Concern with COVID-19 pandemic threat and attitudes towards immigrants: The mediating effect of the desire for tightness

Abstract

Tightening social norms is thought to be adaptive for dealing with collective threat yet it may have negative consequences for increasing prejudice. The present research investigated the role of desire for cultural tightness, triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, in increasing negative attitudes towards immigrants. We used participant-level data from 41 countries ( N = 55,015) collected as part of the PsyCorona project, a cross-national longitudinal study on responses to COVID-19. Our predictions were tested through multilevel and SEM models, treating participants as nested within countries. Results showed that people's concern with COVID-19 threat was related to greater desire for tightness which, in turn, was linked to more negative attitudes towards immigrants. These findings were followed up with a longitudinal model ( N = 2,349) which also showed that people's heightened concern with COVID-19 in an earlier stage of the pandemic was associated with an increase in their desire for tightness and negative attitudes towards immigrants later in time. Our findings offer insight into the trade-offs that tightening social norms under collective threat has for human groups.

Perceived COVID-19 Threat and Reactions to Noncompliant Health-Protective Behaviors: The Mediating Role of Desired Cultural Tightness and the Moderating Role of Age

“…In the present study, we focus on whether people’s desired tightness may mediate the relationship between the perceived COVID-19 threat and emotional reactions to noncompliance with COVID-19 health-protective behaviors; we expect that the perceived COVID-19 threat may increase people’s desire for restrictions and sanctions where they reside, consistent with previous findings [ 7 , 11 , 12 ]; given that age-related differences were found in the perceived cost of COVID-19 infection and actual health risk [ 23 , 31 ], we also expect that participants’ age will moderate this relationship. Although research on COVID-19 has been very common since the start of the pandemic, to our knowledge this is the first attempt to study how socio-psychological variables can predict reactions to pandemic-specific non-compliance.…”

“…As mentioned, when societies face societal threats, tight rules and punishments for people who deviate from norms may help them to coordinate in order to survive [ 8 , 10 ]. Likewise, correlational and experimental findings [ 7 , 11 , 12 ] showed that threat also affects the desire that rules be stricter in the face of threat. This finding has been consistently shown by as a number of studies.…”

“…Jackson and colleagues [ 7 ] found that a perceived induced threat was associated with an increase in personal support, or desire, for tightness in both U.S. states and countries across the globe. Mula and colleagues [ 11 , 12 ] found that the specific perceived COVID-19 threat was associated with an increased desired tightness in Italy. Nisa and colleagues [ 28 ] found, in a worldwide sample, that the more people perceived a personal health risk, the more they supported strict health measures (i.e., support for mandatory coronavirus vaccination and mandatory quarantine).…”

“…Following Jackson and colleagues [ 7 ], the degree to which individuals want their country to enforce tightness can vary from person to person regardless of their country-level tightness. The desire for tightness [ 11 , 12 ] is rather an individual’s preference that a given context is culturally tighter, as individuals can endorse a culture other than the one in which they live [ 7 ]. In this vein, research [ 7 , 11 , 12 ] has shown that, as the salience of the threat increases, people’s desire for tightness increases.…”

“…The desire for tightness [ 11 , 12 ] is rather an individual’s preference that a given context is culturally tighter, as individuals can endorse a culture other than the one in which they live [ 7 ]. In this vein, research [ 7 , 11 , 12 ] has shown that, as the salience of the threat increases, people’s desire for tightness increases. According to Pepitone [ 13 ], the violation of socially accepted norms generally causes a negative emotional reaction (i.e., anger), not only in those somehow affected by the violation, but also in the “observers” of such violations.…”