Changes in social norms during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic across 43 countries.
Giulia AndrighettoAron SzekelyAndrea GuidoMichele GelfandJered AbernathyGizem ArikanZeynep AycanShweta BankarDavide BarreraDana M Basnight-BrownAnabel BelausElizaveta B BerezinaSheyla BlumenPaweł BoskiHuyen Thi Thu BuiJuan Camilo CárdenasĐorđe ČekrlijaMícheál de BarraPiyanjali de ZoysaAngela Rachael DorroughJan B EngelmannHyun EuhSusann FiedlerOlivia Anne Foster-GimbelGonçalo FreitasMarta FülöpRagna B GardarsdottirColin Mathew Hugues D GillAndreas GlöcknerSylvie GrafAni GrigoryanKatarzyna GrowiecHirofumi HashimotoTim HopthrowMartina HřebíčkováHirotaka ImadaYoshio KamijoHansika KapoorYoshihisa KashimaNarine KhachatryanNatalia KharchenkoDiana LeónLisa M LeslieYang LiKadi LiikMarco Tullio LiuzzaAngela T MaitnerPavan MamidiMichele McArdleImed MedhioubMaria Luisa Mendes TeixeiraSari MentserFrancisco MoralesJayanth NarayananKohei NittaRavit NussinsonNneoma G OnyedireIke E OnyishiEvgeny N OsinSeniha ÖzdenPenny PanagiotopoulouOleksandr PereverzievLorena R Perez-FlorianoAnna-Maija Pirttilä-BackmanMarianna PogosyanJana RaverCecilia ReynaRicardo Borges RodriguesSara RomanòPedro P RomeroInari SakkiAngel SánchezSara SherbajiBrent SimpsonLorenzo SpadoniEftychia StamkouGiovanni Antonio TravaglinoPaul A M Van LangeFiona Fira WinataRizqy Amelia ZeinQing-Peng ZhangKimmo ErikssonPublished in: Nature communications (2024)
The emergence of COVID-19 dramatically changed social behavior across societies and contexts. Here we study whether social norms also changed. Specifically, we study this question for cultural tightness (the degree to which societies generally have strong norms), specific social norms (e.g. stealing, hand washing), and norms about enforcement, using survey data from 30,431 respondents in 43 countries recorded before and in the early stages following the emergence of COVID-19. Using variation in disease intensity, we shed light on the mechanisms predicting changes in social norm measures. We find evidence that, after the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, hand washing norms increased while tightness and punishing frequency slightly decreased but observe no evidence for a robust change in most other norms. Thus, at least in the short term, our findings suggest that cultures are largely stable to pandemic threats except in those norms, hand washing in this case, that are perceived to be directly relevant to dealing with the collective threat.