Warmth and competence perceptions of key protagonists are associated with containment measures during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from 35 countries.
Friehs, Maria-Therese; Kotzur, Patrick F; Kraus, Christineet al.
[en] It is crucial to understand why people comply with measures to contain viruses and their effects during pandemics. We provide evidence from 35 countries (Ntotal = 12,553) from 6 continents during the COVID-19 pandemic (between 2021 and 2022) obtained via cross-sectional surveys that the social perception of key protagonists on two basic dimensions-warmth and competence-plays a crucial role in shaping pandemic-related behaviors. Firstly, when asked in an open question format, heads of state, physicians, and protest movements were universally identified as key protagonists across countries. Secondly, multiple-group confirmatory factor analyses revealed that warmth and competence perceptions of these and other protagonists differed significantly within and between countries. Thirdly, internal meta-analyses showed that warmth and competence perceptions of heads of state, physicians, and protest movements were associated with support and opposition intentions, containment and prevention behaviors, as well as vaccination uptake. Our results have important implications for designing effective interventions to motivate desirable health outcomes and coping with future health crises and other global challenges.
Disciplines :
Social & behavioral sciences, psychology: Multidisciplinary, general & others
Author, co-author :
Friehs, Maria-Therese ; FernUniversität in Hagen, Hagen, Germany. maria-therese.friehs@fernuni-hagen.de
Kotzur, Patrick F ; Department of Psychology, Durham University, South Road, Durham, DH1 3LE, UK
Kraus, Christine; FernUniversität in Hagen, Hagen, Germany
Schemmerling, Moritz; FernUniversität in Hagen, Hagen, Germany
Herzig, Jessica A; FernUniversität in Hagen, Hagen, Germany
STANCIU, Adrian ; University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) > Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences (DBCS) > Lifespan Development, Family and Culture ; GESIS Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften, Mannheim, Germany
Dilly, Sebastian; FernUniversität in Hagen, Hagen, Germany
Hellert, Lisa; FernUniversität in Hagen, Hagen, Germany
Hübner, Doreen; FernUniversität in Hagen, Hagen, Germany
Rückwardt, Anja; FernUniversität in Hagen, Hagen, Germany
Ulizcay, Veruschka; FernUniversität in Hagen, Hagen, Germany
Christ, Oliver; FernUniversität in Hagen, Hagen, Germany
Brambilla, Marco; University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
De Keersmaecker, Jonas; Esade, Ramon Llull University, Barcelona, Spain
Durante, Federica; University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
Gale, Jessica; University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
Grigoryev, Dmitry; HSE University, Moscow, Russia
Igou, Eric R; University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland
Javakhishvili, Nino; Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia
Kienmoser, Doris; FernUniversität in Hagen, Hagen, Germany
Nicolas, Gandalf; Rutgers University, New Brunswick, USA
Oldmeadow, Julian; Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia
Rohmer, Odile; University of Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France
Sætrevik, Bjørn; University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
Barbedor, Julien; Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
Bastias, Franco; Universidad Católica de Cuyo/National Scientific and Technical Research Council, San Juan, Argentina
Bjørkheim, Sebastian B; University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
Bolatov, Aidos; Astana Medical University, Astana, Kazakhstan
Duran, Nazire; Department of Psychology, Durham University, South Road, Durham, DH1 3LE, UK
Findor, Andrej; Comenius University in Bratislava, Bratislava, Slovakia
Götz, Friedrich; The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
Graf, Sylvie; The Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czechia
Hakobjanyan, Anna; Yerevan State University, Yerevan, Armenia
Halkias, Georgios; Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark
Hancheva, Camellia; Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski", Sofia, Bulgaria
Hřebíčková, Martina; The Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czechia
Hruška, Matej; Comenius University in Bratislava, Bratislava, Slovakia
Warmth and competence perceptions of key protagonists are associated with containment measures during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from 35 countries.
Maria-Therese Friehs and Patrick F. Kotzur contributed equally to this manuscript and share first authorship. The order of authors was determined based on their contributions to the overall project in line with the CRediT system. For authors with the same qualitative and quantitative level of contribution, the order of authors was based on the alphabetical order of the surnames. The authors thank Jami Anderson-Smith and Pearl Tshimbalanga for their help programming questionnaires, Hale Nur Arslan for digitalizing the main questionnaires for the Turkish data set, Lusine Grygorian for her comments on the pre-registration, and Maria Olkkonen and Zebuniso Kadirova for their help translating materials.
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