According to moral foundations theory, there are five distinct sources of moral intuition on which political liberals and conservatives differ. The present research program seeks to contextualize this taxonomy within the broader research literature on political ideology as motivated social cognition, including the observation that conservative judgments often serve system-justifying functions. In two studies, a combination of regression and path modeling techniques were used to explore the motivational underpinnings of ideological differences in moral intuitions. Consistent with our integrative model, the “binding” foundations  were associated with epistemic and existential needs to reduce uncertainty and threat and system justification tendencies, whereas the so-called “individualizing” foundations (fairness and avoidance of harm) were generally unrelated to epistemic and existential motives and were instead linked to empathic motivation. Taken as a whole, these results are consistent with the position taken by Hatemi, Crabtree, and Smith that moral “foundations” are themselves the product of motivated social cognition. More than a century ago, for instance, Graham Wallas, a Fabian socialist and co-founder of the London School of Economics, argued against the “intellectualist” assumption that political judgment is driven largely by “calculations of means and ends” in a 1908 work entitled Politics . Wallas -founded –5.The Authoritarian Personality. The book has been much maligned on both methodological and ideological grounds, but the fact remains that it represented a profound synthesis of social, personality, and political psychology that has much to offer contemporary readers [In many ways, the serious psychological investigation of political ideology began with Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, and Sanford‘s  classic  readers ,8. In th readers , p. 2.Opinions and Personality [see also The same assumption was made by Smith, Bruner, and White , who putsee also ,11. The see also . Politicsystem justification, which is defined as the (conscious or nonconscious) motivation to defend, bolster, and justify existing social, economic, and political arrangements [It was in this spirit that Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, and Sulloway ,14 propongements . AlthougAlthough there is by now a great deal of evidence to back up the theory of political conservatism as motivated social cognition e.g., –18, the The study also explained that “conservatives don’t feel the need to jump through complex, intellectual hoops in order to understand or justify some of their positions… “Whenever you have backed a liberal into a corner—if he doesn’t start crying—he says, “It’s a complicated issue.” Loving America is too simple an emotion. To be nuanced you have to hate it a little. Conservatives may not grasp “nuance,” but we’re pretty good at grasping treason.Wall Street Journal before waxing nostalgic for a bygone era of police crackdowns on campus radicals:Another right-wing pundit, Jonah Goldberg, fumed about the Jost et al.  article Now that I’ve calmed down a bit , I thought I’d include a “relaxation aid” at the end of this post to help calm down people who read that whole thing. Here’s a photo from when Governor Ronald Reagan ordered a tear gas airstrike on UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza during an anti-war demonstration…. The best part is that we don’t have to pine for an “idealized past.” In the real past, lefty nutjobs at Berkeley really were heavily sprayed with teargas.To astute observers, the defensive hostility and aggressive, authoritarian posturing expressed in these outbursts did more to confirm than to disconfirm the tenets of the theory of political conservatism as motivated social cognition e.g., .The theory of ideology as motivated social cognition was criticized by a few prominent social scientists as well. Mitchell and Tetlock , for insProbably the harshest criticism of the theory of ideology as motivated social cognition within the discipline came from proponents of “moral foundations theory.” Haidt and Graham , p. 101 liberals value fairness and the avoidance of harm significantly more than conservatives do [negatively and significantly correlated with the endorsement of “individualizing foundations”  rather than, say, epistemic or existential motives, which are fundamentally non-moral motivations. This, plank, in turn, is used to buttress Haidt’s [should value conservative preferences for ingroup loyalty, obedience to authority, and the enforcement of purity sanctions—or at least tolerate them, which amounts to the same thing, namely valuing them positively rather than negatively or not at all. Unfortunately, there are a number of serious conceptual and methodological problems with moral foundations theory and the empirical grounds on which it rests [An important plank in Haidt and Graham’s  argument Haidt’s  normativit rests –35.believe that their opinions are based on fundamentally moral concerns. Haidt and Graham  explain, for instance, that “Santorum’s anti-gay-marriage views were based on concerns for traditional family structures, Biblical authority, and moral disgust for homosexual acts .” The fact that Santorum’s concerns—like those of Ann Coulter and Jonah Goldberg (reproduced above)—appear to have much more in common with right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, and system justification motivation than with any sophisticated form of moral reasoning is either overlooked or sidestepped by moral foundations theorists.For the purposes of the present article, an important criticism is that Haidt and Graham  provide To date, researchers inspired by moral foundations theory have provided no evidence bearing on the actual moral standing of conservative preferences for ingroup loyalty, deference to authority, and the enforcement of purity sanctions. The have instead relied upon the fallacious rhetorical technique of “argument by assertion,” simply declaring that such preferences are “moral ” rather than providing any evidence for such a declaration . When other researchers have administered tests of moral sophistication in the tradition of Piaget and Kohlberg alongside the moral foundations questionnaire, they have observed that the endorsement of “binding foundations” is associated with conventional forms of moral reasoning that simply emphasize the maintenance of existing social norms and the established social order ,27.negatively associated with these same antisocial tendencies—as one would expect from a “moral” motivation. For instance, people who endorse the “individualizing foundations” are significantly more likely to donate to various charities and report online hate speech, whereas people who endorse the “binding foundations” are significantly less likely to do these things [This evidence is broadly consistent with a plethora of recent studies demonstrating that endorsement of the “binding foundations” is positively associated with authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, outgroup prejudice, and victim-blaming in cases of rape and other violent crimes ,35–46. Te things ,48. Furte things .There is also growing evidence that liberals are more strongly motivated than conservatives by empathic concerns for a wider circle of people –55—as wenot by epistemic or existential concerns or system justification tendencies—but by purely “moral ” concerns . Thus, they do not even consider the possibility that moral preferences favored by conservatives—including preferences for ingroup loyalty, deference to authority, and the enforcement of purity sanctions—are themselves linked to psychological needs and motives to reduce uncertainty and threat and to rationalize the legitimacy of the status quo. This is the possibility that we investigate in the present research program, which seeks to integrate theories of moral foundations and motivated social cognition rather than setting up a false juxtaposition between them. In other words, “moral” intuitions about fairness, harm, loyalty, authority, and purity—like the broader political ideologies in which they are embedded—may be related to the same sets of underlying psychological needs and motives identified in other research programs.Another problem is that Haidt and Graham’s (21) juxtaposition of theories of political conservatism as motivated social cognition and moral foundations relies upon a false dichotomy. As noted above, they argue that conservatives are motivated—Recent work by Hatemi et al.  lends crThere is also evidence that feelings of threat are associated with endorsement of “binding”  moral foundations. For instance, Van Leeuween and Park  observedIn contrast to Haidt and Graham (21), we believe that incorporating (rather than setting aside) the theory of political ideology as motivated social cognition—and especially the idea that conservative attitudes serve system-justifying functions of maintaining the existing social order—will help to illuminate the vicissitudes of moral judgment, much as it has illuminated the vicissitudes of political judgment ,14,17,59Conversely, we expected that the kinds of values that appeal to people who are relatively liberal and low in authoritarianism and social dominance, namely preferences for fairness and the avoidance of harm, would be associated with empathic forms of motivation. This hypothesis is consistent with the frequent observation that liberals exhibit more empathic concern toward a wider variety of social targets, in comparison with conservatives e.g., –55. Thuswhy specific moral intuitions are linked to political ideology [see We also supposed that system justification processes would not be irrelevant to moral intuitions, as Haidt and Graham (21) implied, and that they would instead help to address the question of logy see . Specifilogy see . The endlogy see .In the present research program, we therefore used a combination of regression and path modeling techniques to test an integrative model that incorporates epistemic and existential motives as well as “binding” and “individualizing” moral intuitions in order to provide a more complete and accurate picture of the motivational underpinnings of moral judgment and political ideology. Although a previous research program by Kugler et al.  providedcausal model of moral and political judgment [e.g., statistical relations, such as the observation that one variable is associated with another or accounts for  the covariation between two other variables, without making any philosophical assumptions about causality.Although we employ path modelling techniques, we wish to emphasize that we are in no way attempting to test a nt e.g., . For inspost hoc rationalizations of ideological preferences, and we regard the research program here as consistent with that approach.We also wish to clarify our theoretical rationale for ordering the psychological and political variables in the ways we have in the path model for Study 2. As a general rule, we believe that it makes the most sense to begin with variables that are more general or abstract—such as epistemic and existential needs to reduce uncertainty and threat and general empathic motivation—and to use these to predict other somewhat more specific psychological variables that apply, at least potentially, to non-political as well as political domains, such as specific moral intuitions about fairness, harm avoidance, ingroup loyalty, authority, and purity. Next we move on to variables that are more specific but still somewhat general in their application (such as system justification) and then finally to variables that are more concrete and overtly political . This is the approach we have taken in several other studies in which we demonstrate that system justification mediates  the effects of general psychological variables  on specific political attitudes and liberal-conservative self-identification ,64. OnceSD = 1.03; 168 females) participated in a mass-testing session for course credit (Spring 2011). They completed measures of epistemic and existential motivation, empathy, system justification, moral intuitions, and political ideology, and provided demographic information.Two hundred and twenty-five NYU students . With respect to the need for cognition, participants indicated their agreement/disagreement with 18 statements [α = .87). In both cases, participants used a response scale ranging from 1 (extremely uncharacteristic) to 5 (extremely characteristic). As expected, scores on these two measures were negatively correlated .To measure epistemic motivation, we administered the Need for Cognitive Closure and Need for Cognition scales. With respect to the need for cognitive closure, participants indicated their level of agreement with 42 statements , such asatements , such asstrongly disagree) to 9 (strongly agree). In our sample, reliability was rather low (α = .48), which is partially attributable to the small number of items [We measured existential motivation with three items used in prior research to measure death anxiety ,68, nameof items .