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Relation between national identification (y-axis) and community mobility (x-axis) in 42 countries and territories. Google mobility is depicted as a mean change in mobility during April and May 2020 (i.e., blueish colors indicate a greater reduction of mobility during this period while reddish colors indicate a smaller reduction of mobility). Grey shading is the 95% confidence interval.
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... = .008 (see Figure 4; see the Supplementary Information for separate correlations for each of the places and the two indices of national identifications). The observed association at the aggregate level was moderate to strong. ...
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... SHK recognizes the effect of two competing worldviews, national identification versus collective narcissism, on Covid-19 policy compliance . Although national identification effects are substantial, collective narcissism has a lesser but meaningful effect (Federico et al., 2020;Van Bavel et al., 2020). An ascending solidarity-care ethics nexus entails resilience and human flourishing, and a descending nexus entails vulnerability and a distressed community. ...
The COVID-19 pandemic illustrates that standard assessments of human well-being fail in the face of substantial social disruptions. To overcome this problem, we focused on two human flourishing frameworks: the Shultz et al. (Handbook of community well-being research (pp. 403–421). Springer, 2017) macromarketing framework and the Shabbir et al. (Journal of Macromarketing, 41(2), 181–193, 2021) solidarity–care framework. As these frameworks share commensurable theoretical assumptions, we fused them. We then used the fused framework to evaluate how the United Kingdom’s COVID-19 responses affected community flourishing. Specifically, we examined the effect of two competing social forces—Brexit and the Black Lives Matter movement—on pulling Britons toward a flourishing or distressed community. Keywords: U.K. pandemic response, Solidarity–care ethics, Human flourishing, Brexit, Black Lives Matter movement
... This decisive and systematically implemented set of interventions contributed to rapid mitigation in 2020 (Tang et al. 2020). The Chinese people willingly cooperate with government public health orders, which may be a reflection of national identity and culture, specifically collectivism, which may incline them to adopt COVID-19 prevention behaviors Van Bavel et al. 2021). Since the COVID-19 outbreak in China, social media such as Weibo and WeChat have become some of the most used sources for Chinese people to obtain information on the pandemic. ...
... A possible explanation for this is that soon after the outbreak, most provinces in China launched a high-level response with response to the pandemic in succession in late January 2020, and many communities called upon people to be quarantined in their homes. Given the strong Chinese collective identity, people tend to follow public health measures (Van Bavel et al. 2021). Also, more than three-quarters of the respondents came from Hubei Province, where the pandemic was most severe. ...
Do people in other areas perceive less risk from the COVID-19 pandemic than those in Hubei Province in the pandemic area? Do people in communities with COVID-19 infections perceive a higher level of risk of the virus? What media do people use to get information about the pandemic, and how do the chosen information source influence risk perception? To answer these questions, this study conducted an online questionnaire survey among the public in Guangdong and Hubei Provinces (N = 407) between January and April 2020, and systematically analyzed the impact of proximity to the pandemic and different types of information media on pandemic risk perception. It found that during this period, there was no difference in residents' pandemic risk perception between Hubei and other provinces, and that the greater the number of relatives and friends infected with the virus, the higher people’s pandemic risk perception. Individual social media use positively influences perception, and it is the most powerful variable for predicting pandemic risk perception.
... Indeed, the moralization of COVID-19 mitigation practices is thought by some to be responsible for the tensions between those who do adhere to practices and those who do not (Prosser et al., 2020). While around the world, strong national identification has been a predictor of adherence to COVID-19 guidelines (Van Bavel et al., 2021), in the United States specifically, political affiliation is one of the strongest predictors of adherence to mitigation practices (Deane et al., 2021); that is, Republicans have been less likely to follow mandates than Democrats. ...
In the United States, the COVID-19 pandemic has become highly politicized and highly moralized. The current study explored whether participants’ (N = 118) endorsements of binding (promoting group cohesion) versus individualizing (promoting care for individuals) moral foundations explained partisan differences in views and behaviors regarding COVID-19. Participants completed the Moral Foundations Questionnaire before they indicated how morally permissible they thought it was to violate COVID-19 mandates, report others’ violations, or not get vaccinated. Additionally, they indicated their own prevention behaviors. Results show that endorsement of both individualizing and binding foundations explain partisan differences in moral permissibility ratings. Political conservatism predicted greater endorsement of binding foundations which in turn predicted seeing COVID-19 violations and not getting vaccinated as more morally permissible, and predicted fewer self-reported prevention behaviors. Endorsement of individualizing foundations predicted seeing violations as less morally permissible and reporting others’ violations as more morally permissible.
... In addition, threat to one's group has been shown to increase group-oriented protective action (Kachanoff et al., 2020); thus, when the national group is threatened, high SDO should be more likely to engage in preventative behavior. Preliminary support for this notion is found in work that highlights that those who identified more strongly with their nation reported greater engagement in public health behaviors and support for public health policies (Van Bavel et al., 2021). ...
