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Social capital and the COVID-19 pandemic threat: The Russian experience

Social capital is an important resource for the wellbeing of both the individual and society. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, many studies have been conducted to explore the role of social capital in coping with the negative consequences of the pandemic. However, how the pandemic itsel...

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Autores principales: Tatarko, Alexander, Jurcik, Tomas, Boehnke, Klaus
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9795210/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36589789
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2022.957215
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author Tatarko, Alexander
Jurcik, Tomas
Boehnke, Klaus
author_facet Tatarko, Alexander
Jurcik, Tomas
Boehnke, Klaus
author_sort Tatarko, Alexander
collection PubMed
description Social capital is an important resource for the wellbeing of both the individual and society. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, many studies have been conducted to explore the role of social capital in coping with the negative consequences of the pandemic. However, how the pandemic itself can affect the social capital of people has yet to be studied. Try to fill this gap, we aimed at testing the association between the individually perceived coronavirus threat and such indicators of social capital as general social trust, institutional trust, and the quality of various types of people's social relationships (with family, friends, colleagues, neighbors, residents of a locality, residents of a country). Data were collected in different regions of the Russian Federation for a convenience sample of 500 respondents. The study found that the individually perceived coronavirus threat was positively associated with institutional trust, but not with general social trust. Moreover, this covariation was moderated by age: an institutional trust-threat relation emerged only in older respondents with an average age of around 60, but not in younger participants. Furthermore, the study found that perceived coronavirus threat was associated with closer relationships in the family, but simultaneously with an increased distance in relations with neighbors and residents of the respondents' locality. In summary, the study indicated that “strong” ties (i.e., with family, colleagues, and friends) either remained unchanged or were intensified in the face of the pandemic threat, whereas “weak” ties (i.e., with neighbors, residents of the same locality, and fellow citizens) tended to weaken even more.
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spelling pubmed-97952102022-12-29 Social capital and the COVID-19 pandemic threat: The Russian experience Tatarko, Alexander Jurcik, Tomas Boehnke, Klaus Front Sociol Sociology Social capital is an important resource for the wellbeing of both the individual and society. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, many studies have been conducted to explore the role of social capital in coping with the negative consequences of the pandemic. However, how the pandemic itself can affect the social capital of people has yet to be studied. Try to fill this gap, we aimed at testing the association between the individually perceived coronavirus threat and such indicators of social capital as general social trust, institutional trust, and the quality of various types of people's social relationships (with family, friends, colleagues, neighbors, residents of a locality, residents of a country). Data were collected in different regions of the Russian Federation for a convenience sample of 500 respondents. The study found that the individually perceived coronavirus threat was positively associated with institutional trust, but not with general social trust. Moreover, this covariation was moderated by age: an institutional trust-threat relation emerged only in older respondents with an average age of around 60, but not in younger participants. Furthermore, the study found that perceived coronavirus threat was associated with closer relationships in the family, but simultaneously with an increased distance in relations with neighbors and residents of the respondents' locality. In summary, the study indicated that “strong” ties (i.e., with family, colleagues, and friends) either remained unchanged or were intensified in the face of the pandemic threat, whereas “weak” ties (i.e., with neighbors, residents of the same locality, and fellow citizens) tended to weaken even more. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-12-14 /pmc/articles/PMC9795210/ /pubmed/36589789 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2022.957215 Text en Copyright © 2022 Tatarko, Jurcik and Boehnke. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Sociology
Tatarko, Alexander
Jurcik, Tomas
Boehnke, Klaus
Social capital and the COVID-19 pandemic threat: The Russian experience
title Social capital and the COVID-19 pandemic threat: The Russian experience
title_full Social capital and the COVID-19 pandemic threat: The Russian experience
title_fullStr Social capital and the COVID-19 pandemic threat: The Russian experience
title_full_unstemmed Social capital and the COVID-19 pandemic threat: The Russian experience
title_short Social capital and the COVID-19 pandemic threat: The Russian experience
title_sort social capital and the covid-19 pandemic threat: the russian experience
topic Sociology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9795210/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36589789
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2022.957215
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