α = .81). Participants indicated their agreement on a scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).To measure empathic sensitivity, we administered the 20-item Basic Empathy Scale , which cnot at all relevant) to 5 (extremely relevant). The next 10 items required participants to indicate their agreement or disagreement with statements such as “Respect for authority is something all children need to learn” on a scale ranging from 0 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). These two sets of items were then combined to compute moral intuition scores at the individual level. Reliability for some of the foundations was very low (.49 ≤ α ≤ .70), as in previous research [α = .80 and .75, respectively).We administered the 20-item Moral Foundations Questionnaire  to gaugeresearch . By aggrstrongly disagree) to 9 (strongly agree).To assess individual differences in the tendency to justify the societal status quo, we administered the 17-item Economic System Justification Scale . Sample extremely liberal) to 11 .To estimate political ideology we calculated the mean of responses to three items used by : (1) “WhIn an attempt to integrate insights derived from theories of moral foundations and political conservatism as motivated social cognition, we assessed three sets of relations in this research program: (a) the extent to which epistemic and existential motives (as well as empathy) predicted moral intuitions, (b) the relationship between moral intuitions and system justification, and (c) the extent to which moral intuitions and system justification mediate the effects of epistemic and existential motivation on political ideology. Correlations among study variables are listed in We hypothesized that epistemic and existential motives would explain a significant amount of variance in moral intuitions, especially with respect to “binding” intuitions. We also hypothesized that empathic concerns would explain a significant amount of variance with respect to intuitions about fairness and the avoidance of harm. As shown in b = -.22, SE = .09, β = -.17, p < .05), whereas need for closure  and death anxiety  were positive predictors of ingroup loyalty, as was empathy .In a further test of our hypotheses, we simultaneously regressed each of the psychological factors onto ratings of the five types of moral intuitions. First, we observed that epistemic and existential motives (as well as empathy) played a significant role in the valuation of ingroup loyalty. More specifically, the need for cognition was a negative predictor  was a negative predictor, whereas need for closure  was a positive predictor of deference to authority. No other factors attained statistical significance.Second, we observed that epistemic motives drove concerns about deference to authority. Need for cognition , whereas need for closure  and death anxiety  were positive predictors of purity concerns. Empathy played no significant role in purity concerns.Third, we observed that epistemic and existential motives played a significant role in the valuation of purity. Need for cognition was a negative predictor  and were unrelated to epistemic and existential motives. The same pattern was observed with respect to avoidance of harm. Empathy was the only significant predictor Fourth, we observed that concerns about fairness were predicted by empathy , whereas need for closure  and death anxiety  were positive predictors. Empathy played no role. The full model accounted for 21% of the statistical variability in the valuation of binding concerns. By contrast, the only statistically significant predictor of individualizing concerns was empathy . The epistemic and existential motives were unrelated to concerns about fairness and harm avoidance. The model accounted for 16% of the statistical variability in the valuation of individualizing concerns.Next we aggregated ratings of the three “binding” intuitions  and the two “individualizing” intuitions  and conducted two more regression models on these aggregated dependent variables. An even starker picture emerged, in comparison with the one based on separate ratings of each intuition, as in previous research ,27. The why conservatives value ingroup loyalty, obedience to authority, and purity in the first place. Contrary to the claims of Haidt and Graham [Thus, the results of our first study were indeed supportive of our integrative model. Epistemic and existential motives were positively associated with the endorsement of “binding”  foundations, as hypothesized. These findings are consistent with the notion that theories of moral foundations and motivated social cognition are compatible rather than incompatible and that the latter perspective can help to explain d Graham , it woulTo develop a broader conceptual framework as a means of integrating theories of moral foundations and ideology as motivated social cognition and to explore the hypothesis that system justification would mediate the effects of moral intuitions on political ideology, we conducted a second study based on a larger and more heterogeneous sample. We also sought to improve upon the reliability of our measurement of death anxiety. Our primary aim, however, was to collect data on a sample that would be suitable to test the path model illustrated in n = 25), responded too quickly (< 4 min) to our survey (n = 4), or did not respond to three or more scales (n = 15). The remaining two-hundred and forty-nine participants  completed measures of epistemic and existential needs, empathy, system justification, moral intuitions, and political ideology, as well as demographic information.Two hundred and seventy-two participants filled out our survey on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk in exchange for $.50 , for a dα = .89) and the Need for Cognition scale (α = .94).To measure epistemic motivation, we administered the same two scales used in Study 1, namely the Need for Cognitive Closure scale (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Reliability of the scale was high this time (α = .94).We tried to address the low reliability score of our measure for existential motivation in study 1 through utilizing a more established death anxiety scale. We administered the 13-item Death Anxiety scale ,68 contaα = .89).To measure empathic concern, we administered the 20-item Basic Empathy Scale as used also in Study 1  to 6 (extremely relevant). The next 15 items required participants to indicate their agreement with statements such as “Respect for authority is something all children need to learn” on a scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). These two sets of items are then combined to compute moral intuition scores at the individual level. For our MTurk sample, subscale reliabilities were all acceptable: Avoidance of Harm (α = .70), Fairness (α = .68), Ingroup Loyalty (α = .69), Obedience to Authority (α = .74), and Purity (α = .83); by aggregating them into “individualizing” and “binding” intuitions, we were able to improve reliabilities further .In Study 2, we administered the updated 30-item Moral Foundations Questionnaire  to help α = .87).In Study 2, we administered the same 17-item Economic System Justification Scale as in Study 1. Reliability was once again satisfactory (α = .94).The same three questions were used to assess participants’ political ideology. Reliability was higher in this sample , but no other factor attained statistical significance. Second, we observed that (as in Study 1) epistemic motivation drove concerns about obedience to authority. Need for cognition  was a negative predictor, whereas need for closure  was a positive predictor of obedience to authority. No other factors attained statistical significance.We also performed a regression analysis that paralleled the analysis from the previous study. First, we observed that while existential motivation played a significant role in the valuation of ingroup loyalty (as in Study 1), neither epistemic motivation nor empathy played a significant role. Death anxiety was again a positive predictor of ingroup loyalty , whereas need for cognition was a negative predictor  of purity concerns. Empathy was also a negative predictor of purity concerns . Death anxiety, however, played no significant role. Fourth, we observed that concerns about fairness were once again predicted by empathy  as well as need for cognition —but not need for closure. As in Study 1, there was no association between existential motivation and fairness concerns. Fifth and finally, avoidance of harm was predicted by empathy , but it was unrelated to epistemic and existential motivation (as in Study 1).Third, we observed that epistemic motivation played a significant role in the valuation of purity (as in Study 1). Need for closure was a positive predictor  was again a positive predictor, whereas empathy was a marginally significant negative predictor . In this case, existential motivation played no significant role. The model accounted for 8% of the statistical variability in the valuation of binding concerns. By comparison, the statistically significant predictors of individualizing concerns were empathy  and need for cognition . Existential motivation was unrelated to these concerns. The model accounted for 20% of the statistical variability in the valuation of individualizing concerns.Calculating the same regression model for the aggregated individualizing and binding foundations, we obtained slightly different results than in Study 1. In terms of the binding foundations, need for closure . Need for closure was positively associated with the endorsement of binding concerns , and there was a marginally significant negative association between empathy and endorsement of binding concerns .We first built the saturated model illustrated in b = -.71, SE = .10, β = -.42, p < .001) and positively associated with binding concerns . The individualizing and binding concerns mediated the relations between empathy, need for closure, need for cognition, and death anxiety, on one hand, and system justification, on the other. In addition, political conservatism was positively associated with system justification  and with the endorsement of binding concerns . Conservatism was negatively associated with the endorsement of individualizing concerns . Empathy, existential, and epistemic motivations explained 20.4% of the variance in endorsement of individualizing concerns and 7.8% of the variance in the endorsement of binding concerns. The model explained 34.2% of the variance in system justification and 37.9% of the variance in political orientation.As hypothesized, system justification was negatively associated with individualizing concerns : {-0.31, -0.10}, : {-0.15, -.02}, : {0.03, .18}, : {-.11, -.03}, and : {-0.09, -0.002}.The results of Study 2 provide additional evidence in support of our integrative model, especially with respect to the path model illustrated in post hoc rationalizations of left-right ideological preferences.There are at least two ways of making sense of the present findings in light of the broader research literature on moral foundations theory. One possibility is that moral intuitions represent something that is relatively stable and coherent about the individual’s psychological make-up—something that is influenced by underlying epistemic and existential needs to reduce uncertainty and threat. For instance, concerns about maintaining intergroup boundaries, obeying authority, and enforcing purity sanctions in the moral domain may, at least in part, reflect underlying individual differences in the desire for an orderly and predictable world in which nothing is left to chance. This could explain, for instance, why the need for cognitive closure is positively associated with the endorsement of “binding foundations.” This possibility is consistent with previous studies conducted by Federico and colleagues  but seemAnother possibility is that moral foundations are merely epiphenomenal reflections of more stable ideological proclivities that are themselves tied to the individual’s psychological make-up. The idea here is that individual differences in the strength of epistemic and existential needs to reduce uncertainty and threat give rise to “liberal” and “conservative” personalities and corresponding ideological preferences ,14, and Taken in conjunction, the results presented here lead to several conclusions that should be of relevance to social scientists who study morality, social justice, and political ideology. First, we observe that so-called “binding” moral concerns pertaining to ingroup loyalty, authority, and purity are psychologically linked to epistemic and, to a lesser extent, existential motives to reduce uncertainty and threat. Second, so-called “individualizing” concerns for fairness and avoidance of harm are not linked to these same motives. Rather, they seem to be driven largely by empathic sensitivity. Third, it would appear that theories of moral foundations and motivated social cognition are in some sense compatible, as suggested by Van Leeuween and Park , rather negatively associated with the endorsement of “binding” concerns, consistent with prior evidence linking “binding” concerns to prejudice, outgroup hostility, and other antisocial outcomes. Sixth, our findings echo the conclusions of Hatemi et al. [Fourth, moral foundations theory may be useful for fleshing out the picture of conservatism initiated by the theory of political ideology as motivated social cognition ,14, insoi et al. , who argFar from indicating that ideological differences between liberals and conservatives are attributable to exclusively “moral” concerns —or to “tTo underscore the role of ideological polarization when it comes to ideals of social justice, Rothmund and colleagues  juxtaposS1 Data(ZIP)Click here for additional data file.


