UC Santa Barbara

Digital contact tracing (DCT) and face coverings are community-benefiting non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to combat COVID-19 that impose some personal cost. Collectivism, a cultural orientation associated with prioritizing group goals over individual goals, has been shown to predict greater compliance to NPIs. However, the psychological mechanism underlying this association has not been investigated. The present study examined different aspects of collectivism (i.e., concern for community, normative influence, trust and perceived institution efficacy) that could explain greater compliance. More collectivistic individuals were more likely to comply with NPIs and this relationship was explained by collectivists’ greater susceptibility to normative influence and, trust and perceived institution efficacy, but not by greater concern for community. This research reveals specific pathways by which collectivism leads to community-benefiting compliance behaviors and highlights the role of cultural orientation in shaping individuals’ decisions that involve a tension between individual cost and community benefit.