Iron fists and velvet gloves: Investigating the associations between the stringency of governments' responses to COVID-19, stress, and compliance in the early stages of the pandemic.

ABSTRACT: To tackle the spread of COVID-19, governments worldwide have implemented restrictive public health behavioural measures. Whether and when these measures lead to positive or negative psychological outcomes is still debated. In this study, drawing on a large sample of individuals (N_total  = 89,798) from 45 nations, we investigated whether the stringency of public health measures implemented at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March-May 2020 was associated with individuals' levels of stress and compliance. Moreover, we addressed the question of how these associations may be moderated by the measures' implementation lag, nations' tolerance for unequal distributions of power (i.e., power distance), and individuals' institutional trust. Linear mixed models suggested that slower

SUBMITTER: Cepulic DB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8646544 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature