Worldwide, those with ‘traditional’ values adhered more strictly to COVID precautions

Given the battles over COVID-19 rules and recommendations in the United States over the past three years, the findings of a new UCLA-led study may come as a bit of a shock: Globally, those who professed to hold traditional values tended to adhere more closely to coronavirus-prevention measures than those who considered themselves more liberal.“Across a wide range of countries, people who endorsed traditional cultural values — a position that often underlies socially conservative political philosophies — were more likely to report taking strict COVID-19 precautions, despite the opposite pattern being observed in the U.S.,” said st udy author Theodore Samore, a UCLA doctoral student in anthropology.The findings,published todayin the peer-reviewed, open-access journal Scientific Reports,have important implications for understanding how people around the world may respond to future disease outbreaks and measures designed to protect them from pandemics and other global threats. The results, the authors say, can help public health officials better craft policies that account for differences in values across populations.Previous research on the intersection of politics and psychology has shown that social conservatives are more strongly attuned to threats and dangers than social liberals, who tend to view the world as a generally safe place. Conservatives and traditionalists, therefore, display a stronger inclination to embrace protective behaviors. Although the specific iss...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news