Functional fear predicts public health compliance in the COVID-19 pandemic
Affiliation
Nottingham Trent UniversityUniversity of Winchester
Georgia State University
University of Derby
Issue Date
2020-04-27
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Show full item recordAbstract
In the current context of the global pandemic of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19), health professionals are working with social scientists to inform government policy on how to slow the spread of the virus. An increasing amount of social scientific research has looked at the role of public message framing, for instance, but few studies have thus far examined the role of individual differences in emotional and personality-based variables in predicting virus-mitigating behaviors. In this study we recruited a large international community sample (N = 324) to complete measures of self-perceived risk of contracting COVID-19, fear of the virus, moral foundations, political orientation, and behavior change in response to the pandemic. Consistently, the only predictor of positive behavior change (e.g., social distancing, improved hand hygiene) was fear of COVID-19, with no effect of politically-relevant variables. We discuss these data in relation to the potentially functional nature of fear in global health crises.Citation
Harper, C. A., Satchell, L., Fido, D., & Latzman, R. (2020). 'Functional fear predicts public health compliance in the COVID-19 pandemic'. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, pp. 1-14.Publisher
SpringerJournal
International Journal of Mental Health and AddictionDOI
10.31234/osf.io/jkfu310.1007/s11469-020-00281-5
Additional Links
https://psyarxiv.com/jkfu3/https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11469-020-00281-5
Type
ArticleLanguage
enISSN
1557-1874EISSN
1557-1882ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.31234/osf.io/jkfu3
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