The current coronavirus pandemic is related to psychological problems, such as health fear. Health fear is the anxiety of getting ill and is related to symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder ...Show moreThe current coronavirus pandemic is related to psychological problems, such as health fear. Health fear is the anxiety of getting ill and is related to symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and adjustment disorder. People use coping behavior to manage psychological demands. Positive coping behavior, such as using humor and planning, was related to less symptoms of PTSD and adjustment disorder in nurses during the current pandemic and the SARS epidemic. The aim of this study was to investigate whether positive coping behavior significantly moderated the relationship between health fear and symptoms of PTSD and adjustment disorder during the current coronavirus pandemic. This study was part of an international longitudinal study. A total of 2141 inhabitants of the Netherlands were included. Health fear was measured using a questionnaire that was developed for this study. Furthermore, the “Adjustment Disorder – New Module 8”, the “Primary Care PTSD screen for DSM-5” and the “Pandemic Coping Scale” were used. The results were analyzed using linear regressions. The results showed that more health fear was related to more symptoms of PTSD and adjustment disorder. No significant effect was found for the relation between coping behavior and symptoms of PTSD and adjustment disorder. Positive coping behavior did not significantly moderate the relationship between health fear and symptoms of PTSD and adjustment disorder. Interventions that reduce fear, including yoga and mindfulness, could be helpful to the population. Future studies could investigate whether health fear is a predictive factor for symptoms of PTSD and adjustment disorder.Show less
When the COVID-19 pandemic caused the United Kingdom to go into lockdown, restrictions such as social distancing resulted in adjustments to daily life. This impacted the mental health of...Show moreWhen the COVID-19 pandemic caused the United Kingdom to go into lockdown, restrictions such as social distancing resulted in adjustments to daily life. This impacted the mental health of adolescents. Especially adolescents with a history of childhood traumatic experiences, were found to be vulnerable to develop mental health problems. Mental health problems can worsen over time and affect the quality of life of adolescents. Therefore, it is important that anxiety is recognized and addressed as early as possible. Thus, it was expected that anxiety of adolescents with a history of childhood traumatic experiences would worsen throughout the pandemic. Adolescents with adverse childhood experiences were recruited for this study (N = 73, Mage = 22.4). Anxiety was measured during the first lockdown (April 2020), during the lifting of some restrictions (July 2020) and just before the second lockdown (October 2020). The Revised Children’s Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS) was used for a total anxiety score and for the scores of three subtypes of anxiety: Social Anxiety, Physiological Anxiety and Worry. Data was analyzed with SPSS and four One-Way Repeated Measures ANOVAs were performed. The findings showed that Total Anxiety did not change significantly during the pandemic (F (2,130) = 0.257, p > .05). Neither did Physiological Anxiety (F (2, 130) = 0.040, p > .02), Worry (F (2,130) = 0.202, p > .02) and Social Anxiety (F (2, 130) = 0.103, p = > .02). The absence of significant results, can be due to post-traumatic growth of the adolescents. They might have developed coping mechanisms to deal with their childhood trauma and therefore are more able to deal with anxiety during the pandemic. Additionally, childhood trauma might lessen the impact of trauma during adolescence. Further research on long term effects of the pandemic on anxiety is needed.Show less
The aim of this article is to investigate what role mental wellbeing plays in the experienced somatoform symptoms in adolescents who experienced childhood adversity, during the COVID-19 pandemic....Show moreThe aim of this article is to investigate what role mental wellbeing plays in the experienced somatoform symptoms in adolescents who experienced childhood adversity, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, it is investigated if changes in mental wellbeing between two timepoints during the pandemic are related to changes in somatoform symptoms during COVID-19 in adolescents who experienced childhood adversity. Also, exploratory analyses were run to investigate whether mental wellbeing at the first time point could predict changes in somatoform symptoms over time and vice versa. Longitudinal measures from seventy-six adolescents are used across two timepoints: during the first peak in the pandemic (April 2020) and when the restrictions were less stringent (July 2020). The results show that there is an association between the experienced somatoform symptoms and mental wellbeing. This association is also found between the change in mental wellbeing over time and the change in somatoform symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is also clear that both mental wellbeing and somatoform symptoms during the first peak of the SARS-CoV-2-virus have no predictive value for the change in mental wellbeing or somatoform symptoms over time. This research contributes to the existing body of literature with the discovery that mental wellbeing and somatoform symptoms are associated during COVID-19 in adolescents who experienced childhood adversity. Although the association is clear in this research, it is recommended to extend the research design by including multiple, possibly contributing factors, such as loneliness, stress, gender, type, severity and duration of the experienced childhood adversity, to investigate the underlying mechanism. Secondly, it is recommended to investigate the effectiveness of interventions which adequately support adolescents who experienced childhood adversity and experience somatoform symptoms, for example the ‘Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy’-intervention.Show less