Although studied to a lesser extent compared to trust, distrust does impede health initiatives, such as infectious diseases prevention programs, mostly of so-called Neglected Zoonotic Diseases (NZDs). Where distrust prevails, even trust building actions such as defining rights and obligations, prioritizing “the greater good” and increasing transparency, are prone to failure. In this study, we deepen the understanding of the concept of distrust through a unique case study of Brucellosis, a prevalent bacterial zoonotic disease endemic to disadvantaged Bedouin communities in southern Israel.Over the last decades, health systems worldwide have faced a decline in public trust. For marginalized minority populations, who generally suffer from poverty and political exclusion, the roots of this trend go much deeper, establishing a state of bi-directional In the years 2015–2019, we qualitatively studied socio-political aspects in a governmental Brucellosis control campaign in southern Israel. We used in-depth interviews with 38 governmental and private health workers, agriculture and nature preservation workers, livestock owners and community leaders. Further, we conducted participant observation in 10 livestock pens and in policymaking meetings, and collected policy and media documents in order to triangulate the results.We conceptualize three different types of distrust between authorities and marginalized communities—“intention-based distrust”, “values-based distrust” and “circular distrust”—to better explain how distrust originates and reinforces itself, reproducing the endemicity of NZDs. Based on that, we portray a practical framework to reduce distrust in health policies, by reframing local discourses, reshaping disease monitoring schemes from enforcement-based to participation-based, and promoting political inclusion of disadvantaged communities.The suggested analysis and framework redirect health policy objectives to not only acknowledge, contain and reduce the consequences of distrust, but also to strive for societal justice as a tool for health promotion. Mutual trust between the public and health systems has long been recognized as integral to the long-term success of policy initiatives. Yet trust cannot be assumed, and trust building should be a fundamental part in planning and program implementation . The vieMutual trust benefits both governments and societies; it fosters the legitimacy of government and its ability to influence people’s lives. Moreover, it builds vibrant social communities and helps to foster social cohesion between a government and its citizens –5. Howevdistrust, for which there is much less theory and policy research. Trust and distrust are not end-points on a single continuum; instead, these are distinct constructs with different determinants and effects on stakeholders , the Bedouin conceal them, transfer them [to other owners], or claim they were stolen. Can you fight it? It’s hard. It’s a mentality.While officials ascribe this behavior to a certain Bedouin “mentality,” a Bedouin (MoH) employee who investigates human brucellosis outbreaks attributes it to inadequate government planning:It was not possible in our inquiries to confirm the source of contamination as the [patient’s] parents would not cooperate or tell the truth …. Such fear, suspicion, and deliberately withholding information are caused by ambiguous or conflicting policies and unmet promises, responsible for a complete loss of trust in the establishment.intention-based distrust influences provision and acceptance of health promotion interventions. These perceptions, as explained by our interviewees, originated in events that followed, and even preceded, the establishment of the Jewish State of Israel, as far as the colonial history of the Middle East. Ignoring or attempting to reshape this long-standing culture of distrust seems not only to reproduce a demonizing or generalizing rhetoric between the community and health providers, but also to prevent parties from taking the necessary steps to manage a communicable disease that is well-controlled in most industrialized countries.Regardless of whether it is embedded in collective perceptions or individual experience, attributed to the state’s control over ethnic minorities, or to post-nomadic societies’ defiance of regulations, our study shows that Distrust does not only stem from negative perceptions of the other’s intentions. A more insidious kind derives from perceived incongruence in values between a government and recipients of its services. This distrust can lead to even worse consequences, clouding the perception of neutral or helpful inter-personal encounters with stigmatization and generalization. A Bedouin physician who provides education to prevent brucellosis transmission to humans said:You can educate people, but this will only change things in future. Among the Bedouin, there is indifference—“It will not happen to me.” Sometimes, you tell a herder to boil the milk, and he’ll reply “my sheep are fine, I just checked them,” but after a while, he and his children get sick. He doesn’t take you seriously. “My father and my grandfather never boiled, and they were just fine.”The physician’s claim that education has limited effects on risk perception and health behavior is supported by the literature, and is also demonstrated in a recent Israeli study that found no association between brucellosis knowledge and the actual consumption of non-regulated dairy products . HoweverWhat I’ve learned over years of working with the Bedouin is that most of what they say is false… Maybe I’m stigmatizing, but I doubt everything they say. For example, we attempted to establish a model farm with one herder who agreed that he would track and document his lambs, but when I returned a month later, he had sold them with no documentation… There is a credibility problem, but there’s something more; it may be due to suspicion.This inability to find common ground may derive from distinct economic worldviews, in which modern agriculture as a business runs up against the view of livestock as a survival safety net for many Bedouin . We contGovernmental offices never included the Bedouin. Over time, since the British Mandate, the Bedouin got it into their DNA, that whomever comes from the government is here to ruin your life. I have a white Isuzu truck, same as the ones used by the [Israel Land] Authority. Such a vehicle is a threat, no matter who the driver. I came to take [blood] samples from a few camels, and this dumb herder photographs my car’s front and back. Even though I’m not from the government, still they suspect me.generalized distrust in Bedouin communities, impeding their cooperation even with seemingly “neutral” non-governmental health providers. However, this distrust is also attributed to a so-called hereditary characteristic that negates “rational” thinking, conveying a perception of mutual values-based distrust. Referring to a different symbol of ongoing contention between the Bedouin and the government, a livestock owner gave other reasons not to cooperate:While the aforementioned encounter is indubitably influenced by distrust, this distrust is attributed here to the continuing exclusion of the Bedouin population in policymaking. Consequently, this exclusion, symbolized by the “white truck,” creates If someone were to ask me today if I would join a [governmentally planned] town, I would say no. If I wanted to return with my sheep from the pasture, I would have nowhere to put them. Do they expect me to drop them inside my house? But at the same time, we see that Jews can obtain Loner Farms—the Bedouin cannot. How can you ignore peoples’ culture, something they have known all their lives; you can’t change people overnight. Then you build a museum to show “how Bedouins used to live,” but this is my life!deculturation depriving the Bedouin of their historical livelihoods. The museum referred to by the herd owner was designed and curated by Jewish Israelis, and was criticized as being structured for the pleasure of western tourists: “There is an implicit presumption that Bedouin material culture and activities represented are no longer viable or extant today, but serve as ‘artefacts’ from a culture that once was”  would say, “your sheep is infected, here is ₪500,” I would hand over a different sheep worth₪ 500 [or less], and sell the infected sheep for ₪1,200 by taking the ear-tag out of this one and putting it in the other. Then what have you done to the disease? You gave me the power to transmit it to others.Circumventing the system by exchanging infected sheep, which adversely affects brucellosis control efforts, is justified here by distrust caused by unmet expectations for compensation. However, according to a MoA manager, the compensation was already set at the highest possible rate for exactly the same reasons:In the 1990s, we were paying too much, and herders intentionally infected their animals to receive compensation. Let’s say a herder has a flock worth little in the market. If the animals become infected, he will get a much higher price from the government; he hits the jackpot.While government officials adopt distrusted policies and exclude the public from policy design, as happened with the setting of the compensation policy, they will likely face consequential distrusting behavior, justifying their policy and their decision to limit stakeholder input post factum. Applying a “rational choice” prism here, either to understand what incentivizes the public, or what is included in policy risk-assessment, downplays the inherent distrust factors and the "burden of history" of ongoing relationships that enlist contradictory argumentations (e.g. paying too much leads to deception versus paying