Amidst the economic, political, and social turmoil caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, contrasting responses to government mandated and recommended mitigation strategies have posed many challenges for governments as they seek to persuade individuals to adhere to prevention guidelines. Much research has subsequently examined the tendency of individuals to either follow (or not) such guidelines, and yet a ‘grey area’ also exists wherein many rules are subject to individual interpretation. In a large study of Canadians (N = 1032, Mage = 34.39, 52% female; collected April 6, 2020), we examine how social dominance orientation (SDO) as an individual difference predicts individual propensity to ‘bend the rules’ (i.e., engaging in behaviors that push the boundaries of adherence), finding that SDO is significantly and positively associated with greater intentions toward rule-bending behaviors. We further find that highlighting a self-oriented or in-group identity enhances the relationship between SDO and rule-bending, whereas making salient a superordinate-level identity (e.g., Canada) attenuates this effect. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
... For example, a global study of about half a million people in 187 countries found that the average number of steps per day decreased across all countries, averaging a reduction of 27% (and ranging from −7% in Sweden to −49% in Italy), within the first month of the pandemic [2]. A study using Google mobility across 42 nations found a reduction of 35% in physical movement patterns during the first wave of the pandemic [3], and physical activity data released by [4] show a similar pattern. In response, many scholars and governments across the world have recognized the dangers of reduced physical activity to people's physical and mental health and recommend maintaining or even increasing one's outdoor activity level to cope with the pandemic [5][6][7]. ...
Societal crises and personal challenges are often followed by substantial changes in physical activity. Is there a link between such changes and psychological well-being? Seeking to answer this question, we conducted a correlational study on a representative sample in Sweden during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic (N = 1035). About 49% of the sample had decreased their physical activity compared to their self-reported activity level prior to the pandemic, whereas 32% had increased it. The results showed a positive and robust association between changes in daily activity level and corresponding changes in psychological well-being. Specifically, individuals who had reduced their physical activity over the last year reported lower life satisfaction than before, and individuals who had increased their physical activity reported higher life satisfaction than before. The amount of complete physical inactivity (sitting) showed a similar pattern as the exercise data, meaning that individuals who reported increasing inactivity per day also reported a greater decline in life satisfaction. Additional analyses showed that the association between daily activity level and life satisfaction was somewhat stronger for men than for women, but there was no difference when comparing individual versus organized activities. The current study was based on a cross-sectional design, measuring self-reported change over time. Recent work from other research teams have used longitudinal data and experience-sampling in different settings, finding similar results. We conclude that there is good reason to recommend physical exercise as a coping strategy in difficult times.
... Importantly, the human cost of becoming embroiled in QAnon is also staggering, as evidenced by the stories of individuals 'losing' loved ones to the cult-like nature of QAnon, 4 which motivates us to study QAnon in Study 1. We also test our hypothesis using self-reported conspiratorial beliefs in a sample of approximately 40,000 respondents from 51 countries from the International Collaboration on Moral and Social Psychology (Van Bavel et al., 2020b), in the pre-registered Study 2. Our hypothesis finds limited support in Study 2, which suggests that not all conspiratorial ideas respond equally largely to 2 The Hill, "FBI memo warns QAnon poses potential terror threat: report. " 3 The New Daily, 'The coronavirus 'hoax': Conspiracy peddlers infecting Australians at alarming rate' . ...
... Our work contributes to a well-established area of investigation in psychology and across the social sciences, which is the study of conspiracy theories (for overviews, see Lewandowsky and Cook, 2020;van der Linden et al., 2021) and of false beliefs more generally (O'Connor and Weatherall, 2019). The phenomena of scapegoating and conspiracy theories ensuing from pandemics have a long history, dating back at least to the plague of Cyprian in Roman times (Retief and Cilliers, 2000). ...
... 8 August 2021 | Volume 12 | Article 681975 COVID-19-related conspiracy theories? To answer this question, we use data from the International Collaboration on the Social and Moral Psychology (ICSMP) of COVID-19 study (Van Bavel et al., 2020b). We pre-registered our analysis on the Open Science Framework at 10 , which was necessary in order to obtain the data. ...
Does inadequate risk communication during uncertain times trigger the rise of conspiratorial ideas? We hypothesize that, where government COVID-19 risk communication started early, as measured by the number of days between the start of the communication campaign and the first case in the country, citizens are less likely to turn to conspiratorial explanations for the pandemic, which typically assign blame to powerful actors with secret interests. In Study 1a, we find strong support for our hypothesis in a global sample of 111 countries, using daily Google search volumes for QAnon as a measure of interest in QAnon, which is a conspiracy theory contending, among other things, that COVID-19 is a conspiracy orchestrated by powerful actors and aimed at repressing civil liberties. The effect is robust to a variety of sensitivity checks. In Study 1b, we show that the effect is not explainable by pre-pandemic cross-country differences in QAnon interest, nor by ‘secular’ rising interest in QAnon amid the pandemic. A one-standard deviation (26.2days) increase in communication lateness is associated with a 26% increase in QAnon interest. In pre-registered Study 2, we find limited support for the proposition that early communication reduces self-reported pandemic-related conspiratorial ideation in a sample of respondents from 51 countries. Overall, our results provide evidence that interest in extreme ideas, like QAnon, are highly responsive to government risk communication, while less extreme forms of conspiracism are perhaps less so.
