Abstract
This study investigated whether people’s personal belief in a just world (BJW) is linked to their willingness to physically distance themselves from others during the COVID-19 pandemic. Past research found personal BJW to be positively related to prosocial behavior, justice striving, and lower risk perceptions. If social distancing reflects a concern for others, high personal BJW should predict increased interest in social distancing. If social distancing reflects a concern for one’s personal risk, high personal BJW should predict decreased interest in social distancing. Results of a pre-registered internet-based study from Germany (N = 361) indicated that the higher people’s personal BJW, the more they generally practiced social distancing. This association still occurred when controlling for empathy, another significant predictor of social distancing. There were no mediation effects of empathy and risk perception. The findings extend knowledge on the correlates of social distancing in the COVID-19 pandemic which could be used to increase compliance among citizens.
Highlights
To slow the spread of the coronavirus disease COVID-19, people’s compliance with implemented prevention measures is very important (e.g., Sailer et al, 2020)
Our study suggests that personal experiences with COVID19 did not predict social distancing in our regression analyses, they might have an influence on risk perception as we found people with personal COVID-19 experiences to report a higher perception of infection probability as well as a higher perception of infection severity compared to participants without personal experiences
We found initial support that the higher people’s personal belief in a just world (BJW), the more they generally engaged in social distancing
Summary
To slow the spread of the coronavirus disease COVID-19, people’s compliance with implemented prevention measures is very important (e.g., Sailer et al, 2020). One of the most common measures is social distancing; meaning that people physically minimize interpersonal contacts for instance by avoiding crowds or interactions with others apart from one’s own household (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021). This reduces the risk that an infected individual will transmit the virus. To increase people’s willingness to socially distance themselves from others, research found messages targeting prosocial motives (e.g., Blagov, 2021; Heffner et al, 2020) as well as messages targeting the threat of COVID-19 (Heffner et al, 2020) to be effective. Another possible predictor of social distancing could be people’s belief in a just world (BJW)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