too little leads to deception) to decision making. In the case of brucellosis management, distrusting policy further excluded the public, not only from planning, but also from implementing the program. As noted by a private veterinarian who tried to obtain brucellosis test results taken from a flock tended by a herder he serves:I asked the [MoA worker], “This herder is my client, I need to know his test results.” He answered that 37 out of 168 of his sheep are infected, “but I can’t tell you which ones… If the herder knows, he’ll sell them.” And when herders ask about the results, they are told “We’ll let you know when we come to cull your herd.” Some wait up to seven months; meanwhile, more sheep become infected.inaction, a dangerous byproduct carried out by both the affected public and authorities. This explains why, despite health risks, those who distrust the authorities may conceal health information, hide infected animals, and ignore public health directives. Concomitantly, the Israeli government had done little over decades to manage brucellosis until peak incidence in 2014. Even then, intervention was minimal, failing to cull infected animals, which would have required financial compensation of herders according to the Animal Diseases Directive, 1985 [As concluded by a recent State Comptroller report, extended wait times, limited resources, and existing compensation policies enable brucellosis transmission in the Negev desert . Withholve, 1985 . One polYou can, in fact, compensate for culled animals under the Animal Diseases Directive, but only if IVS requirements are met, and the Bedouin never meet these criteria. This means that they cannot be paid under the directive.–Did you try to find herders who do meet the criteria?–There just aren’t any. You have”Father Abraham” strolling around on the hills. Do you expect him to invite the IVS to vaccinate the herd?all Bedouin herders would not qualify for the directive’s compensation was inevitable, according to the MoA, who framed it as “the unique social reality” in the Negev desert [The assertion that v desert . Howeverv desert , yet culAs described, distrust can take various forms, stem from attributions of malign intentions or contradictory worldviews, build on historical or contemporary issues, and result in benign neglect or direct harm. Distrust is not simply a lack of trust, and should be tackled differently; otherwise, it becomes self-fulfilling, justifying generalizations, stigmatizations, exclusion, and noncooperation. Nor do we call for disregarding the harm of distrust and blindly adopt trust, or to simply “trust trust and distrust distrust”  because Distrust is a multi-faceted concept that characterizes long-standing interrelations. Where it exists, distrust passively reduces interactions, neglecting hazards that continue to spread, or actively sabotages necessary collaborations by means of exclusion and deception. To the detriment of public health, distrust between health systems and underserved populations reinforces preconceptions of value-incongruence and belief in the malicious intent of others. The study of brucellosis in the Negev desert of Israel demonstrates how distrust is circular, self-fulfilling, and multi-directional. It is grounded in history and socio-political factors that affect communities, human–animal interfaces, and government–public relations that cannot be rectified overnight. Later in this discussion, we portray a stepwise framework of distrust reduction to guide health policy interventions. First, the framework explains how decisions that are superficially attributed to governmental risk analysis or to the public’s mentality and culture stem from distrust. Then we suggest approaches to redirect planning towards trustful relations.The case of brucellosis allows us to demonstrate how common trust promotion mechanisms, such as clear definitions of rights and obligations, utilitarian approaches, and data transparency are destined to fail when distrust prevails. Within this cycle of reciprocal distrust, the principle of transparency that supports stakeholder participation coexists alongside the perceived need to conceal information from distrusted populations. The motivation to allocate ad-hoc resources towards health promotion coexists with halting of more sustainable resources, reducing governmental accountability, and thus destabilizing the balance of rights and obligations. The desire to enforce “the greater good” coexists with dismissal of the interests and rights of minorities. Such conflicting mechanisms lead policymakers to adopt certain “go-to” solutions, such as the under-compensation for animal diseases to prevent coincidental hitchhiking, adversely reinforce existing distrust.Nevertheless, how can distrust be justified or rationalized in light of the negative long-term consequences? Game theory suggests that individuals who usually obey social rules, will disobey if they cannot trust others to do so as well, even if it is irrational from the systems’ perspective . AnotherWhat can be done, then, to break the cycle of distrust? We would like to suggest a practical four-step framework, illustrated as follows :First, existing circular distrust necessitates thorough exploration of its historical, social, and economic factors and consequences, done with diverse key stakeholders and shared with policymakers. It is important to notice and clarify not only distrust based on perceptions of malice intentions, but also distrust that stems from perceived value-incongruences, dividing societies and attributing conflicting meanings to their symbols. Even in developed countries, incongruence between the values of health systems and the public has created generalized distrust in all government initiatives . The sugSecond, it should be understood that not much can be done to shape traditions of trust built upon historical experiences that societies have undergone . These treliability issues that underlie trust violations, however ineffectively to value-incongruences that underpin distrust [Third, punitive efforts to enforce compliance with health policy should be reduced as much as possible. In addition to costs associated with human resource requirements, enforcement responds effectively only to distrust . To redudistrust . Comparedistrust ,92.Fourth, strategies that parallel enforcement reduction must be participatory and inclusive; the need for coercive mechanisms is infrequent when communities can influence their realities by legitimate means. Inclusion only begins with inviting marginalized populations to set their own goals, to develop strategies, and to determine incentives, as well as implement the interventions. More broadly, inclusion goes beyond the traditional parameters of health provision, and adopts holistic approaches that transcend discipline boundaries, knowledge types, and class. Elsewhere, we suggests the “political One-Health” approach to answer such needs . In thisThis study adds new perspectives to the concept of distrust between marginalized communities and health systems. It builds on the claim that trust and distrust are not opposites, but distinct conditions of interrelations that entail distinct approaches. Unlike previous works that focused on trust in order to explain distrust, we dissemble and reconstruct the concept of distrust through the exploration of a unique case study of Bedouin communities and health providers in the Negev desert in the south of Israel, dealing with the neglected zoonosis of Brucellosis. Our analysis highlights and explains three interrelated features of distrust based on: perceived intentions to harm, rooted in history of domination and exclusion; incongruent values such as attitudes towards livelihoods, fostering stigmatization, and victim blaming; and finally, the circulatory aspect of distrust that uses short-term risk-reducing policies or loss-aversion risk behaviors to reinforce distrust and self-confirm its preconceptions.This study on brucellosis in the Negev desert was conducted within a specific time and location. Therefore, data collection and sampling were dependent, among other things, on personal traits or social networks of the authors, availability of resources, and mere fortuity, thus, anchoring the results in a very specific context. Furthermore, this article focused in distrust between local populations who suffer from diseases and health institutions as a whole. Due to considerations of analysis depth versus expansion, this article does not address distrust within these two sub-groups themselves, which might also influence intervention in neglected zoonosis–such as intra-institutional power relations , or gendNevertheless, using the resulting categorization, we demonstrated how theoretical pillars of trust-building policies such as (top-down) definitions of rights and obligations, enforcement of “the greater good” (while sacrificing minorities), and transparency of  information causes only the deepening of distrust and further marginalization of marginalized populations. Consequently, we offer a methodical four-step framework to reduce distrust by exploring and mapping its sources, acknowledging and changing its discourses, and reducing the influences of distrusting actions, first through a decrease in governmental compulsion, and then through inclusion of considerations that go beyond disease elimination and promote social justice. This framework, we believe, can provide tools for the enhancement of acceptance and long-term success of health initiations. More broadly, it can establish healthier relationships between governments and minority populations in the presence of the contemporary trust decline towards health systems specifically, and democratic regimes in general.


