Compliance and Self-Reporting During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Cultural Study of Trust and Self-Conscious Emotions in the United States, Italy, and South Korea

Abstract

The coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented health crisis. Many governments around the world have responded by implementing lockdown measures of various degrees of intensity. To be effective, these measures must rely on citizens’ cooperation. In the present study, we drew samples from the United States (N = 597), Italy (N = 606), and South Korea (N = 693) and examined predictors of compliance with social distancing and intentions to report the infection to both authorities and acquaintances. Data were collected between April 6th and 8th 2020. We investigated the role of cultural orientations of horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism, self-conscious emotions of shame and guilt related to the infection and trust in the government’s action. Across all countries, vertical collectivism (VC) predicted stronger shame, whereas horizontal collectivism predicted stronger trust in the government. Only in the United States, VC was associated with stronger trust. Stronger feelings of shame predicted lower compliance and intentions to report the infection to both authorities and acquaintances. In contrast, guilt was associated with stronger intentions to report the infection to the authorities. Finally, trust was associated with stronger compliance and intentions to report the infection to the authorities. Unlike Italy and South Korea, the association between trust on compliance was not statistically significant in the United States, implications of the findings, and directions for future research are discussed.

Assessing mandatory stay‐at‐home and business closure effects on the spread of COVID‐19

“…This has a plausible underlying behavioural mechanism: NPIs are motivated by the notion that they lead to anti‐contagion behaviour changes, either directly through personal compliance with the interventions, or by providing a signal about disease risk, as communicated by policymakers, which is used in deciding on individual behaviours. The degree to which risk communications motivate personal behaviours has been used to explain South Korea's response to NPIs, where large personal behaviour changes were observed following less‐restrictive NPIs 30 …”

Social Distancing and COVID-19: Factors Associated With Compliance With Social Distancing Norms in Spain

“…The results have pointed at the idea that higher trust is associated with better compliance with social distancing norms. Other studies have revealed that trust in government or institutions is a significant factor in some countries (Travaglino and Moon, 2021;Uddin et al, 2021). On the other side, some studies suggest that public trust in governments and institutions mediates adherence to policy restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic (Pak et al, 2021).…”

“…However, despite recommendations to adopt rapid preventive measures, identical policies of restrictions of freedom, confinement, and social distancing have not been articulated in all countries in the same manner or with the same intensity (Travaglino and Moon, 2021 ; Yamamoto et al, 2021 ). Differences in managing the pandemic were found even having a common frame of basic recommendations of the WHO regarding their effectiveness in reducing rates of contagion and mortality, along with other critical well-known proposals to prevent and confront COVID-19: hand hygiene (with soap or alcoholic gel if the former is not available), avoiding touching of the eyes, nose, and mouth, protecting others by covering mouth while coughing, cleaning surfaces, or using a mask in certain situations (among others) (World Health Organization, 2020 ).…”

“…Recent literature has reported several risk factors to explain the achievement of compliance of social distancing norms or protective behaviors during the pandemic (Mansdorf, 2020 ; Trifiletti et al, 2021 ). Aspects as being highly stressed (Constantinou et al, 2021 ), the connection between intentions and behaviors (Smith and Branscum, 2021 ), mental health symptoms or mental disorders (Stein et al, 2020 ; Zhao et al, 2020 ), public trust or trust in government (Pak et al, 2021 ; Travaglino and Moon, 2021 ), or perceived social support (Toktam et al, 2020 ) have been assessed in recent bibliography in connection to compliance with social distancing norms. Likewise, sociodemographic, economic, and political factors such as sex, age, race, marital family status, having children, income, work, ideology, and vote (Margraf et al, 2020 ; Woelfert and Kunst, 2020 ; Papageorge et al, 2021 ; Smith and Branscum, 2021 ; Uddin et al, 2021 ) have been considered in the literature to explore observance behaviors and compliance with social distancing during the pandemic.…”

Making sense of the COVID-19 pandemic: A qualitative longitudinal study investigating the first and second wave in Italy

“…In response to the first wave, several interventions have been deployed by the Italian government, including School closure at the national level (mandated on March 5) and a national lockdown (stayhome mandate and closure of all nonessential productive activities) issued on March 11, then eased after May 4, 2020 (Guzzetta et al, 2021). In this phase, population compliance was high (Carlucci et al, 2020;Travaglino and Moon, 2021). Based on a large sample of Italian adults, the study of Carlucci et al (2020) showed very high rates of adherence to quarantine restrictions and recommendations, after 15 days of the national lockdown.…”