Abstract
Two groups of 51 US respondents each evaluated combinations of statements about the problems and solutions that a country might face. The two studies were run a year apart, May 2019 (before the Covid-19 pandemic) and May 2020 (at the then current height of the pandemic). The problems and solutions were combined by experimental design, creating a unique set of 24 vignettes for each respondent. The responses to the vignettes (negative versus positive outcome, based on the vignette) were deconstructed to the contribution of each of the 16 elements (four problems, 12 solutions). Three mind-sets emerged, based on clustering the pattern of responses to the 16 elements from each of the 100 respondents: MS1–Startups, students; MS2–Change and Investment; MS3–Family social. Each mind-set shows a specific pattern of responses to problems, solutions, and the effect of Covid-19. The granularity afforded by Mind Genomics allows the researcher a new and profoundly deeper understanding of the mind of the citizen, opening a new area of psychological science. The three mind-sets distribute similarly through the population, requiring short intervention, the Personal Viewpoint Identifier, a set of six questions, the pattern of response to which assigns a new person to one of the three mind-sets.
Highlights
Those who study political science, history, economics, sociology, and all of the different social sciences know that it is the nature of countries to experience both good times and bad times, prosperity and difficulties, respectively
The granularity afforded by Mind Genomics allows the researcher a new and profoundly deeper understanding of the mind of the citizen, opening a new area of psychological science
The Mind Genomics worldview is akin to a cartographer, not so much looking to falsify a hypothesis in the manner of the hypothetico-deductive process but rather to identify interesting patterns
Summary
Those who study political science, history, economics, sociology, and all of the different social sciences know that it is the nature of countries to experience both good times and bad times, prosperity and difficulties, respectively. The typical social science study looks for the ‘nomothetic,’ the recurrent patterns over time which generate ‘rules’ Psychologists working with these national-level problems must work with the nomothetic, and supplement the information with interviews from the ordinary citizen, or, if fortunate, from key players, those responsible for the situation, or at least in power. The second, exactly parallel study with the same material but with 51 new respondents was run in May 2020, one year and one week later, with the same type of respondents The data from these two studies can be directly compared, as well as merged, to understand how a pandemic might affect the mind of a person as the person responds to different vignettes about the situation of one’s country. The first vignette and its rating may be safely discarded with base sizes of 20+ respondents
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