South Korea is seen globally as an example of efficient COVID-19 response. Yet, advocates of this “South Korean model” tend to focus on high technology with a short-termed securitisation...Show moreSouth Korea is seen globally as an example of efficient COVID-19 response. Yet, advocates of this “South Korean model” tend to focus on high technology with a short-termed securitisation perspective, and fail to appreciate the importance of the health reform process happening prior to the COVID-19 crisis. A significant number of health reforms took place between 2015 and 2020, aiming specifically at improving the Korean infectious disease response system. These reforms resulted from the failure of containing the Middle East respiratory syndrome–related coronavirus outbreak (MERS-CoV), which hit South Korea in 2015 and escalated dramatically due to poor crisis management and lack of an efficient infectious disease response system. This thesis will demonstrate that the health reform process between 2015 and 2020 was democratic and enabled South Korea to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.Show less
This thesis investigates how Chinese exchange students have come to experience Dutch society during their time in the Netherlands in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, this thesis...Show moreThis thesis investigates how Chinese exchange students have come to experience Dutch society during their time in the Netherlands in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, this thesis also investigates how this experience abroad has made Chinese exchange students reflect on their own national identity.Show less
The military, police, and government play substantial roles in planning and implementing relief measures (Kalkman, 2020, p. 99). In Peru, narcotics, insurgencies, and most recently the sanitary...Show moreThe military, police, and government play substantial roles in planning and implementing relief measures (Kalkman, 2020, p. 99). In Peru, narcotics, insurgencies, and most recently the sanitary emergency created by COVID-19 constitute a trifold ongoing crisis. This thesis acknowledges that states of emergency enable the military’s operational advantages during complex domestic challenges. This thesis conducted interviews employing quota sampling, reaching out to military officials involved in planning and implementing military COVID-19 relief in Peru. With the theoretical lens provided by strategic theory, the interviews’ content offered profound insight into the practical differences between strategic planning, policy implementation, and the obtained outcomes comparing the port of Callao and the Valley of the Apurimac, Ene, and Mantaro Rivers (VRAEM), two previously militarized regions in Peru. This thesis concludes that previous militarization affected the implementation process of COVID19 relief, constituting a source for policy flexibility, adaptability, and the creation of collaborative frameworks.Show less
In March 2020, the European Union was hit by the Covid-19, which created opportunities for interest groups to put their ideas on the EU political agenda. Scholars observed an increase in lobbying...Show moreIn March 2020, the European Union was hit by the Covid-19, which created opportunities for interest groups to put their ideas on the EU political agenda. Scholars observed an increase in lobbying activity, and NGOs spotted a trend where polluting industries incorporated Covid-19 into their lobbying strategy against environmental regulation. This trend was coined coronawashing. Building on previous research, one could expect that large, well-organized polluting industry lobby groups would successfully use a crisis like Covid-19 to lobby against environmental regulation, as they have done in the past. However, several large, well-organized polluting industries lobby groups failed to Covid-19 to their advantage. This qualitative case study sets out to uncover the underlying conditions why these lobby’s failed by using Kingdon’s multiple stream model (MSM). The goal is to uncover similar failure conditions in coronawashing cases for a future hypothesis. Three cases of polluting industry lobbying groups are selected, namely Copa-Cogeca, BusinessEurope, and EuPC. This research first analyses the cases individually to identify failure conditions and then compares the found failure conditions to identify similarities. In this research, two failure conditions are found across the three coronawashing cases. The first condition is the political time pressure during the Covid-19 pandemic. The European Parliament and EU member states pressured the European Commission to act fast upon the crisis with a recovery plan. The coronawashing lobbies were designed to mobilize supporters against environmental regulation over time, so a mismatch between the lobby strategy and quick actions needed to utilize the opportunity. The second failure condition is a ‘’green political resistance’’ against the lobby interests in the three cases. This green political resistance comes from the European Commission and certain parties in the European parliament which prefer environmental policy. These actors opposed the interests of the lobbying polluting industry groups openly, which caused the lobby’s to fail. These two failure conditions created a barrier that the polluting industries could not overcome.Show less
