Dispositional and situational attribution of COVID-19 risk: A content analysis of response typology (Version: 1)

Abstract

Pre-Peer Review Version 1: In the current COVID-19 pandemic, there have been official health recommendations of social distancing, thorough handwashing, and self-isolation to prevent the spread of the virus. However, compliance with these recommendations has been mixed. We suggest that non-compliance may be justified by one’s (mis)perception of their own COVID-19 risk. In this paper, we explore the dispositional and situational attribution of self-reported COVID-19 risk, as per Heider’s Attribution Theory. We conducted a content and framework analysis of responses to an online survey, in which participants (N = 114) were asked to rate their likelihood of contracting the COVID-19 virus, before providing textual responses to explain their rating. Overall, we observed that generally, participants who rated their risk to be low made more dispositional attributions (i.e. attributing their risk to factors such as age and own personal hygiene) whereas higher risk participants made more situational attributions (i.e. attributing COVID-19 risk to government decision-making and other people’s cleanliness). A finalised framework of five response typologies including intrinsic, behavioural, balanced, contextual, and disengaged responses was systematically applied to the data. These results will be discussed in the context of attribution theory and risk perception, whilst providing future recommendations for research that tackles non-compliance of COVID-19 behaviours.

Rational thinking style, rejection of coronavirus (COVID-19) conspiracy theories/theorists, and compliance with mandated requirements

“…For example, emerging research has suggested that greater anxiety and perceived lack of control were significantly associated with belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories in an online sample of Slovak adults ( Srol et al, 2020). It may also be useful to include measures of other relevant psychological constructs, such as perceived risk (see Dunning & Pownall, 2020) and support for governmental responses to pandemic crises (e.g., Conway et al, 2020), to better account for some of our hypothesizing. Of course, it should also be noted that the present research was centrally focused on psychological factors that are associated with compliance, but individual ability and willingness to comply with social-distancing measures are also likely to be affected by economic, sociopolitical, and temporal factors (e.g., Atchison et al, 2020;Zhang et al, 2020).…”

University Student Mental Well-Being during COVID-19 Outbreak: What Are the Relationships between Information Seeking, Perceived Risk and Personal Resources Related to the Academic Context?

“…Some recent studies have investigated this construct in different populations during the COVID-19 pandemic, showing interesting results. For instance, Dunning and Pownall [42] investigated the link between perceived risk of being personally infected and health locus of control in a British sample.…”

Rational Thinking Style, Rejection of Coronavirus (COVID-19) Conspiracy Theories/Theorists, and Compliance with Mandated Requirements: Direct and Indirect Relationships in a Nationally Representative Sample of Adults from the United Kingdom

“…For example, emerging research has suggested that greater anxiety and perceived lack of control were significantly associated with belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories in an online sample of Slovak adults (Šrol et al, 2020). It may also be useful to include measures of other relevant psychological constructs, such as perceived risk (see Dunning & Pownall, 2020) and support for governmental responses to pandemic crises (e.g., Conway et al, 2020), to better account for some of our hypothesising. Of course, it should also be noted that the present research was centrally focused psychological factors that are associated with compliance, but individual ability and willingness to comply with social-distancing measures are also likely to be affected by economic, socio-political, and temporal factors (e.g., Atchinson et al, 2020;Zhang et al, 2020).…”