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Risk perceptions and COVID-19 protective behaviors: A two-wave longitudinal study of epidemic and post-epidemic periods

We investigated how perceived risk and protective behaviors changed as the coronavirus epidemic progressed. A longitudinal sample of 538 people responded to a COVID-19 risk perception questionnaire during the outbreak and post-epidemic periods. Using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), we examined t...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Savadori, Lucia, Lauriola, Marco
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8957385/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35381434
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.114949
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author Savadori, Lucia
Lauriola, Marco
author_facet Savadori, Lucia
Lauriola, Marco
author_sort Savadori, Lucia
collection PubMed
description We investigated how perceived risk and protective behaviors changed as the coronavirus epidemic progressed. A longitudinal sample of 538 people responded to a COVID-19 risk perception questionnaire during the outbreak and post-epidemic periods. Using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), we examined the mean level change of selected constructs and differences in their relationships. We tested a risk perception pathway in which affective attitude, informed by experience, shaped risk perceptions and protective behaviors. The model also postulated a social pathway in which cultural worldviews, like individualism and hierarchy, predicted risk perceptions and protective behaviors through social norms. Latent mean difference analyses revealed a decrease in social distancing behaviors and an increase in hygiene-cleanliness, corresponding to a reduction in risk perceptions and social norms and a rise in direct and indirect experience, while affective attitude remained substantially stable. Cross-sectional and longitudinal path analyses showed that affective risk perception, primarily informed by affective attitude, and social norms promoted behavior consistency regardless of epidemic contingencies. Instead, analytic risk perceptions were linked to protective behaviors only during the outbreak. Although risk perceptions dropped over time, analytic risk perceptions dropped more steeply than affective risk perceptions. Our findings supported the distinction between affective and deliberative processes in risk perception, reinforcing the view that affective reactions are needed to deploy analytic processes. Our study also supports the claim that perceived social norms are essential to understanding cultural worldview-related protective behaviors variability.
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spelling pubmed-89573852022-03-28 Risk perceptions and COVID-19 protective behaviors: A two-wave longitudinal study of epidemic and post-epidemic periods Savadori, Lucia Lauriola, Marco Soc Sci Med Article We investigated how perceived risk and protective behaviors changed as the coronavirus epidemic progressed. A longitudinal sample of 538 people responded to a COVID-19 risk perception questionnaire during the outbreak and post-epidemic periods. Using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), we examined the mean level change of selected constructs and differences in their relationships. We tested a risk perception pathway in which affective attitude, informed by experience, shaped risk perceptions and protective behaviors. The model also postulated a social pathway in which cultural worldviews, like individualism and hierarchy, predicted risk perceptions and protective behaviors through social norms. Latent mean difference analyses revealed a decrease in social distancing behaviors and an increase in hygiene-cleanliness, corresponding to a reduction in risk perceptions and social norms and a rise in direct and indirect experience, while affective attitude remained substantially stable. Cross-sectional and longitudinal path analyses showed that affective risk perception, primarily informed by affective attitude, and social norms promoted behavior consistency regardless of epidemic contingencies. Instead, analytic risk perceptions were linked to protective behaviors only during the outbreak. Although risk perceptions dropped over time, analytic risk perceptions dropped more steeply than affective risk perceptions. Our findings supported the distinction between affective and deliberative processes in risk perception, reinforcing the view that affective reactions are needed to deploy analytic processes. Our study also supports the claim that perceived social norms are essential to understanding cultural worldview-related protective behaviors variability. The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. 2022-05 2022-03-26 /pmc/articles/PMC8957385/ /pubmed/35381434 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.114949 Text en © 2022 The Authors Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.
spellingShingle Article
Savadori, Lucia
Lauriola, Marco
Risk perceptions and COVID-19 protective behaviors: A two-wave longitudinal study of epidemic and post-epidemic periods
title Risk perceptions and COVID-19 protective behaviors: A two-wave longitudinal study of epidemic and post-epidemic periods
title_full Risk perceptions and COVID-19 protective behaviors: A two-wave longitudinal study of epidemic and post-epidemic periods
title_fullStr Risk perceptions and COVID-19 protective behaviors: A two-wave longitudinal study of epidemic and post-epidemic periods
title_full_unstemmed Risk perceptions and COVID-19 protective behaviors: A two-wave longitudinal study of epidemic and post-epidemic periods
title_short Risk perceptions and COVID-19 protective behaviors: A two-wave longitudinal study of epidemic and post-epidemic periods
title_sort risk perceptions and covid-19 protective behaviors: a two-wave longitudinal study of epidemic and post-epidemic periods
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8957385/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35381434
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.114949
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