COVID 19: Compliance, Deviances, Social Control and Contagion Risks during the Lockdown. The Results of a Research in Two EU Countries (Italy and Romania)

Abstract

The pandemic spread caused by the Covid 19 virus and the consequent risk of contagion has recently forced most national governments to adopt drastic measures of social control and containment, such as social distancing, which has led to a significant change in the lives and habits of citizens, which in turn pushed people to adapt to a changed external circumstance. This adaptation, which translates sociologically and substantially into a request for compliance with the prescriptions, had in many cases captured oppositional reactions through individual and group deviant behaviors, which, in addition to breaking the rules of a community, have contributed to the violation of that general principle of “mutual altruism” that should characterize modern societies and increase the viral contagion. The conducted research has explored the risks of contagion from Covid 19 regarding compliant or deviant conducts of behavior with reference to the lockdown requirements in the first half of 2020.