We thank our many volunteer translators, whose names are listed in the Appendix. We also thank Prolific for sponsoring the participants for the survey experiment and Aristeo Marras for data advice. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

We conducted a large-scale survey covering 58 countries and over 100,000 respondents at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic—between March 20 and April 7—to explore how beliefs about citizens’ and government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic affected mental well-being. Our analyses reveal three findings. First, many respondents indicate that their country’s citizens and government’s response was insufficient. Second, respondents’ perception of an insufficient public and government response and handling is associated with lower mental well-being. Third, we exploit time variation in country-level lockdown announcements, both around the world and through an event-study in the UK, and find that strong government actions—e.g., announcing a nationwide lockdown—were related to an improvement in respondents’ views of their fellow citizens and government, and to better mental well-being. These findings suggest that policy-makers may not only need to consider how their decisions affect the spread of COVID-19, but also how such choices influence the mental well-being of their population.

No abstract

We conducted a large-scale survey covering 58 countries and over 100,000 respondents between late March and early April 2020 to study beliefs and attitudes towards citizens’ and governments’ responses at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Most respondents reported holding normative beliefs in support of COVID-19 containment measures, as well as high rates of adherence to these measures. They also believed that their government and their country’s citizens were not doing enough and underestimated the degree to which others in their country supported strong behavioral and policy responses to the pandemic. Normative beliefs were strongly associated with adherence, as well as beliefs about others’ and the government’s response. Lockdowns were associated with greater optimism about others’ and the government’s response, and improvements in measures of perceived mental well-being; these effects tended to be larger for those with stronger normative beliefs. Our findings highlight how social norms can arise quickly and effectively to support cooperation at a global scale.

Introducción: las redes sociales (RS), como plataformas tecnológicas, les permiten a las personas y a las instituciones interactuar, compartir contenidos y formar comunidades. Objetivo: reconocer cómo docentes de la Facultad de Medicina de la Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana perciben el uso de las RS bajo las circunstancias impuestas por la pandemia de la COVID 19. Métodos: investigación cualitativa con enfoque desde la etnometodología; se aplicó cuestionario con preguntas abiertas a 24 participantes docentes con más de tres años de labores en la facultad y que, previo al aislamiento social impuesto por la COVID19, hicieran uso de las RS. El análisis se hizo mediante la comparación entre los datos. Resultados: la pandemia favoreció la generalización del uso de las RS especializadas en las comunidades académicas, la continuidad de las actividades lectivas, el ahorro de tiempo en los desplazamientos, el aumento de las asesorías a los estudiantes y el acceso inmediato y permanente a los contenidos educativos. A su vez, esta contingencia la pérdida en la comunicación no verbal y, en lo referente a la educación médica, la imposibilidad de remplazar en las prácticas clínicas el encuentro presencial de la triada docente–estudiante–paciente. Conclusiones: la pandemia de la COVID-19 trajo consigo la apropiación por los docentes de las RS especializadas y con esto dar continuidad a las actividades lectivas; se evidenció el apoyo de estas redes al proceso educativo sin considerarlas sustitutas de la presencialidad.