negatively associated with mental distress and was, along with green space visits, associated with a lower likelihood of using medication for depression. By contrast inland-blue space visits were associated with a greater likelihood of using anxiety medication. Results highlight the benefits of multi-exposure, multi-response, multi-country studies in exploring complexity in nature-health associations.

The influence of social norms on behavior has been a longstanding storyline within social psychology. Our 2007 Psychological Science publication presented a new rendition of this classic telling. The reported field experiment showed that social norms could be leveraged to promote residential energy conservation, but importantly, the descriptive norm was shown to increase consumption for low-consuming households. This potential destructive effect of social norms was eliminated with the addition of an injunctive message of social approval for using less energy. The article is among the 30 most-cited articles across all APS publications, which we attribute to our methodology, which measured real behavior in a large-scale field experiment and to several circumstances associated with the timing of the work. The article coincided with the explosion of social media, the emergence of behavioral economics, and a heightened level of concern about climate change. These contemporaneous activities set the stage for our work and for its high degree of citation.

Emphasizing the co-benefits of climate policy can motivate action across ideological, age and gender divides regardless of existing levels of concern about climate change, as global survey data shows. Personal and political action on climate change is traditionally thought to be motivated by people accepting its reality and importance. However, convincing the public that climate change is real faces powerful ideological obstacles 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , and climate change is slipping in public importance in many countries 5 , 6 . Here we investigate a different approach, identifying whether potential co-benefits of addressing climate change 7 could motivate pro-environmental behaviour around the world for both those convinced and unconvinced that climate change is real. We describe an integrated framework for assessing beliefs about co-benefits 8 , distinguishing social conditions (for example, economic development, reduced pollution or disease) and community character (for example, benevolence, competence). Data from all inhabited continents (24 countries; 6,196 participants) showed that two co-benefit types, Development (economic and scientific advancement) and Benevolence (a more moral and caring community), motivated public, private and financial actions to address climate change to a similar degree as believing climate change is important. Critically, relationships were similar for both convinced and unconvinced participants, showing that co-benefits can motivate action across ideological divides. These relationships were also independent of perceived climate change importance, and could not be explained by political ideology, age, or gender. Communicating co-benefits could motivate action on climate change where traditional approaches have stalled.

Despite a long tradition of effectiveness in laboratory tests, normative messages have had mixed success in changing behavior infield contexts, with some studies showing boomerang effects. To test a theoretical account of this inconsistency, we conducted a field experiment in which normative messages were used to promote household energy conservation. As predicted, a descriptive normative message detailing average neighborhood usage produced either desirable energy savings or the undesirable boomerang effect, depending on whether households were already consuming at a low or high rate. Also as predicted, adding an injunctive message (conveying social approval or disapproval) eliminated the boomerang effect. The results offer an explanation for the mixed success of persuasive appeals based on social norms and suggest how such appeals should be properly crafted.

This research investigates how participation in college-based science-training programs increases student intention to pursue a scientific career. Using identity theory, we delineate three levels of social structure and conceptualize science-training programs as proximate social structures. Results from a sample of 892 undergraduate science students are supportive of identity theory and indicate that participation in proximate social structures leads to increased commitment to a science identity, increased salience of a science identity, and increased intention to pursue a scientific career. This study contributes to the literature on identity theory by demonstrating how participation in proximate social structures can lead to subsequent identity processes, thus refining the understanding of how society shapes the self and clarifying how social positioning affects choices for behavior. Additionally, the conceptualization of proximate social structures provides an avenue for applications of identity theory to investigations of other social interventions as well as mechanisms leading to social inequality.

For more than 40 years, there has been a concerted national effort to promote diversity among the scientific research community. Yet given the persistent national-level disparity in educational achievements of students from various ethnic and racial groups, the efficacy of these programs has come into question. The current study reports results from a longitudinal study of students supported by a national National Institutes of Health—funded minority training program, and a propensity score matched control. Growth curve analyses using Hierarchical Linear Modeling show that students supported by Research Initiative for Science Excellence were more likely to persist in their intentions to pursue a scientific research career. In addition, growth curve analyses indicate that undergraduate research experience, but not having a mentor, predicted student persistence in science.

New data highlight the importance of undergraduate research experiences (UREs) for keeping underrepresented science students on the pathway to a scientific career. We used a large-scale, 10-year, longitudinal, multi-institutional, propensity-score-matched research design to compare the academic performance and persistence in science of students who participated in URE(s) with those of similar students who had no research experience. Our results showed that students who completed 10 or more hours of cocurricular, faculty-mentored research per week across two or more academic semesters or summers were significantly more likely to graduate with a science-related bachelor’s degree, to be accepted into a science-related graduate training program, and to be training for or working in the scientific workforce 6 years after graduation. Importantly, the findings show that just having a URE was not enough to influence persistence in science; it required a commitment of 10 or more hours per week over two or more semesters of faculty-mentored research.

Studies across multiple disciplines demonstrate the importance of peers in shaping energy-related behaviours. Research on this process is wide ranging, from documenting spatial peer effects in the adoption of rooftop solar—when an individual’s behaviour is influenced by the behaviours of neighbours—to showing how neighbour comparisons can be used to reduce household electricity consumption. However, gaps exist in our understanding of how and why these peer effects occur. In this Review, we examine recent findings on social influence in energy behaviour and discuss pathways through which social influence can result in peer effects. We propose a conceptual framework for predicting which social influence processes will most often result in peer effects, depending on the targeted energy behaviour. We also review the limitations of social influence as well as evidence for when it is expected to be the strongest. Household energy behaviours are influenced by the behaviour of others. In this Review, the authors review recent findings on social influence in energy consumption and technology adoption and discuss pathways through which social influence can result in peer effects.