The Covid‐19 outbreak was declared a public health emergency by the World Health Organization in January 2020. As a consequence, several protective measures were urged by national governments in order to limit the spread of the pandemic. Drawing on the literature on health behaviours, in the present study, we investigated the psychological factors (i.e., attitudes, social norms, perceived behavioural control, intentions, and risk perception) that were associated with two highly recommended behaviours: frequent hand washing and social distancing (i.e., staying at home except for essential reasons). The study employed a correlational design with a follow‐up. A questionnaire including measures of psychological predictors was administered via social media to a sample of 403 adults residing in Italy during the lockdown. Self‐reported behaviours were assessed one week later. Findings showed that attitudes, social norms, perceived behavioural control were significantly related to hand washing and social distancing through intentions. Risk perception was a significant predictor of social distancing but not of hand washing. These findings suggest that intervention and communication strategies aimed at encouraging preventive measures during the Covid‐19 pandemic should be organized taking into account multiple factors which partially differ depending on the type of behaviour considered. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's
Community and Social Impact Statement
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In this study, prototypicality of the aggressor was tested as a group-level factor predicting social media users' active participation in cyberaggression. Participants were exposed to a fictitious conversation, in which either a prototypical versus nonprototypical user posted an aggressive comment as a reply to a provocative comment. In line with self-categorization theory, we hypothesized that bystander participants would post an aggressive comment and rate the aggression as acceptable to a greater extent in the prototypical than in the non-prototypical condition. Furthermore, we predicted that perceived normativity of aggression would mediate the effect of prototypicality. Results supported these predictions and showed that prototypical members affect the extent to which collective aggressive behaviors in online interactions are approved and enacted.These findings highlight the importance of group-level factors in the study of cyberaggression and provide important information for understanding the psychological underpinnings of collective forms of online aggression.
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