Alexithymia is a disorder that stands at the border of mind and body, with psychological/affective and physiological/experiential disturbances. The purpose of this article is to propose a new clinical access point for the evaluation and treatment of the deficits in emotional awareness demonstrated in alexithymia. This will be based on insights from recent neuroscientific research, which is adding to the psychodynamic understanding of alexithymia, regarding clinical presentation and etiology. Following a brief review of definitions, forms of measurement, and potential etiologic elements of alexithymia, current neuroscientific theory and research into “predictive processing” approaches to brain function will be outlined, including how “interoception” and “interoceptive inference” underpins emotion and emotional awareness. From this synergistic perspective, I will outline how interoceptive inference provides a key to the link between: problems in early life relational experiences and the patient’s long held, but suboptimal models of their inner and outer world. This is reflected in the deficits in affective experiencing and emotional awareness described in alexithymia. Three clinical cases will be presented to illustrate this nuanced consideration of alexithymic etiology and treatment. The implications of the historical, psychological, and somatic aspects of experience will be considered, regarding the patients’ diminished ability to: experience and represent emotional experience as distinct feeling states; signify the relevant meaning of affective experience; and incorporate such with cognitions to adaptively guide behavior. These will be addressed using psychometric, psychological, neuro-cognitive, and neurocomputational approaches. Elements from current theory, research, and treatment of alexithymia, will be highlighted that are salient to the clinician, in order to support their understanding of patients against the backdrop of current psychodynamic and neuroscientific research, which will thereby increase treatment options and benefits. The focus, and conclusion, of this article is the role that attention to interoception can play (within the safety of the therapeutic relationship and within any therapeutic process) in allowing updating of the patient’s strongly held but dysfunctional beliefs. I will link psychological and neuroscientific proposals to explain how an alexithymic patient’s unique symptomatic presentation is generated and how this may be best comprehended and responded to in their treatment.“utilitarian” and concrete, with apparent minimal ability to fantasize or abstract. This form of thought was labeled “pensee operatoire”  difficulty identifying feelings and in distinguishing between feelings and bodily sensations that reference emotions; 2.) difficulty describing feelings to others; 3.) restricted imagination and lack of fantasy; and 4.) an externally oriented thinking style –8. SubseAlexithymia is a complex construct that involves both cognitive and affective disturbances. It is considered a deficit in experiencing, describing, and regulating emotion , evidencThe Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS), which is the most commonly used self-report measure, was originally developed as 26 items and then pared down to a 20-item questionnaire (TAS-20). The TAS-20 provides individual sub-scores for the three factors from the Heidelberg consensus i.e.: 1.) Difficulty Describing Feelings (DDF); 2.) Difficulty Identifying Feelings (DIF); and 3.) Externally Oriented Thinking (EOT). Daydreaming, as a potential factor, was eliminated from the TAS-20, as it was considered subject to social responsivity bias and insufficiently reflective of the subject’s capacity for imagination . The oveBy contrast, the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS), developed by Lane and co-workers, reflects their conceptualization of alexithymia as a global impairment in affective processing, resulting in deficits in emotion generation, description and awareness . The LEAThe TAS-20 and the LEAS are both commonly used throughout research and in clinical literature and practice. Importantly, the creators of both measurement tools agree that a disturbance in emotional processing is salient to alexithymia , 16. Howdefine alexithymia. However, “the measure one is using,  is not itself alexithymia but only an approximation of it” [“Only when one experiences the cognitive aspect of an emotion—the meaning of the affect and some indication of the “story behind it”—and simultaneously has the expressive reaction and an adequate capacity for reflective selfawareness [sic], can one observe that one is experiencing a ‘feeling’ and identify it.” “superadjusted” in fact  life trauma that can create an experience in which the trauma continues to be subjectively experienced, as if it were punishment for the patient’s transgression in seeking their own goals. Thus, reaching for any goal generates distress, with the trauma implicitly acting as a command to the individual not to experience positivity or vitality. McDougall’s  bodily-based sensory experience through levels of cognitive awareness that are increasingly more explicitly and consciously recognized. Alexithymia represents dysfunction, with the patient operating at a Level of Emotional Awareness that is limited by specific developmental disturbances that have created deficiency in some of the elements necessary for emotional awareness at higher levels. For example, there may be deficits in awareness of bodily sensation or in recognition of emotions as feeling states. Although this progress represents a continuum of a trait-level ability, Emotional Awareness is conceived as having five levels.  creates emotion and feelings. Fundamental to this is “interoception,” which is the set of senses that sends information from all the tissues of the body to the brain, through neural and blood-borne pathways , being f levels” .The insular cortex is an area that has widespread importance regarding interoception and emotional experience , 35, wit“is in charge of processing self-related content” .“Given some phenomenon (A) that we want to know about, and an observation (X) that is evidence relating to A, Bayes’ Theorem tells how much we should update our knowledge of A, given the new evidence X” This Bayesian process occurs throughout the brain, in a step-wise manner. Thus, the generative models it creates are termed hierarchical. Predictions (i.e. our prior beliefs or expectations) essentially flow down the hierarchy, meeting upcoming sensation from interoceptive, exteroceptive, and proprioceptive sources. When any given prior prediction (the likelihood that sensory inputs would be observed under a given model) is compared against sensory data, further activity in the hierarchical processes determines whether to update that prediction in the light of this new, incoming evidence. To do so it utilizes the difference between the prediction and the sensory evidence. This difference is referred to as “prediction error”—i.e., how wrong the prediction appears to be, when compared to the current sensory data. This hierarchical activity is occurring across multiple levels of the brain at any given instant. Whether any prediction error will update a prior prediction, or whether actions will be generated, following the sensory evidence, depends on the relative salience/reliability of the prior prediction compared with that of the sensation.vs. prediction errors. The relative weight (i.e. precision) of the prior belief vs. the incoming interoceptive sensory information, determines whether the prior gets updated (or not). If the prior is precise, it will tend not to update in the light of imprecise prediction error. By contrast, highly precise incoming sensation can update an imprecise prior. Updating results in a new (hopefully more accurate) belief known as the “posterior” belief. Such updating of beliefs/predictions occurs across all biopsychological domains, including: perception; motor control; emotion; and decision-making.To understand this, it is important to reiterate that the words expectation, prior, or belief, do not denote consciously held beliefs, but refer to activity occurring in neurons in the brain. Referring back to our Bayes’ example above: all priors (beliefs regarding phenomenon A); incoming sensory information (observation X); prediction errors generated (if phenomenon A doesn’t match X); and resulting posterior beliefs (updated beliefs about phenomenon A), are assumed to be held in the form of probability distributions. There is, necessarily, uncertainty associated with each of these probability distributions, reflected mathematically by its relative spread. The inverse of this spread is known as its “precision,” which denotes the salience (confidence or reliability) associated with a particular prior or prediction error . The prealways in the service of minimizing unexpected (or unpredicted) sensations. Failure to do so will tend to lead to dis-homeostasis, with increasing disorder (entropy) that is dangerous to the organism, ultimately likely to cause death. Through the process of Bayesian updating, therefore, the organism is constantly improving its ongoing modeling of its inner and outer sensory world. By minimizing unexpected sensations, it maintains the body in stable homeostatic/physiologic states. Human beings thus form and update predictions (beliefs or expectations), throughout our lives, about all aspects of our inner and outer worlds. For example, we have prior beliefs/predictions about: homeostatic set points; the meaning of a pain in our body; and our social experience regarding the intentions of another person in the world.Predictive processing has been applied within a wider theory of adaptive functioning known as the “Free Energy Principle” , 64. ThiIt is important to note that our beliefs (priors), and thus our (generative) models of the world and ourselves in it, can never be veridical but they must be good enough to allow us to survive.The power of the Free Energy Principal is that it goes beyond providing an account of how the brain adjusts its perceptions . This Prfuture homeostasis, using its prior predictions based on our past experience to do so. Any deviation from such homeostatic set points produce prediction errors will actively engage allostatic responses to maintain energy regulation  are reasonably fit for purpose, thus resolving present and future uncertainty. This seeking is termed “oraging” . An impoIn light of the theories outlined above, we can now bring together the theoretical perspectives that indicate the crucial importance of the body in the interoceptive inference process that is responsible for generating elemental aspects of experience, such as emotional experience, emotional awareness, and a sense of self.