Background: The measures concerning COVID-19 may increase Mental Health problems and decrease Friendship Quality. It is unclear how the measures around COVID-19 affect adolescents who are already...Show moreBackground: The measures concerning COVID-19 may increase Mental Health problems and decrease Friendship Quality. It is unclear how the measures around COVID-19 affect adolescents who are already at risk of Mental Health problems and who benefit from good Friendship Quality; adolescents with a history of childhood adversity (CA). Research is required to see how Mental Health and Friendship Quality possibly changes during the COVID-19-pandemic. Insight into this relationship can contribute to the improvement of care for adolescents with CA who struggle with Mental Health problems and Quality of Friendship. Methods: We recruited adolescents (N = 76, M_age= 22,41, SD = 2,68)who have experienced CA from the Resilience after Individual Stress Exposure(RAISE) which filled in a questionnaire before the lockdown(October 2019), in the first lockdown(April 2020) and during the relaxation of the COVID-19-measures(July 2020). The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire(MFQ) measured Mental Health and the Cambridge Friendship Questionnaire(CFQ) measured Friendship Quality. Results: The findings confirmed that Friendship Quality increased between October 2019 and April 2020(1, 70) = 8,032 p = .006). Also between October 2019 and July 2020 the Friendship Quality increased (F(1, 70) = 4,757, p = .033). Mental Health problems increased during the lockdown April 2020 and during the relaxation from the measures in July 2020 compared to October 2019 (oct-apr:F(1, 70)=6,595, p=.012; oct-jul: F(1, 70)=8,289, p= .005). Friendship and Mental Health interconnect with each other; adolescents with improved Friendship Quality between October 2019 and April 2020 and between October 2019 and July 2020 also have increased Mental Health during this periods (oct-apr: β=.301; t(71) =2.608; p=.011; oct-jul: β=.418; t(72)=3.731; p<.001). Conclusions: The increased Quality of Friendship could be caused by the use of social media to keep in touch with friends. CA is a risk factor to develop mental health problems and so is COVID-19. Therefore, it is not unlikely that mental health decreases during lockdown and relaxations. The mental health problems are not solved when there are more relaxations, this could be caused by the long waiting lists for receiving mental health care and suggests that the mental health problems are long-lasting. When friendships improve, mental health problems decrease. This indicates that friendship increases the resilience of adolescents.Show less
To tackle transboundary crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the EU seeks effective coordination between its Member States. However, the COVID-19 crisis response in the EU proved uncoordinated...Show moreTo tackle transboundary crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the EU seeks effective coordination between its Member States. However, the COVID-19 crisis response in the EU proved uncoordinated and inconsistent. The EU lacks regulatory power to oblige states to act. It is therefore dependent on the states' willingness to cooperate. This cooperation is essential as the EU exists for similar cross border challenges. Both effective crisis response and EU relevance depend on efficient coordination in the EU. Successful securitisation of a phenomenon can increase the cooperation of Member States. Thus, this study investigates how the EU framed COVID-19 as a threat to the EU Member States. Specifically, this study analyses to what extent the EU securitised COVID-19 until 15 April 2020. Securitisation is a theoretical framework developed by the Copenhagen School to explore how political matters become security issues through the use of security language. Discourse analysis, a qualitative research approach, allowed for exploring the securitisation of COVID-19 in speeches and statements by the European Commission. Coding the documents provided a systematic overview of the methods employed to frame COVID-19 as an external threat to the EU. The results demonstrate three main approaches utilised to convey the threat: a) linguistically implying unification before framing COVID-19 as an external threat to the union; b) indicating seriousness and urgency through vocabulary choices; and c) stressing the importance less directly through extensive use of idioms. In conclusion, the EU securitised COVID-19 to a large and varied extent. The question remains whether the securitising moves were adequate, as the EU crisis response proved uncoordinatedShow less
