Causes and Consequences of Attitude Toward the Government during the Covid-19 Crisis: A Study in the Tunisian Context

Abstract

ABSTRACT Governments around the world played a crucial role in the attempts of diminishing the negative consequences of the Covid-19 crisis and containing the situation. While Tunisia faced economic, political and social challenges, the health crisis did not improve the situation. The government took several decisions to fight the virus resulting in mitigating citizens’ attitude. This research studied the cognitive, affective and behavioral determinants of citizens’ attitude toward the government during the Covid-19 crisis and its impact on their well-being. We collected 687 online survey responses from Tunisians. We used SPSS to perform exploratory factor analysis. We used R package Lavaan for confirmatory factor analysis, measurement model fit, structural model fit and test of hypotheses. Our findings suggest that feelings of anger, attribution of blame and knowledge of the crisis have a significant impact on attitude (both positive and negative) which consequently influences psychological and social well-being.