“primary interoceptive cortex” , are the origins of the generative models (predictions/priors/beliefs) and access to interoceptive information (sensation/awareness), that we carry throughout life, about the safety of our body/ourselves in the world.The power of such experiences can be imagined in the example of an individual who suddenly experiences a strong sense of danger to their bodily state. This is often experienced as a change in visceral sensation , which gives rise to sudden highly precise interoceptive prediction errors, which then impact on generative models, activating priors unique to each individual in that present moment experience. Exteroceptive contextual elements, embedded in this experience, may also stimulate highly precise visceral predictions about what these sensations mean, generalizing to the whole body’s response. While in adult life an individual may be able to have cognitive/verbal associations to such physical sensations, and comprehend/express that they feel fear, there are innumerable events in infancy that are experienced as immediately unsafe, “anchor” would support the alexithymic individual’s tendency to focus on the external world, in order to create an external anchor, leading to externally oriented thinking.As noted in psychological theories, it follows that if the alexithymic individual cannot generally recognize bodily signals , bodily sensations that do manage to breach the level of conscious sensation and are experienced, are more likely to be felt as surprising than by those people who are not alexithymic. The effect on cognitive processes is likely be evidenced in the symptoms described as Difficulty Identifying Feelings (DIF), and Difficulty Differentiating Feelings (DDF), as such “surprise” will readily disrupt the coherence of a narrative focus of experience, and therefore any verbal ability to express emotion as feeling states, affecting the individual’s level of emotional awareness. Moreover, if this surprising sensation is hierarchically evaluated by a prior for physical illness or frailty, that happens to have high precision, the expression of the experience would be somatically oriented. Indeed, the lack of embodied sensation as an “an emotion episode is initiated” within the individual, in response to events that are “real, remembered, or imagined” .agined”  aConscious Access (CA): a process that grants access to domain general cognition for somatovisceral perceptions and emotion concepts, and are thus available for verbal expression and voluntary emotional regulation strategies.The TPM allows a thorough evaluation of each patient’s symptoms and their individualistic expression of alexithymia. In their computationally modeled clinical presentations, Lane and colleagues are able to account for the differences in symptomatology evidenced in alexithymic patients, with a view to improving individualized treatment approaches , 30, 45.“The proper study of psychiatry, is biography” egies)” “disciplined attention”  to physical sensation described in Susan’s case (case #3) supports epistemic foraging. The purposeful shifting of her attention from exteroceptive to interoceptive sensation greatly increases the flow of sensory information, allowing her to use more personally relevant and descriptive language regarding her somatic experience. There is increased conscious access to old priors that she is reacting to, with expressed insight into those priors, and increasing levels of emotional awareness. As Smith  asserts,sponse” , p. 45].sponse” [, 29, 45..sponse” “some say in things.” She describes using such self-calming practices at home, albeit sometimes after she has been too reactive to her prior beliefs regarding others, such as her husband. This increase in agency is accompanied by increasing emotional awareness, with blends of feelings being verbalized. As this shift in bodily experience allows a loosening of the hold that the generative model of an absent mother has on her physical reactions, Susan can now also describe a generalization of such change in cognitions.The focus on the interoceptive sensation of breathing, and compassionate body interest promoted by her yoga practice, invokes a new experience of self-care for Susan. It alters the old prior, established with her mother, that there is no available care for her, which stimulates her to dismiss all interoceptive sensations. She reports that yoga has been a meaningful place for her to gain a sense of agency, expressed as her purposeful breath focus, which reminds her that she has “who do you think you are?”) limits any attention to interoceptive sensation, keeping her attentional focus on the external, which greatly limits awareness of her emotional state and that of others. Her limited seeking of new experiences, of any kind that might instigate emotional response, does not allow for the mentalization of affect, leaving her only with the sense that life is “not good, not bad,” or with the vague descriptor “meh,” with which to express her feeling state.The effect of highly precise priors on cognitive style and bodily state are evidenced in Anna’s presentation [clinical case #2 . In the light of recent innovations in neuroscientific theory and its application to psychotherapy, I have argued in this article for the vital importance of enhancing our alexithymic patients’ ability to flexibly switch their attention between: their incoming interoceptive sensations; exteroceptive sensory signals from the world, in the current moment (i.e. the context); and their own habitual and deeply held prior beliefs about the causes or meanings of sensations. Among other therapeutic benefits, the patient will exhibit increased emotional awareness, affective expression, and mentalization, and improve their relational experiences on many levels. I hope that this characterization, and the recommendations that follow from it, will be of values to therapists of all persuasions, in their attempts to alleviate the difficulties that bring such patients to us.The datasets for this manuscript are not publicly available because: The information was attained in psychotherapy sessions that are confidential. The author received express written consent from each individual(s) regarding the clinical material that is disguised as to the individual’s identity.Ethical approval was not provided for this study on human participants because the paper involves case studies of patients in private treatment. Written, informed consent was gained from each patient, and all identifiable material was changed to protect their identity.PD contributed solely to this work.The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.


This paper highlights the potential for learning and virtual collaboration in international research teams to contribute towards sustainability goals. Previous research confirmed the environmental benefits of carbon savings from international virtual conferences. This paper adds the social and economic dimensions by using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to measure the constraints and benefits for personal development, economic costs, efficiency and team learning of holding international virtual conferences (VCs). Using the Sustainable and Healthy Food Systems (SHEFS) research programme as a case study, we analysed VC participant survey data to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of VCs. We estimated ‘saved’ GHG emissions, costs, and time, of using VCs as an alternative for a planned in-person meeting in Chennai, India. Hosting VCs reduced North–South, gender, and researcher inclusivity concerns, financial and travelling time costs, and substantially reduced emissions. For one international meeting with 107 participants, changing to a virtual format reduced the per capita GHG emissions to half the annual global average, and avoided 60% of travel costs. The benefits of VCs outweighed weaknesses. The main strengths were inclusivity and access, with 20% more early/mid-career researchers attending. This study identified opportunities for international research partnerships to mitigate their carbon footprint  and enhance inclusivity of early/mid-career, women and Global South participants , whilst continuing to deliver effective collaborative research meetings (economic benefit). In doing so, we present a holistic view of sustainability opportunities for virtual collaboration. All countries can share their views, knowledge and information in one “room” thus saving travelling costs”—Early-Career Researcher, Global South“[…] we could engage and share with each other in very challenging times, students of mine logged in to the conference from some of the most remote places in South Africa and just loved being part of the learning experience […]”—Senior Researcher, Global SouthThe most significant strengths were under the ‘participation’ theme. Enhanced opportunities to participate and increased inclusivity was a recurrent comment in the surveys, especially by early-career scholars from the Global South. Furthermore, despite the limitations of the virtual meeting format, social interaction was frequently mentioned as a strength, particularly for communication across countries. This included positive views of this type of virtual communication for research progress. “Significantly lower carbon footprint for the meeting and, thus, for the SHEFS project as a whole.”—Senior Researcher, Global North“In the current time frame, where the effects of climate change are becoming frequent and more calamitous, virtual conferences are one of the ways to reduce our carbon footprint.”—Mid-Level Researcher, Global North“It was less disruptive to my workday to be able to join individually”—Early-Career Researcher, Global North“The benefit was [that] this was logistically useful as it saved a lot of valuable time which would otherwise be spent in travelling and upsetting schedules. This initiative was also feasible at a carbon-footprint level”—Early-Career Researcher, Global SouthOther key strengths of hosting the VC were under ‘personal development’ related to personal time management and active contribution to a low carbon economy. With the research consortium focusing on sustainability issues, the reduced environmental footprint of the VC was a frequently mentioned sub-theme, and seen as a major strength of the VC format. Participants indicated that they appreciated the fact that, in this way, they were themselves “actively” contributing to lowering environmental footprints. 3.3.2“…When we met in groups  there were more interactions before/after sessions, but the experience was pretty similar for me during the actual sessions.”—Senior researcher, Global North“[Disadvantages of hosting the VC was] Not being able to have the direct connection and social interaction. Not being able to ask how people are really doing. Not being able to ask more sensitive questions to someone after a nice meal when the mood is relaxed and people have built some rapport. All the small human connections as social beings that make use of all non-verbal cues.” — Senior researcher, Global North“I wish more time could have been given to some of the discussions as they were very interesting”—Senior Researcher, Global SouthIn terms of weaknesses, under the ‘participation,’ theme it was felt that social interaction was hindered at the 2020 VC, where everyone met via Zoom as individuals during COVID-19, compared to the 2019 VC . Other weaknesses related to technical issues, such as a weak internet connection, were mentioned numerous times, and identified as threats in SWOTs. 3.3.3“If the meeting had been held in person I wouldn’t have been able to go (as I have a young child), but with a virtual meeting I am able to attend.”—Senior Researcher, Global North“More younger people could participate…More engagement by participants. Empowering for different sites as they could all participate and influence”— Senior Researcher, Global South“[…] Better use of time, resources  and energy (human)… Allows part-time workers to engage etc. Just so many wins.”—Senior Researcher, Global NorthFar more opportunities were identified than threats. Many opportunities were highlighted related to ‘work-life balance,’ for ‘personal well-being,’ most significantly that attending VCs resulted in reduced travel stress, the ability for more early-career researchers and people with home caring duties to participate, and a saving of personal time and energy. “It will give a chance to connect members from different places and they can share their opinions and have discussions live. Annual meeting can be left online and be accessible in future”—Early-Career Researcher, Global North“Maintaining a sense of community and partnership despite [the COVID-19] pandemic. Keeping partnerships strong and driving forward research. Supporting and valuing Early-Career Researchers.”