New cross-cultural research provides evidence that optimism, trust in others, and belief in conspiracy theories are all related to a person’s propensity to follow preventive measures meant to slow the spread of COVID-19. The findings have been published in Personality and Individual Differences.
“Due to the coronavirus outbreak, people’s lives are endangered, there is a lot of fear and life has changed for many people (from small things like handshaking to vacations and forms of education.) There were epidemics before in the modern age, but none so huge,” said study author Ana Jovančević, a teaching assistant at the University of Niš.
“People all over the world are confused and react very differently. Some are afraid to leave the house, while others pretend nothing has changed. As a psychologist, I wanted to give my contribution in better understanding the impact of psychological factors on our COVID-19 related behaviors, since these factors are what ‘decide’ whether we will oblige by the precautionary measures and help stop spreading the virus or we will not.”
“We have chosen precisely these variables since there is a lot of conspiracies regarding COVID-19, and people are gathering information from various sources. We also included optimism-pessimism dimension and general trust in others, since, on the one hand, it is well know that optimists and pessimists react very differently in stressful situations, as do those who generally trust others versus those who generally do not trust others,” Jovančević said.
In the study, 292 individuals from Serbia and 120 individuals from Latin America reported the extent to which they feared a food shortage, feared being infected themselves, and feared for their loved ones amid the coronavirus pandemic. The participants also completed measures of optimism/pessimism, trust in others, sources of information about COVID-19, preventive behaviors, and conspiracy beliefs.
“Our study shows some interesting results regarding people’s COVID-19 related fears. Namely, the most pronounced fear in both Serbian and Latin-American sample is the fear of food shortage,” Jovančević told PsyPost.
The researchers also found that optimists, those with high level of general trust and those who do not believe in conspiracy theories tended to report lower levels of fear and higher levels of preventive behaviors overall.
“It is important to note that not everyone will react in the same way in this situation and that is, to some extent, due to a person’s characteristics. The more you trust others, the more you will behave according to the recommendations aimed at suppression of COVID-19 and the same thing generally goes for optimists and those who do not believe in COVID-19 related conspiracy theories. All in all, we cannot expect everyone to react in the same way. Our reactions differ based on our personality and our beliefs,” Jovančević said.
The researchers also uncovered some interesting caveats to the overall trend. Surprisingly, conspiracy beliefs were positively associated with respecting coronavirus curfews and, among Serbians, those with higher optimism were more likely to report receiving guests amid the outbreak.
None of the participants in the study had been diagnosed with COVID-19. Jovančević and her colleagues hope to conduct future research to examine those more affected by the virus as well as those from other cultures.
“I believe it is still necessary to examine those who lost someone close to them due to the virus and/or those who were infected themselves and had severe symptoms. It would be of great significance to examine those who felt the virus close at hand and did not have the luxury to think of it as something happening to someone else, far away from them,” she said.
The study, “Optimism-pessimism, conspiracy theories and general trust as factors contributing to COVID-19 related behavior – A crosscultural study“, was authored by Ana Jovančević and Nebojša Milićević.
(Image by Mircea Iancu from Pixabay)
