Abstract
The coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented health crisis. Many governments around the world have responded by implementing lockdown measures of various degrees of intensity. To be effective, these measures must rely on citizens’ cooperation. In the present study, we drew samples from the United States (N = 597), Italy (N = 606), and South Korea (N = 693) and examined predictors of compliance with social distancing and intentions to report the infection to both authorities and acquaintances. Data were collected between April 6th and 8th 2020. We investigated the role of cultural orientations of horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism, self-conscious emotions of shame and guilt related to the infection and trust in the government’s action. Across all countries, vertical collectivism (VC) predicted stronger shame, whereas horizontal collectivism predicted stronger trust in the government. Only in the United States, VC was associated with stronger trust. Stronger feelings of shame predicted lower compliance and intentions to report the infection to both authorities and acquaintances. In contrast, guilt was associated with stronger intentions to report the infection to the authorities. Finally, trust was associated with stronger compliance and intentions to report the infection to the authorities. Unlike Italy and South Korea, the association between trust on compliance was not statistically significant in the United States, implications of the findings, and directions for future research are discussed.
Highlights
The coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented health crisis that has forced nearly a third of the world population into lockdown (Kaplan et al, 2020)
Because cultural values may be associated with these variables differently across contexts, we examined the role of individual-level cultural orientations of vertical and horizontal individualism and collectivism
We investigated how cultural orientations within countries characterized by different cultural themes may predict a range of responses to the virus-related emergency, namely trust in the government’s action, and self-conscious emotions of shame and guilt
Summary
The coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented health crisis that has forced nearly a third of the world population into lockdown (Kaplan et al, 2020). Lockdowns are “behavioral” (non-pharmaceutical) measures involving forced isolation, movement restrictions, and active government surveillance. These measures effectively slow the virus’s diffusion because they reduce contagion rates (Cowling et al, 2020; Ferguson et al, 2020; Flaxman et al, 2020). We contribute to the growing psychological literature on COVID-19 (Capraro and Barcelo, 2020, 2021; Lalot et al, 2020a,b; Van Bavel et al, 2020a,b; Yamada et al, 2021) by investigating the associations between these variables and individuals’ compliance with social distancing rules, as well as their intentions to report the infection to both health authorities and acquaintances/friends. Because cultural values may be associated with these variables differently across contexts, we examined the role of individual-level cultural orientations of vertical and horizontal individualism and collectivism
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