Sam Shun Shun Lau

Severe weather events are among the most psychologically consequential environmental stressors. However, our understanding of how people perceive them and the underlying individual differences remains insufficient. This study created a standardized, open-access image database and investigated how demographic and psychological factors influence emotional responses to the images. A total of 1,066 participants from Europe and China (18–80 years) rated 48 weather images across nine meteorological categories on the dimensions of positivity, negativity, arousal, and threat; and completed personality-related questionnaires and subjective perception of severe weather events. Rather than content-based groupings, three valence-based clusters emerged: negative, neutral and positive. Compared to Hungarians, other Europeans displayed fewer negative and arousal responses. Meanwhile, Chinese participants exhibited higher threat responses across clusters. Females reported lower levels of positivity, arousal and threat. Increasing age was associated with greater threat and negativity, and less positivity. Forecast anxiety predicted greater arousal, threat and negativity in neutral and positive clusters. Intolerance of uncertainty increased threat and negative responses, while perceived anxiety control reduced positivity and increased threat. Conversely, nature relatedness increased arousal and positivity. The salience of weather moderated these effects, with forecast anxiety and perceived local weather change only predicting arousal and threat at higher salience levels. These findings emphasize the importance of cultural, demographic and psychological factors when it comes to how people perceive severe weather, and can inform climate risk communication and disaster preparedness.

As climate change presents both an abstract global challenge and local threats, studies of threat perception have gained importance. Psychological mechanisms underlying threat perception in the context of climate change are complex processes. Climate change is increasingly raising concerns about these mechanisms related to threat perception. While realistic perception is necessary for adaptive responses, increased threat perception may heighten vulnerability to adverse mental health problems. This study examined how nature relatedness and eco-anxiety relate to perceived threat of severe weather, and tested whether storm fear, intolerance of uncertainty, and weather salience function as mediators between these constructs. 897 participants from Hungary and Hong Kong (70.9% female, mean age = 29.84, SD = 12.91) completed self-report measures assessing nature relatedness, eco-anxiety (habitual ecological worry and negative consequences of eco-anxiety), storm fear, intolerance of uncertainty (inhibitory and prospective anxiety), and weather salience, and rated images of weather events according to threat perception. Mediation analyses revealed that the predictors were significantly associated with perceived threat. Nature relatedness showed a positive direct effect on perceived threat, independent of the proposed mediators. Habitual ecological worry did not show a significant direct effect on perceived threat, whereas negative consequences of eco-anxiety showed a negative direct effect on perceived threat. Their indirect effects through storm fear, inhibitory anxiety, and weather salience (only for habitual ecological worry) were positive, suggesting a potential suppression effect. In the context of climate change, these findings underscore the complex emotional and cognitive mechanisms through which individual differences shape perceptions of threat.

School principals are prone to mental health problems due to work demands. During the COVID-19 pandemic, school principals were additionally tasked with managing challenging responsibilities, i.e. implementing hygiene regulations, communicating frequent policy updates, and transitioning to online teaching. This international study aimed to assess school principals’ COVID-19 health literacy (HL) levels as a resource during the pandemic and to examine associations with well-being and psychosomatic complaints. The COVID-19 Health Literacy School Principal Survey was jointly conducted in 11 countries during 2021 and 2022. N = 8644 school or vice principals completed the online survey. Well-being was assessed using the WHO-5 Well-Being Index, psychosomatic complaints with a subscale of the Burnout Assessment Tool and self-reported COVID-19 HL through the HLS-COVID-Q22. HL levels were computed using Rasch analysis. Multiple linear regression analysis was conducted to investigate the association of school principals’ COVID-19 HL with well-being and psychosomatic complaints while controlling for sociodemographic and school-level factors. Overall, 0.1% of school principals had insufficient COVID-19 HL, 3.3% problematic, 65.7% sufficient, and 30.9% excellent. COVID-19 HL significantly predicted well-being and psychosomatic complaints even after controlling for sex, age, position, school type, teaching load, and working hours. Despite the small explained variance, the findings emphasize a need to invest in school principals’ HL as a resource during times of crisis and beyond. Health promotion interventions should be developed to enhance HL and hence health, especially of female and younger school principals, who reported lower well-being and more frequent psychosomatic complaints.