—Senior Researcher, Global North“[…] Scientific side of the meeting was as good/better than face-to-face. Great for widening participation and access.”—Senior Researcher, Global NorthOpportunities related to ‘social interaction’ were also noted, where participants felt that the VCs provided a platform to explore new ways of connecting with each other on equal terms. Other comments were centred around the ability of the VC to facilitate continued ‘research progress’ despite the COVID-19 pandemic, and that the VC enabled ‘progressiveness and innovation’ related to learning and use of new technical skills and tools. 3.3.4“People could be distracted by household responsibilities, for example, kids”—Early-Career Researcher, Global South“More difficult to remain focussed when everything is online”—Early-Career researcher, Global North“I think the limited time also meant that new partnerships did not have enough time to be formed”—Senior Researcher, Global South“Sometimes the sound was not very good. It was harder to have real back-and-forth discussions”—Early-Career researcher, Global North“The internet connectivity in my area was terrible and this meant that I missed parts of the meeting”—Early-Career researcher, Global SouthThreats were identified under each main theme, most of which fell under the ‘logistical efficiency’ and ‘time productivity’ sub-themes. The fact that the VC had to consider different time zones across South Africa, the United Kingdom, and India meant that the conference duration for each day needed to be limited to four hours. This was about half of the time allocated for the face-to-face conference. This threat was compounded in the 2020 VC by ‘time productivity’, whereby participants mentioned that household distractions hindered their participation. Other issues raised were related to ‘social interaction,’ limited time for personal interactions, and poor internet connectivity. 3.4The main reinforcing loop R1 in  highligh4Debates around the effectiveness of virtual vs. face-to-face meetings have either shown virtual meetings as lacking effectiveness (particularly for building trust), or suitably able to meet the objectives of face-to-face meetings . Our stuPositive environmental effects such as reduced carbon are not expected to continue in the post-COVID-19 era, however, the pandemic showed the great potential for improved environmental health from redesigning multi-institutional collaboration and communication for reduced travel . Since tThe option to join virtually allowed more than double the number of females and early-career researchers from the Global South to attend than would have attended the face-to-face conference. Our findings show that virtual collaboration can assist in bridging research science gaps, such as the North-South divide   and the Estimated cost savings of hosting VCs were substantial, with an approximate 76% reduction, the majority of which was from flights. Other costs, not assessed in this study, include lengthy and financially burdensome visa applications to attend international conferences, most of which are hosted in the Global North and are thus unaffordable for many Global South researchers . UtilisiEffective research planning is crucial for research progress through VCs, and a number of trade-offs, such as limited possibilities to network, lack of opportunities for personal interaction, technical difficulties, and distractions/disengaging from the meeting, were experienced by participants. Some trade-offs will likely be resolved or tackled over the next few years: with faster connectivity (such as fibre internet and 5G networks) being rolled out across the world, mentioned IT and connectivity problems could become less of a problem in the near future. However, other trade-offs, and particularly those related to social interaction and face-to-face networking, which have been found to be crucial for developing trust and bonding social capital in business , are morCertain threats appear to have more impact on early-career to mid-career researchers, compared to senior researchers, which may be intrinsically linked with the nature of the weaknesses and threats mentioned by the researchers. This was due to limited finances or fewer previous opportunities to build relationships or network. Senior researchers typically have had more face-to-face meetings in the past years (or decades) to build up their networks, whilst early-career researchers are yet to establish their collaborations. The option of hosting participants in regional groups, in each location, can address the threat of limited opportunities to network whilst achieving avoided air travel .By effectively planning opportunities around VCs for personal interaction between participants, VCs present several strengths and opportunities that not only enhance research efficiency and potential but also provide opportunities for enhancement of personal well-being of researchers . Our stuWhilst solutions to sustainable development challenges are predominantly, and rightly, based on science , there iThe challenge resides in successfully demonstrating the occurrence of concepts, such as reflexivity, that strengthen virtual research collaboration by applying a constructivist perspective . As suchSome limitations of the study include that the results reflect a case study for which the boundary organisation, SHEFS, is already focused on achieving sustainability outcomes. This may have influenced the responses by participants, specifically, their positivity towards hosting the VC and the identification of the ‘strength’ of the VC for reducing the environmental impact of the meeting. Other limitations include that the surveys were taken voluntarily, and, thus, the entire team was not represented. Despite these limitations, this study has relevance for planetary health research, policy, and practice. The case study does represent a “field study” which has been in operation since 2017  and thus offers a credible view on the ability of virtual teams to overcome challenges and achieve good outcomes . Specifi5This study confirms that virtual collaboration can contribute to environmental, economic and social sustainability, namely: (1) Virtual communication and collaboration have many benefits that—in several circumstances—appear to outweigh the constraints posed by the lack of face-to-face interaction, especially in times of severe disruptions, such as experienced in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic; (2) Virtual collaboration is critical to reducing carbon emissions of the international scientific community; and (3) Virtual teams are more inclusive of marginalised scientists, such as those in the Global South, or early-career researchers who may be constrained by funding, or women, (4) VCs provide massive cost and time savings, which offer opportunities for use in other areas of research, and development, of researchers. This paper highlights that VCs can successfully enable continued progress of transdisciplinary research and achieve climate and sustainability goals, despite physical distances between team members. The transformative approach, based on using technology more fully, and effective planning to accentuate strengths and opportunities, and to mitigate weaknesses and threats, provided platforms for inclusion, participation, and influence on the project outputs and outcomes, vastly improving the innovation, robustness, and application of the science.Although the current global situation in some way forces research collaboration to take place virtually , the benAppendix


Distinct perceptions of the global climate is one of the factors preventing society from achieving consensus or taking collaborative actions on this issue. The public has not even reached an agreement on the naming of the global concern, showing preference for either “climate change” or “global warming”, and few previous studies have addressed these two competing discourses resulting from distinct climate concerns by differently linking numerous climate concepts. Based on the 6,662,478 tweets containing #climatechange or #globalwarming generated between 1 January 2009 and 31 December 2018, we constructed the semantic networks of the two discourses and examined their evolution over the decade. The findings indicate that climate change demonstrated a more scientific perspective and showed an attempt to condense climate discussions rather than diffuse the topic by frequently addressing sub-topics simultaneously. Global warming triggered more political responses and showed a greater connection with phenomena. Temporal analysis suggests that traditional political discussions were gradually fading in both discourses but more recently started to revive in the form of discourse alliance in the climate change discourse. The associations between global warming and weather abnormalitiessuddenly strengthened around 2012. Climate change is becoming more dominant than global warming in public discussions. Although two discourses have shown more similarities in the rank order of important climate concepts, apparent disagreements continue about how these concepts are associated. These findings lay the groundwork for researchers and communicators to narrow the discrepancy between diverse climate perceptions. The public’s distinct understanding of the cause and effect of the global climate issue is an obstacle to joint mitigation actions. In addition to a diversity of views co-existing in the public discourse ,2, previPublic preference between climate change and global warming is even more apparent when considering the ideology spectrum . Some scAlthough these existing studies have often attempted to identify the differences between these two terminologies, only a particular few perspectives, such as sentiment, ideological preference, or cause and effect, were examined in each study ,9,13. HoLarge amounts of user-generated data on social media, which have been valued in computer science, communication, and environmental studies ,16,17,18RQ1: What is the difference in how the two the discourses are associated with important climate concepts in people’s minds?RQ2: How did the two competing climate discourses evolve from 2009 to 2018?RQ3: Did the two competing discourses converge or diverge in this decade?To be specific, we formulated three research questions (RQs) to be explored in this study:Existing studies have noted that the subtle difference between climate change and global warming evokes different public cognitive responses, where global warming“indicates heat-related impacts, human causes, increased UV light penetration, ozone depletion, and the greenhouse effect, whereas climate change is more associated with a wide range of influences on climate, including drought and agriculture . An N-grThe two distinct climate discourses being produced based on the same reality can be explained by the framing theory in communication study. Framing refers to the phenomenon where the reality is always partially selected or highlighted when described by the public or media . By distDifferent frames concerning the global climate concern are popular among the public, politicians, environmentalists, and the media ,28,29. BStudies have noted that the frameworks of climate change and global warming may result from different political indications. The American Republican-leaning states show more preference for global warming than climate change compared with Democratic-leaning states, and global warming is more connected with “hoax” in questioning the reality of the global climate issue . ConservDifferent framework choices may create even more differences than have already been noticed. Psychologists think that human beings are a collection of learned associations , and assWhen individuals search their memory for a particular piece of a message in their