Collectivism predicts mask use during COVID-19

Abstract

Since its outbreak, COVID-19 has impacted world regions differentially. Whereas some regions still record tens of thousands of new infections daily, other regions have contained the virus. What explains these striking regional differences? We advance a cultural psychological perspective on mask usage, a precautionary measure vital for curbing the pandemic. Four large-scale studies provide evidence that collectivism (versus individualism) positively predicts mask usage—both within the United States and across the world. Analyzing a dataset of all 3,141 counties of the 50 US states (based on 248,941 individuals), Study 1a revealed that mask usage was higher in more collectivistic US states. Study 1b replicated this finding in another dataset of 16,737 individuals in the 50 US states. Analyzing a dataset of 367,109 individuals in 29 countries, Study 2 revealed that mask usage was higher in more collectivistic countries. Study 3 replicated this finding in a dataset of 277,219 Facebook users in 67 countries. The link between collectivism and mask usage was robust to a host of control variables, including cultural tightness–looseness, political affiliation, demographics, population density, socioeconomic indicators, universal health coverage, government response stringency, and time. Our research suggests that culture fundamentally shapes how people respond to crises like the COVID-19 pandemic. Understanding cultural differences not only provides insight into the current pandemic, but also helps the world prepare for future crises.

Passport to a Mighty Nation: Exploring Sociocultural Foundation of Chinese Public’s Attitude to COVID-19 Vaccine Certificates

“…While the role of nationalism might be specific to the Chinese context, the Chinese situation is not a complete separation from other parts of the world. A recent study identified that collectivism predicts mask use during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States and worldwide [ 38 ].…”

Self-Interest Bias in the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Cultural Comparison between the United States and China

“…Although previous studies showed the prevalence of self-interest bias across various unethical behaviors and normative misconducts (e.g., Bocian & Wojciszke, 2014;Weiss et al, 2018), self-interest bias may not be a "one-fits-all" rule for all COVID-19-related self-serving acts. And different COVID-19-related self-serving behaviors (e.g., resisting mask usage, Lu et al, 2021;hoarding, Columbus, 2021) may be scrutinized given their unique socio-psychological implications. Therefore, future research may (1) examine the cultural differences on self-interest bias in other morally relevant domains and more countries, and (2) directly investigate the mechanisms underlying these differences.…”

An Early Examination: Psychological, Health, and Economic Correlates and Determinants of Social Distancing Amidst COVID-19

“…Early evidence of COVID-19 self-reported behavior lend credence to the notion of the importance of social obligations; in survey studies of adolescents, one's perceived social responsibility to others was positively related to engagement in preventative behaviors . Further, recent studies have documented that those collectivism was related to greater intentions to reduce the spread of the virus (Biddlestone et al, 2020), don masks (Lu et al, 2021), and reduce mobility in response to COVID-19 (Im and Chen, 2020). Thus, cultural collectivism across the United States may also account for greater and prolonged reduction in mobility compared to their more individualistic counterparts.…”