Urbanisation is reshaping how people experience wildlife, reducing our shared spaces with local biodiversity. Fewer opportunities for human–wildlife interactions weaken our emotional attachments to nature and precipitate a loss of species knowledge and familiarity. However, we still know little about why modern city residents have become increasingly fearful of both threatening and non‐threatening animals. To address this gap, we surveyed 1430 adults in Hong Kong, a highly urbanised city in China, to examine how nature connectedness, disgust sensitivity and experiences with wildlife interact to predict biophobia across threatening animals (snakes and spiders) and non‐threatening animals (small harmless animals, such as mice, bats and worms). Using structural equation modelling, we found that behavioural nature connectedness—how often people physically engage with nature—is the strongest protective factor against biophobia. In contrast, psychological nature connectedness only buffered threatening animal fears, revealing a critical role of engagement with natural environments in reducing fears for a multitude of small animals. Distinct disgust pathways also shaped biophobia: animal reminder disgust predicted fear of threatening animals, whereas blood–injection–injury fear was the strongest predictor of the fear of non‐threatening animals. Most strikingly, fears of threatening animals (especially spiders) spilled over to fears of non‐threatening animals, even after accounting for disgust, nature connectedness and gender, suggesting a previously underexplored generalisation process in biophobia. Contrary to the ‘vicious cycle of biophobia’ model, sociocultural pathways—parental fears and personal experiences with animals—did not meaningfully explain this fear generalisation, implying that social transmissions of knowledge did not generalise biophobic responses between threatening and non‐threatening animals. Our findings highlight the significant, opposing effects of disgust and physically engaging with nature on biophobia. Interventions that strengthen opportunities for direct nature experiences may be more effective than traditional, information‐based approaches in reducing disgust and cultivating behavioural nature connectedness. This is important for reducing public fears, fostering coexistence and removing barriers for conservation efforts that benefit a broader spectrum of local species. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Generative artificial intelligence like ChatGPT paints a promising picture of enhancing students’ learning in higher education. However, little is known regarding whether the university students actually adopt ChatGPT for enhancement or misuse it for disburdenment. This study employed a qualitative descriptive research approach to investigate if there is the problem of misuse through an examination of the adoption journey of 20 university students in Hong Kong. Our findings show only a few interviewees did not use ChatGPT for disburdenment while the majority allow the cognitive artifact to liberate them from burdens of learning. Moreover, reports from misusers also show more pronounced automation bias and perception of AI agency than non-misusers. Among the misusers who are aware of the problem of AI hallucination, some exhibit a paradoxical approach of adoption behavior: they continue to rely on ChatGPT despite noticing that the new burdens of cross-checking its output may be induced. Such a decision calls into question the reasons for continuous reliance on ChatGPT. Our finding suggests that this may be associated with the students’ perception of ChatGPT as agentic, a factor known to positively shape users’ affect-based trust in AI. This study illuminates how actual cases of misuse and problematic adoption behavior unfold, offering useful directions for education of sensible, responsible and effective use of AI in the higher education context.

This study aims to assess the physical health of individuals belonging to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community, considering health system challenges like access to care and patient experiences and community-specific attributes like health literacy and self-acceptance. This cross-sectional study was conducted in January-June 2022 using non-probabilistic sampling. The survey collected sociodemographic characteristics, information on access to care and patient experiences, prevalence of chronic conditions, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and health literacy levels. The inclusion criteria required participants to be of Lebanese nationality, at least 18 years old, and to identify as part of the LGBTQ community. Descriptive statistics summarized the data. Two sample t-tests and chi-square tests were used to examine associations between variables. A total of 496 participants took the survey, with a majority identifying as bisexual (38.5%) or gay (35.1%). Around 41.1% reported at least one chronic condition. Difficulty accessing healthcare was experienced by 37.7%, with 11.1% reporting a negative patient experience. Participants who reported experiencing discrimination were significantly more likely to delay seeking health services (p < 0.001), with transgender-identifying participants experiencing significantly more discrimination that non-transgender-identifying participants. Regarding sexual health, 15.7%, of those who tested, reported at least one STI. Their preferred testing sites were Non-Governmental Organizations (59.3%). Adequate health literacy level was significantly associated with STI testing (t = 3.34, p < 0.01) and chronic disease (t = 3.76, p < 0.01). Our findings underscore the importance of inclusive healthcare policies that address discriminatory experiences in healthcare settings and the need for targeted evidence-based interventions to improve health outcomes among LGBTQ individuals.