... Whereas previous research has sought to understand who supports stringent responses against COVID-19 or who are most motivated to comply with stringent restrictions (Jørgensen et al. 2021; Van Bavel et al. 2020), the present focus is instead on whether and from whom national governments during a massive crisis can foster support for the particular set of policies that each government promotes as necessary. Overall, the results show that this is indeed possible and we document relatively high support for each government's response against . ...
In order to halt the spread of COVID-19 governments have engaged in policies that are both economically costly and involve infringements of individual rights. In democratic countries, these policy responses have elicited significant debate but little is known about the extent to which the responses are supported or opposed by the broader public. This article investigates how citizens across eight Western democracies evaluate the specific policies imposed by their governments to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. The study relies on large-scale, longitudinal surveys that are reflective of the national populations (total N = 124,062). On this basis, it is investigated how pandemic-specific and broader political attitudes correlate with support for government responses during a significant part of 2020, a period marked by pandemic restrictions in all the countries. Medium to high levels of support for the government’s responses are found in all eight countries. Beyond the regular voters of the government, support is driven by individuals high in interpersonal trust and self-assessed knowledge about COVID-19. This may suggest that halting the spread of COVID-19 is viewed as a collective action problem and mobilises support from those who know how to act and who trust others to act similarly.
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at: https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2021.1925821 .
... Similarly, just one work tested message-based interventions aimed at increasing group identity. Since Van Bavel et al (2020b) found that national identity is one of the main predictors of social distancing and physician hygiene, future work should explore the effect of message-based interventions grounded on national identity or other group identities. ...
Cooperation is essential to overcome global pandemics and other health crises, as many preventative measures require people to bear a personal cost to benefit other people or society as a whole. Wearing a face mask, for example, protects other people more than it protects oneself. In this essay, we discuss several mechanisms that are known to promote cooperation in economic games and real-world scenarios, with a special focus on message-based interventions that might be helpful to promote social distancing, mask wearing, physical hygiene, vaccine uptake, and information seeking. Lessons learned and future research ideas are offered.
... It has been suggested that various specific factors such as stress and coping, navigating threats, social and cultural influences on behavior or public policies have played a role in the spread of the virus (Gibney, 2020;Maier and Brockmann, 2020;Van Bavel et al., 2020a). However, and intriguingly, the difference in contamination rate between Western and Eastern countries seems to be independent of more general factors such as technological, economic or political development. ...
... As we outlined above, the best way to deal with a pandemic consists in coordinated protective measures which require us both to consider collective rather than individual goals, including the protection of people we do not know, and also to trust others to make pro-social choices. A recent body of literature has documented how shared social identification with one's family or community (Vignoles et al., 2021) or national identification (Van Bavel et al., 2020b) predict normative actions and support for public health measures in the context of COVID-19. Messages focused on duties and responsibilities toward family, friends and fellow citizens also seem to be an effective approach for public health messaging (Everett et al., 2020). ...
The COVID-19 pandemic has generated a large number of publications in the medical and biological fields concerning the virus and its treatments, as well as in psychology, social sciences, and data sciences with regard to the spread of the virus. Surprisingly, far fewer neuroscientific articles have been published in this field of research and one might well ask whether the cognitive neurosciences have anything to say at all about this vital topic. In this article, we highlight a research perspective relating to differences in the individual perception of the pandemic in Western compared to Eastern countries. Although this problem is complex, multifaceted and subsumes many other social variables, we suggest that the cognitive neurosciences do have important and fundamental insights to contribute concerning the collective response observed within these populations. More precisely, we propose the hypothesis that differences in the propensity to adopt a holistic perception of contamination processes at the group level, involving brain structures that are also associated with perspective-taking and empathy such as, in particular, the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), could help explain the differences in the perception of the pandemic observed between Western and Eastern countries.
Public health measures such as spatial distancing and physical hygiene have been found effective in mitigating the spread of the coronavirus. However, there is considerable variability in individual compliance with such public health measures and factors contributing to these interindividual differences are currently still understudied. The present study set out to determine the role of risk perception and conspiracy theory endorsement on compliance with COVID‐19 public health measures and explored variations in these associations across participant age and the developmental status of a country, leveraging a large multi‐national data set (N = 45,772) across 66 countries/territories, collected via online survey during the early phase of the COVID‐19 pandemic (between April and May 2020). Human Development Index (HDI), developed by the United Nations Development Program, was used as a proxy of a country's achievement in key dimensions of human development. Overall, higher risk perception was associated with greater compliance, particularly in individuals with greater conspiracy theory endorsement. Specifically, people from more developed countries who perceived themselves less at risk but showed stronger conspiracy theory endorsement reported the lowest compliance with COVID‐19 public health measures. Findings from this study advance understanding of the interplay between risk perception and conspiracy theory endorsement in their effect on compliance with COVID‐19 public health measures, under consideration of both individual‐level and country‐level demographic variables and have potential to inform the design of tailored interventions to fight the current and future global pandemics.
