Socially connected and COVID-19 prepared: The influence of sociorelational safety on perceived importance of COVID-19 precautions and trust in government responses

Abstract

COVID-19 caused unprecedented social disruption the likes of which many people had not seen since the Second World War. In order to stop the spread of the virus, most nations were required to enforce strict social distancing precautions, including orders to shelter in place and national lockdowns. However, worries over whether citizens would become fatigued by precautions that constrain personal liberties made some governments hesitant to enact lockdown and social distancing measures early on in the pandemic. When people feel that their social worlds are responsive to their needs, they become more trusting and more willing to sacrifice on behalf of others. Thus, people may view COVID-19 precautions more positively and be more trusting in government responses to such an event if they are inclined to see their sociorelational world as supporting their connectedness needs. In the current study (N = 300), UK residents who were more satisfied that their close others fulfilled their connectedness needs at the start of the government-mandated lockdown, perceived COVID-19 precautions as more important and more effective than those who were relatively dissatisfied in how their connectedness needs were being met, and reported greater trust in the government’s management of the pandemic. These effects persisted in a follow-up one month later. Implications for how society and governments can benefit from the investment in social connectedness and satisfaction, and future directions are discussed.

What Should I do and Who’s to blame? A cross-national study on youth’s attitudes and beliefs in times of COVID-19

“…Another possibility is that they reported a more negative attitude towards the government's approach because they shifted blame for their burden to the government in an attempt to alleviate COVID-19 related distress (Murray, [unpublished]). Our result is in line with previous research that also showed that higher perceived burden was related to more negative attitudes toward the government [16].…”

“…In particular, those individuals who perceived the burden to be high may have had more negative attitudes towards the government approach , given the role of the government in putting in place restrictions that were part of the burden that they experienced or that were ineffective at decreasing it. For instance, individuals from the UK who felt that the satisfaction of their need for connectedness was thwarted by the restrictive measures, and thus perceived a greater burden, reported lower trust in their government [ 16 ]. Also, youth who perceived a high burden may also have been more likely to blame certain groups for their negative experiences [ 17 ].…”

Large Gatherings? No, Thank You. Devaluation of Crowded Social Scenes During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Therefore, social networks may represent a crucial resource for resilience and survival in times of crisis, such as the current pandemic situation. Accordingly, greater social connectedness has been found to act as a buffer against perceived stress during the lockdown period (Nitschke et al, 2021) and to influence trust and adherence to governments' safety rules (Lamarche, 2020). However, while gregariousness, i.e., the tendency to seek the company of others, has a beneficial impact on individuals' well-being, it also carries infection-specific risks (Schaller, 2011).…”

Satisfaction and performance of software developers during enforced work from home in the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Content wise, half of the papers are concerned with specific topics related to working from home, such as security (Pounder 1998;James and Griffiths 2014), process (Guo 2001), work productivity (Higa et al 2000;Lamarche 2020), and inclusion (Ford et al 2019). The other half mostly investigated well-being and productivity while working from home during the pandemic (Ford et al 2021;Ralph et al 2020b;Russo et al 2021a, b;Butler and Jaffe 2021;Machado et al 2021;Smite et al 2021) or productivity-related to projects' characteristics (Bao et al 2020;Cucolas ¸and Russo 2023).…”