Humanity’s excessive consumptive behaviour is the primary cause of ecological destruction. Yet, neither lowering consumption nor production levels seem to be addressed in environmental policies and...Show moreHumanity’s excessive consumptive behaviour is the primary cause of ecological destruction. Yet, neither lowering consumption nor production levels seem to be addressed in environmental policies and thus remain notably high. Therefore, this dissertation investigates the psychological roots of humanity’s ecologically destructive consumptive behaviour. My hypothesis is that ecological alienation and self-alienation are the main, compounding factors of ecologically destructive consumptive behaviour. Ecological alienation leads to devaluation of nature. As environmental values are paramount to sustainability-driven behaviour, devaluation of nature decreases the prevalence of such behaviour. Additionally, I argue that humanity’s excessive consumption is driven by consumptive addiction whereby individuals substitute their authentic physical, mental and emotional needs with consumption; and that this consumptive addiction is rooted in self-alienation. I suggest that ecological alienation and self-alienation are themselves rooted in the modern industrial worldview and its related value systems, and that these factors influence and reinforce each other. Ultimately, what is necessary to counter ecologically destructive addictive consumptive behaviour might be exactly what runs the risk of being indefinitely destroyed because of it: humanity’s reconnection with nature.Show less
Objective: Loneliness has become an increasingly common phenomenon due to lockdowns put in place to minimize spread of COVID-19. The current body of literature suggests the relationship between...Show moreObjective: Loneliness has become an increasingly common phenomenon due to lockdowns put in place to minimize spread of COVID-19. The current body of literature suggests the relationship between loneliness and various Big-5 personality dimensions, except openness to experience. The current study aimed to fill this gap by investigating if there is a predictive effect of 1) openness to experience and 2) tolerance to uncertainty on loneliness during COVID-19 pandemic. It also aimed to investigate if this relation is influenced by gender. Methods: Responses from 349 participants were collected in anonymous online surveys at the Central Institute of Mental Health in Mannheim and at Leiden University. The survey was posted at online platforms and distributed amongst social media and the University Research Systems. Openness was assessed with the 10-Item Big Five Inventory (BFI10). Loneliness was measured with UCLA loneliness scale (ULS8). Intolerance of uncertainty was assessed with the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale (UI18). Results: The results showed that higher BFI10 scores predicted higher ULS8 scores (loneliness) (B = .066, SE= .031, p =.036, 95% CI= [.004, .128]). Similarly, higher UI18 scores (intolerance of uncertainty) predicted higher scores on ULS8 (loneliness) (B = .298 , SE= .036, p =<.001, 95% CI= [.228, .369]). There was no significant effect of gender on loneliness. Conclusions: Our results show the importance of the personality trait openness and intolerance of uncertainty in predicting loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic. Further investigation is is important to study this relationship using longitudinal designs and accounting for other personality characteristics.Show less
This master thesis investigates what stylistic features within the Dutch Covid-19 press conferences held between March 2020 and October 2020 contribute to creating a sense of solidarity. This...Show moreThis master thesis investigates what stylistic features within the Dutch Covid-19 press conferences held between March 2020 and October 2020 contribute to creating a sense of solidarity. This research will use a qualitative approach, analyzing what certain pronouns and the word ‘people’ refer to and how they are used. The study found that the stylistic features that contribute to creating solidarity within the public are explicitly marking the inclusive form of ‘we’ and using a first-person plural possessive pronoun when referring to health care and those who suffer from the corona virus. The stylistic features contributing to creating solidarity between the speaker and the public is using ambiguous clusivity and using a form of the second-person singular that has a more general meaning, therefore reducing the distance between the speaker and the public.Show less
The Netherlands has experienced a surge in conspiracy believers over the last year. The antigovernment rhetoric has led to safety and security issues. The conspiracy beliefs (CB) are prevalent...Show moreThe Netherlands has experienced a surge in conspiracy believers over the last year. The antigovernment rhetoric has led to safety and security issues. The conspiracy beliefs (CB) are prevalent because the pandemic affects everyone. Also, the prolonged feelings of frustration and negative emotions caused by the lockdowns have compounded the already worsening emotional state. Emotional instability (EI) is ought to have some influence on people's perception of CB, this relationship has been studied. The results in the analysis support the hypothesis that EI influences CB, but the extent to which is low. Also, males are believed to be more likely to endorse conspiracies, this relationship has been examined in the exploratory analysis. However, the results gave no indication that males were indeed more susceptible to conspiracies. Overall, EI seems a more stable predictor for CB than gender. Therefore, I expect that CB will decrease when the lockdowns will disappear as lockdowns were the major contributor for EI.Show less
