Trust predicts COVID-19 prescribed and discretionary behavioral intentions in 23 countries
Journal
PLOS ONE
ISSN
1932-6203
Date Issued
2021
Author(s)
Stefano Pagliaro
Simona Sacchi
Maria Giuseppina Pacilli
Marco Brambilla
Francesca Lionetti
Karim Bettache
Mauro Bianchi
Marco Biella
Virginie Bonnot
Mihaela Boza
Fabrizio Butera
Suzan Ceylan-Batur
Kristy Chong
Tatiana Chopova
Charlie R. Crimston
Belén Álvarez
Isabel Cuadrado
Naomi Ellemers
Magdalena Formanowicz
Verena Graupmann
Theofilos Gkinopoulos
Evelyn Hye Kyung Jeong
Inga Jasinskaja-Lahti
Jolanda Jetten
Kabir Muhib Bin
Yanhui Mao
Christine McCoy
Farah Mehnaz
Anca Minescu
DAVID RICARDO SIRLOPU DIAZ
Andrej Simić
Giovanni Travaglino
Ayse K. Uskul
Cinzia Zanetti
Anna Zinn
Elena Zubieta
Type
Resource Types::text::journal::journal article
Abstract
<jats:p>The worldwide spread of a new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) since December 2019 has posed a severe threat to individuals’ well-being. While the world at large is waiting that the released vaccines immunize most citizens, public health experts suggest that, in the meantime, it is only through behavior change that the spread of COVID-19 can be controlled. Importantly, the required behaviors are aimed not only at safeguarding one’s own health. Instead, individuals are asked to adapt their behaviors to protect the community at large. This raises the question of which social concerns and moral principles make people willing to do so. We considered in 23 countries (<jats:italic>N</jats:italic> = 6948) individuals’ willingness to engage in prescribed and discretionary behaviors, as well as country-level and individual-level factors that might drive such behavioral intentions. Results from multilevel multiple regressions, with country as the nesting variable, showed that publicized number of infections were not significantly related to individual intentions to comply with the prescribed measures and intentions to engage in discretionary prosocial behaviors. Instead, psychological differences in terms of trust in government, citizens, and in particular toward science predicted individuals’ behavioral intentions across countries. The more people endorsed moral principles of fairness and care (vs. loyalty and authority), the more they were inclined to report trust in science, which, in turn, statistically predicted prescribed and discretionary behavioral intentions. Results have implications for the type of intervention and public communication strategies that should be most effective to induce the behavioral changes that are needed to control the COVID-19 outbreak.</jats:p>
Subjects
public trust
;
human-values
;
disease
;
morality
;
immunization
;
transmission
;
science
;
adult
;
aged
;
coronavirus infections
;
covid-19
;
disease outbreaks
;
female
;
government
;
health behavior
;
humans
;
intention
;
male
;
middle aged
;
public health
;
sars-cov-2
;
trust
;
adult
;
argentina
;
article
;
australia
;
bangladesh
;
bosnia and herzegovina
;
chile
;
china
;
controlled study
;
coronavirus disease 2019
;
descriptive research
;
female
;
finland
;
follow up
;
france
;
germany
;
government
;
greece
;
human
;
ireland
;
italy
;
malaysia
;
male
;
netherlands
;
path analysis
;
poland
;
prediction
;
prescription
;
risk factor
;
romania
;
russian federation
;
south korea
;
spain
;
switzerland
;
turkey (republic)
;
united kingdom
;
united states
;
aged
;
behavior
;
coronavirus infection
;
epidemic
;
health behavior
;
middle aged
;
pathogenicity
;
physiology
;
prevention and control
;
psychology
;
public health
;
trust