Cultural values predict national COVID-19 death rates

Abstract

National responses to a pandemic require populations to comply through personal behaviors that occur in a cultural context. Here we show that aggregated cultural values of nations, derived from World Values Survey data, have been at least as important as top-down government actions in predicting the impact of COVID-19. Whereas trust in institutions predicts lower COVID-19 deaths per capita, secular- rationalism and cosmopolitanism each predict more deaths. The effects of these cultural values register more strongly than government efficiency. This suggests that open democracies may face greater challenges in limiting a pandemic, and that all nations should consider their cultural values as actionable parameters in their future preparations.

Plagues, Cyborgs, and Supersoldiers: The Human Domain of War

“…This aggregate reduction prevented cases and thereby prevented overall mortality, even if it did not reduce CFR (Figure 2.1). Certain cultural values that show long-standing differences among countries were the most important predictors of a country's ability to mobilize the population en masse to adopt behavioral COVID-19 mitigation measures: These are cultural tightness and cosmopolitanism (Gelfand et al, 2021;Ruck, Borycz, and Bentley, 2021;Ruck et al, 2020). Ultimately, the COVID-19 pandemic ended in a state of global SARS-CoV-2 endemicity: Infection levels were brought into a steady state by population immunity, and that was achieved either through natural infection or vaccination.…”

“…While China and Russia feature in the scenario of Vignette 2, undeniably, global geopolitical tensions could be very different ten years from this writing. However, such researchers as Gelfand et al (2021) and Ruck, Borycz, and Bentley (2021) have shown that the cultural values that are among the most predictive for pathogen mitigation are multigenerational patterns that are highly resistant to change. Figure 2.2 identifies the countries that we can predictably anticipate will be on the relatively advantaged side of an airborne pathogen pandemic, and these patterns will persist ten and even 20 years from this writing.…”

Impact of Social Capital and Cultural Values on COVID-19

“…The way in which a society responds to a pandemic depends on collective behaviour, which is guided by cultural values specific to the cultural context (Ruck, et al, 2020). National culture is the explanatory vector of cultural differences among societies, and represents the context of collective behaviour.…”

“…Uncertainty creates anxiety and insecurity, and the COVID-19 pandemic is considered a more threatening crisis by the people with higher intolerance of uncertainty (Sauer et al, 2020). Thus, the population had to comply with the national rules imposed since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis; in addition, human behaviours were modelled according to their cultural context (Ruck, et al, 2020).…”

“…Regarding economic factors, research shows that states with high income inequality have a high number of deaths due to the SARS-CoV2 virus, which suggests that factors such as income inequality may explain why some countries are deeply affected by the COVID-19 pandemic (Oronce, et al, 2020). Some researchers, such as (Ruck, et al, 2020;Bartscher, et al, 2020;Huynh, 2020), considered only one category of factors, and tried to explain its effects on the COVID-19 pandemic. To overcome this gap, the main purpose of this study is to integrate in the analysis more than one category of factors.…”