Reactance, morality, and disgust: The relationship between affective dispositions and compliance with official health recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Abstract

Emergency situations require individuals to make important changes in their behavior. In the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, official recommendations to slow the spread of the virus include costly behaviors such as self-quarantining, which individuals might be reluctant to adopt. However, whether or not people adopt those behaviors could make a huge difference in the impact of the pandemic. In this context, it is important to elucidate what psychological traits underlie people’s (lack of) compliance with official recommendations to slow the spread of the virus. In three exploratory studies and one preregistered replication in a representative sample of US participants, we found converging evidence that compliance with official recommendations is not related to epistemic attitudes such as beliefs in conspiracy theories and pseudoscience, fear, or psychological reactance. Instead, participants’ behavioral intentions were predicted by their (1) disgust towards pathogens, and (2) moral values regarding the importance of caring about others.

Disease avoidance in the time of COVID-19: The behavioral immune system is associated with concern and preventative health behaviors

“…Notably, the effect sizes of the associations between germ aversion and preventative health behaviors were comparable to the effect sizes of the relations between COVID-19 concern and preventative health behaviors. These findings are consistent with recent work linking BIS indicators with COVID-19 related behavioral intentions and policy attitudes [14,15]. In general, these findings support theory suggesting the protective function of psychological diseaseavoidance mechanisms during a time of real disease threat [29].…”

“…As such, individuals higher in disgust sensitivity and germ aversion should be more concerned with the COVID-19 pandemic and more likely to engage in preventative health behaviors to avoid the disease. Some initial evidence supports this proposition, such that greater BIS reactivity has been linked to behavioral intentions and past efforts to follow COVID-19 health guidelines [14] and support for travel bans on Asian countries [15].…”

Improving preventive health behaviors in the COVID-19 crisis: a messaging intervention in a large nationally representative sample

“…Aligning a message with the recipients' moral values facilitates persuasion (22) and increases their motivation to turn their intentions into actions (23). A previous study found that the best predictor of behavioral intentions, besides disgust, was how much participants cared about others (17). In line with these findings, recent research has found that framing COVID preventive measures as pro-social rather than selfinterested increased participants' intentions to adopt preventive behaviors (24).…”

“…Disgust-inducing videos showing nasal secretions on one's hand after sneezing are effective in promoting good handwashing practices (15) and viewing an infographic about infectious particles released during breathing and speaking by asymptomatic infected individuals increased knowledge about the effectiveness of masks (16). In a survey of the cognitive and motivational traits that predict compliance with official recommendations, disgust towards pathogens was one of the two best predictors of participants' behavioral intentions (e.g., intention to wash their hands) (17). To test the effect of the disgust lever, we used the following message: "When you touch something, your hands become covered with germs," with an image of cultures of germs from hands (for the Handwashing Poster) or "Don't let other people's viruses get close to you," with an image of the propagation of germs when someone coughs (for the Protective Behavior Poster).…”

Association of COVID-19 Misinformation with Face Mask Wearing and Social Distancing in a Nationally Representative US Sample

“…All focus on the relationship between false beliefs and behaviors (or intentions to undertake behaviors). While some studies find associations between belief in misinformation and reduced self-protective behaviors (Allington et al, 2020;Banai et al, 2020;Bertin et al, 2020;Bierwiaczonek et al, 2020;Erceg et al, 2020;Sternisko et al, 2020;Swami & Barron, 2020;Teovanovic et al, 2020), others find no evidence of associations (Alper et al, 2020;Díaz & Cova, 2020). Still others find associations for some behaviors but not others (Imhoff & Lamberty, 2020;Pummerer & Sassenberg, 2020).…”