mind, the targeted node becomes salient and activated in the temporary memory . If two The hypothesis proposed by  suggestsLarge amounts of unprompted user-generated data on social media serve as distributed sensors that better reflect public opinion  and offeIn some cases, social media users have long struggled to define the most appropriate hashtag for certain events ,66. By oWhen hashtags are used in combination with each other, their co-occurrence pattern in big data can hint to the cognitive associations in people’s thoughts ,68. ReseThere are many other words in tweets besides hashtags to express the author’s intention. Multiple approaches, such as LDA and STM ,73, can As Twitter has been recognized as a popular discussion forum  and a soIn this research, we were interested in tweets containing either #climatechange or #globalwarming, as these two hashtags exactly correspond to climate change and global warming, respectively, the two competing definitions of climate issues. We did not follow  to incluTo collect these tweets, we used a Python-based crawler to send requests to the Twitter server to select hashtags, language, start date, and end date as inputs. Once the first request was completed, the server responded with a file in json format and the first 20 qualified tweets in a time-descending order. By parsing the json file, we obtained a string for the crawler to build the next request and obtain the next 20 tweets. Thus, a loop was written to keep the crawler sending requests and the crawler was automatically terminated when all the qualified tweets publicly available were collected. Our crawler respected Twitter’s robot.txt and we did not collect, analyze or display any user information in our study.Given our goal of exploring the difference between the two discourses, the 615,816 tweets containing both hashtags simultaneously were excluded to differentiate between the two datasets following ,80. A toAll the hashtags in the tweets were automatically extracted with the Regular Expression Library in Python. Hashtags were transformed to lowercase letters, and clear synonyms were stemmed . As all the tweets in the “climate change” dataset contained the #climatechange hashtag and all the tweets in the “global warming” dataset contained the #globalwarming hashtag, we did not document these two hashtags when processing data. The number of hashtags contained in the two discourses in each year is displayed in The co-occurrence patterns of hashtags in tweets from two datasets were documented to build semantic networks for climate change and global warming. For instance, for “#cimatechange redistributes #fish species at high latitudes. @_OScience @AarhusUni #Arctic”, a tweet in the climate change dataset, hashtags #fish and #arctic were documented as co-occurring and their associations plus one in the semantic network of climate change. In the semantic network, nodes represent hashtags and the weight of edge refers to the frequency at which two hashtags co-occurred.We visualized the network using Gephi software . FollowiA temporal analysis was introduced to understand the evolution of the two climate discourses over a long period. We first examined how the two semantic networks evolved in the past years. All the nodes once ranked top 50 in any of the 10 years were gathered to form a union set for each dataset. Then, they were clustered according to the strength of their associations in the whole dataset and mapped with a force-directed layout algorithm in Gephi to produce a graph of nodes. With the dynamic network function supplied by Gephi, we then added the associations between the nodes ranked on the top 50 list in 2009 to the graph of nodes and obtained the relationship of the top 50 nodes for 2009. Similarly, we produced a total of 10 graphs from 2009 to 2018, where the positions of the nodes on the 10 maps are the same, but the strengths of their associations are different to represent the changes in the associations of key hashtags for each discourse.The correlation between climate change and global warming discourses was measured every year to observe whether the two discourses converged or diverged over time. Considering computing power limitations, only key hashtags ranked in either of the top 50 lists for the two discourses in that year were included in the calculations. First, we measured to what extent the two discourses resemble each other in the order of importance for the hashtags in each year. For every year, the top 50 hashtags in each network were selected with a rank order according to their centrality. Then, Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient was used to examine the correlation of the rank orders of the selected nodes in the two discourses , where aAssociation networks surrounding #climatechange and #globalwarming showed different properties. The climate change discourse included 38,821 hashtags, whereas the global warming discourse only contained 8788 hashtags. The association networks of #climatechange and #globalwarming are shown in The largest cluster (green nodes) of both #climatechange and #globalwarming network refer to general facts about global climate issues, sharing words about the causes or effects concerning sustainability. The difference is that the largest cluster of #globalwarming (46% of the network) includes more slogan words, such as “world”, “planet”, “global”, and “climatechangeisreal”, whereas the largest cluster of #climatechange (40% of the network) tends to discuss some specific problems, such as agriculture, biodiversity, education, and politics.For the climate change discourse, the second-largest cluster (34%) is indicated in red and focuses on the responsibility to tackle climate change, where several global action hashtags are included, such as “un”, “parisagreement”, “cop21”, and “cop24”. The theme of the third largest cluster (20%) in the climate change discourse was energy (in blue). The smallest cluster (6%) in yellow sits in the central part of the network with a mixed theme composed of three highly ranked hashtags, including “environment” (No. 2), “climateaction” (No. 3), and “energy” (No. 6).In the global warming network, politics was the second-largest discourse cluster (20% of the network), where “tcot”, short for “Top Conservatives on Twitter”, was the node ranked highest, and “p2”, short for “Progressives 2.0”, is also included. Several political figures, such as Obama and Al Gore, are frequently mentioned. Action toward the global climate issue was the third-largest cluster (16%), including both domestic efforts, such as “us”, “trump”, “climatechangeisreal”, “climateaction”, and “epa”, and two international items, like “china” and “india”. The fourth cluster (in blue) referred to emissions, including hashtags like “co2”, “green”, and “carbon”. The smallest cluster (8%) was composed of “snow”, “winter”, “heatwave”, and “summer”, referring to the temperature abnormalities on the earth.The online presentations of the climate change and global warming discourses are dynamic. As shown in As the climate change and global warming discourses evolved over the past years, their relative statuses in public discourse also changed. Although from 2009 to 2018, increasing numbers of people started to use Twitter, resulting in an overall rise in the number of tweets and hashtags, the ratio of #climatechange frequency and #globalwarming frequency still indicated the public’s change in frame preference. p-values were larger than 0.05 and no significant correlations were identified. The QAP analysis showed that the associations between the two discourses were correlated in the 10-year period . The rank–order correlation coefficient of nodes between the two networks maintained a stable level and showed a slight climbing trend starting 2009, as shown in Climate change and global warming have long been two competing frameworks shaping the public’s perceptions, memory, and interpretations of climate issue by highlighting different aspects of issues and re-constructing them differently. By comparing the persistent words used related to the two discourses in the 10-year period in Studies have suggested that the public shows a preference for scientific publications with general keywords compared with those with complicated scientific jargon , lackingEven when climate change and global warming shared concern about similar topics such as the cause of the climate issue, global warming tended to focus on carbon emission phenomena, whereas climate change preferred a more in-depth perspective, highlighting the importance of global action to mitigate the climate issue in its second-largest cluster, with energy structure as the contributor to carbon emissions in its third largest cluster. As invisible causes and disbelief in actions have long been regarded as two key reasons for low climate concern , the twoStudies noted that frame preference between climate change and global warming reflects individuals’ ideological spectrum, where climate change and global warming were favored by the liberals and conservatives, respectively . The cluIn the discourse surrounding #climatechange, “environment”, “energy”, and “global action” represented the themes of the three largest clusters in the network. However, three popularly recurring hashtags, “#environment”, “#energy”, and “#climateaction”, did not belong to any of the three clusters above, but formed another small tight cluster together, sitting in the most central part of the semantic network, as shown in The temporal analysis revealed the evolution of public discourse from 2009 to 2018. In both discourses, political discussions gradually faded, indicating a trend in the public perception of climate issues to seeming slowly return to the scientific dimension in general. In 2009, political discussion was the second most important topic in the global warming discourse, but its ranking fell to last in 2018. In the climate change discourse, as shown in Although global warming is linked to abnormal weather phenomena, temporal analysis suggests their associations were not innate or changeless. An increase in association strength was observed in 2012 according to After examining every associated node in the red cluster in 2012, we suggest that the hashtag “2012” in the top right-hand corner, which is the only event-based hashtag, can provide another hint about why the associations related to temperature and extremeweather significantly increased in 2012. The Maya inscriptions about the end of the world in December 2012 were prevalent then, and even inspired a famous American disaster film named “2012”, telling a story that the earth would be destroyed by a series of disastrous extreme natural events. Previously, historians focused on the correlations between climate issues and the collapse of the Mayan civilization ,97, but The status of the two discourses varied significantly in the more recent years in the study period. Data from Google in prior study suggested that the search record for global warming was larger than that of climate change in earlier times . The autHowever, differences between two discourses were not eliminated. Even though two discourses showed more similarities in the rank order of key concepts, the QAP analysis of two matrices of semantic network showed that two discourses still embody distinct public perceptions of climate issues by associating these hashtags in different manners.To be specific, although “ipcc”, “cop”, and “un” were mentioned in both discourses  campaigns. The prevalence of certain climate concepts may inverse be weaponized to cause rhetorical shifts in politics and science popularization. For instance, previous studies noted that in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, state-supported misinformation campaigns took place to manipulate public opinion  and fake