Cargando…

What protects us against the COVID-19 threat? Cultural tightness matters

BACKGROUND: The only previous studies that formulated a theoretical model of epidemics for psychological response relative to cultural perspectives have focused on the role of individualism–collectivism and have omitted analysis of tightness–looseness. This study explored the role of cultural tightn...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Dong, Dan, Chen, Zhipeng, Zong, Min, Zhang, Peng, Gu, Wen, Feng, Yi, Qiao, Zhihong
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8607057/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34809585
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-12161-1
_version_ 1784602476999081984
author Dong, Dan
Chen, Zhipeng
Zong, Min
Zhang, Peng
Gu, Wen
Feng, Yi
Qiao, Zhihong
author_facet Dong, Dan
Chen, Zhipeng
Zong, Min
Zhang, Peng
Gu, Wen
Feng, Yi
Qiao, Zhihong
author_sort Dong, Dan
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The only previous studies that formulated a theoretical model of epidemics for psychological response relative to cultural perspectives have focused on the role of individualism–collectivism and have omitted analysis of tightness–looseness. This study explored the role of cultural tightness in relation to psychological disorders during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: We recruited 1827 Chinese adolescents (M(age) = 18.16 ± 2.23 years, 53.3% female) to participate a cross-sectional survey. Participants completed a series of questionnaires, including the scales of cultural tightness, risk perception of COVID-19 pandemic, perceived protection efficacy, anxiety and depression. A latent moderated structural equations model was used to analyse the mediating and moderating effects of risk perception regarding COVID-19, cultural tightness and perceived protection efficacy on psychological disorders. RESULTS: The results showed that greater risk perception of COVID-19 predicted greater psychological disorders, however cultural tightness moderated this positive relationship. The increase in psychological disorders with risk perception regarding COVID-19 was less pronounced among people who lived in tighter cultural areas. In addition, this moderating effect of cultural tightness was further mediated by perceived protection efficacy; that is, tight culture protects against psychological disorders by enhancing perceived protection efficacy. CONCLUSION: This study enriched the theoretical framework of cultural tightness and indicated its importance in the field of mental health and health policies. It also emphasized the importance of tight culture as a protective factor against psychological disorders in case of COVID-19 outbreaks, providing valuable practical insight into psychological prevention for COVID-19 outbreaks. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-021-12161-1.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-8607057
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2021
publisher BioMed Central
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-86070572021-11-22 What protects us against the COVID-19 threat? Cultural tightness matters Dong, Dan Chen, Zhipeng Zong, Min Zhang, Peng Gu, Wen Feng, Yi Qiao, Zhihong BMC Public Health Research BACKGROUND: The only previous studies that formulated a theoretical model of epidemics for psychological response relative to cultural perspectives have focused on the role of individualism–collectivism and have omitted analysis of tightness–looseness. This study explored the role of cultural tightness in relation to psychological disorders during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: We recruited 1827 Chinese adolescents (M(age) = 18.16 ± 2.23 years, 53.3% female) to participate a cross-sectional survey. Participants completed a series of questionnaires, including the scales of cultural tightness, risk perception of COVID-19 pandemic, perceived protection efficacy, anxiety and depression. A latent moderated structural equations model was used to analyse the mediating and moderating effects of risk perception regarding COVID-19, cultural tightness and perceived protection efficacy on psychological disorders. RESULTS: The results showed that greater risk perception of COVID-19 predicted greater psychological disorders, however cultural tightness moderated this positive relationship. The increase in psychological disorders with risk perception regarding COVID-19 was less pronounced among people who lived in tighter cultural areas. In addition, this moderating effect of cultural tightness was further mediated by perceived protection efficacy; that is, tight culture protects against psychological disorders by enhancing perceived protection efficacy. CONCLUSION: This study enriched the theoretical framework of cultural tightness and indicated its importance in the field of mental health and health policies. It also emphasized the importance of tight culture as a protective factor against psychological disorders in case of COVID-19 outbreaks, providing valuable practical insight into psychological prevention for COVID-19 outbreaks. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-021-12161-1. BioMed Central 2021-11-22 /pmc/articles/PMC8607057/ /pubmed/34809585 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-12161-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Dong, Dan
Chen, Zhipeng
Zong, Min
Zhang, Peng
Gu, Wen
Feng, Yi
Qiao, Zhihong
What protects us against the COVID-19 threat? Cultural tightness matters
title What protects us against the COVID-19 threat? Cultural tightness matters
title_full What protects us against the COVID-19 threat? Cultural tightness matters
title_fullStr What protects us against the COVID-19 threat? Cultural tightness matters
title_full_unstemmed What protects us against the COVID-19 threat? Cultural tightness matters
title_short What protects us against the COVID-19 threat? Cultural tightness matters
title_sort what protects us against the covid-19 threat? cultural tightness matters
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8607057/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34809585
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-12161-1
work_keys_str_mv AT dongdan whatprotectsusagainstthecovid19threatculturaltightnessmatters
AT chenzhipeng whatprotectsusagainstthecovid19threatculturaltightnessmatters
AT zongmin whatprotectsusagainstthecovid19threatculturaltightnessmatters
AT zhangpeng whatprotectsusagainstthecovid19threatculturaltightnessmatters
AT guwen whatprotectsusagainstthecovid19threatculturaltightnessmatters
AT fengyi whatprotectsusagainstthecovid19threatculturaltightnessmatters
AT qiaozhihong whatprotectsusagainstthecovid19threatculturaltightnessmatters