Abstract
Worry about COVID-19 is a central topic of research into the social and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, we present a new way of measuring worry about catching COVID-19 that distinguishes between worry as a negative experience that damages people’s quality of life (dysfunctional) and worry as an adaptive experience that directs people’s attention to potential problems (functional). Drawing on work into fear of crime, our classification divides people into three groups: (1) the unworried, (2) the functionally worried (where worry motivates proactive behaviours that help people to manage their sense of risk) and (3) the dysfunctionally worried (where quality of life is damaged by worry and/or precautionary behaviour). Analysing data from two waves of a longitudinal panel study of over 1000 individuals living in ten cities in England, Scotland and Wales, we find differing levels of negative anxiety, anger, loneliness, unhappiness and life satisfaction for each of the three groups, with the dysfunctionally worried experiencing the most negative outcomes and the functionally worried experiencing less negative outcomes than unworried. We find no difference between groups in compliance and willingness to re-engage in social life. Finally, we show a difference between the dysfunctionally worried compared with functional and unworried groups in perceptions of risk (differentiating between likelihood, control and consequence). This finding informs what sort of content-targeted messaging aimed at reducing dysfunctional worry might wish to promote. We conclude with some thoughts on the applicability of our measurement scheme for future research.
Highlights
The 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has affected many aspects of life globally
To be classified in the dysfunctional worry group, respondents must have reported being worried about COVID-19 and that their quality of life was reduced by either their worries or their precautions, or their precautions to not have made them feel safer
Our paper has approached worry about COVID-19 as something that can have both negative outcomes in terms of people’s mental health and emotional wellbeing, and positive consequences in terms of taking precautions and helping people protect themselves from the consequences of the virus
Summary
The 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has affected many aspects of life globally. One consequence has been the surge of public anxieties and worries in some parts of the world (Lin 2020), with significant levels of fear of catching COVID-19 being recorded in the UK (Fancourt et al 2020), Germany (Gerhold 2020), Iran (Ahorsu et al 2020), India (Roy et al 2020) and China (Lin 2020). Control variables other factors besides worry might affect compliance and reengagement, so we included measures of the following in our modelling: knowledge of the virus (self-rated knowledge level of the virus), their perceived risk of sanctions for breaching lockdown restrictions (how likely they think it is to be caught and sanctioned for each activity), expressive function of the law (whether they think it was right or wrong to make social distancing a legal requirement, and whether doing so clarifies the restrictions and sends the message of its importance in fighting the pandemic), social norms (whether people think it is important to follow social distancing guidelines and if they perceive their community to think this is important), feelings of duty to obey the police and follow the law, and their normative alignment with the police and the law.
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