Moral Identity Predicts Adherence to COVID-19 Mitigation Procedures Depending on Political Ideology: A Comparison Between the USA and New Zealand.

ABSTRACT: Reducing the spread of infectious viruses (e.g., COVID-19) can depend on societal compliance with effective mitigations. Identifying factors that influence adherence can inform public policy. In many cases, public health messaging has become highly moralized, focusing on the need to act for the greater good. In such contexts, a person's moral identity may influence behavior and serve to increase compliance through different mechanisms: if a person sees compliance as the right thing to do (internalization) and/or if a person perceives compliance as something others will notice as the right thing to do (symbolization). We argue that in societies that are more politically polarized, people's political ideology may interact with their moral identity to predict compliance. We hypothesized that

SUBMITTER: McHugh C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9349772 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature