The relationship between lay beliefs about the world and pandemic-related beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors.

ABSTRACT: The Covid-19 pandemic created a strong need to understand how people can be motivated to engage in protective health behaviors (such as vaccination). Past research suggests that perceiving a health threat as serious and protective behaviors as beneficial increases people's motivation to engage in protective behavior. However, perceptions of the seriousness of the threat and the effectiveness of protective behavior can be ambiguous in the context of a novel, global pandemic. Research on climate change suggests that people's core understanding of the world (as either stable and unchangeable or dynamic and influenced by humans) influence whether people perceive such abstract threats to be serious and protective behaviors to be effective on a large scale. Across five online studies (N = 1663),

SUBMITTER: Jankowski JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12694858 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature