Rehearsing post-Covid-19 citizenship: Social representations of UK Covid-19 mutual aid.

People across the world have responded to the pandemic by mobilizing and organizing to support their communities, setting up mutual aid groups to provide practical, financial, and social support. Mutual aid means short-term 'crisis response' for some, while for other groups, it is a chance to radically restructure society, and what it means to be a member of that society. Drawing on social representations theory and previous work on citizenship in social and political psychology, we examined the ways in which mutual aid was understood and performed by members of UK Covid-19 mutual aid groups.

The amplifying effect of perceived group politicization: Effects of group perceptions and identification on anxiety and coping self-efficacy among members of UK COVID-19 mutual aid groups.

Mutual aid groups developed and mobilized in communities across the UK and globally at the outset of the pandemic in order to support vulnerable community members with practical assistance and emotional support, with some understanding their work in political terms. This study adopted a "social cure" lens to investigate the effects of group identification and group perceptions on anxiety and coping self-efficacy among members of UK Covid-19 mutual aid groups. Survey data were collected from self-identified members of these groups ( = 844) during the initial period of "lockdown" restrictions in April - May 2020.