Mapping the sociodemographic distribution and self-reported justifications for non-compliance with COVID-19 guidelines in the United Kingdom

Frontiers in Psychology

Psychology

Maria Bălăeț¹  Dragos C. Gruia¹  Adam Hampshire¹  Peter J. Hellyer²  William Trender³  Darije Custovic⁴  Annalaura Lerede⁵  Amy E. Jolly⁶  Danielle L. Kurtin⁷ 

[1] Department of Brain Sciences, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom;Department of Brain Sciences, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom;Centre for Neuroimaging Sciences, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London, London, United Kingdom;Department of Brain Sciences, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom;Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council CDT Neurotechnology, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom;Department of Brain Sciences, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom;UK Dementia Research Institute: Care Research & Technology, London, United Kingdom;Department of Brain Sciences, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom;UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in AI for Healthcare, Department of Computing, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom;NMR Unit, Queen Square Multiple Sclerosis Centre, UCL, Queen Square Institute of Neurology, Department of Neuroinflammation, Faculty of Brain Sciences, University College London, London, United Kingdom;Neuromodulation Lab, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford, United Kingdom;

关键词: COVID-19;    compliance;    topic modelling;    natural language processing;    behaviour;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1183789

 received in 2023-03-10, accepted in 2023-06-28,  发布年份 2023

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Which population factors have predisposed people to disregard government safety guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic and what justifications do they give for this non-compliance? To address these questions, we analyse fixed-choice and free-text responses to survey questions about compliance and government handling of the pandemic, collected from tens of thousands of members of the UK public at three 6-monthly timepoints. We report that sceptical opinions about the government and mainstream-media narrative, especially as pertaining to justification for guidelines, significantly predict non-compliance. However, free text topic modelling shows that such opinions are diverse, spanning from scepticism about government competence and self-interest to full-blown conspiracy theories, and covary in prevalence with sociodemographic variables. These results indicate that attempts to counter non-compliance through argument should account for this diversity in peoples’ underlying opinions, and inform conversations aimed at bridging the gap between the general public and bodies of authority accordingly.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
Copyright © 2023 Bălăeț, Kurtin, Gruia, Lerede, Custovic, Trender, Jolly, Hellyer and Hampshire.