Moral values and trait pathogen disgust predict compliance with official recommendations regarding COVID-19 pandemic in US samples
Emergency situations require individuals to make important changes in their behavior. In the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, official recommendations to slow the spread of the virus include costly behaviors such as self-quarantining, which individuals might be reluctant to adopt. However, whether or not people adopt those behaviors could make a huge difference in the impact of the pandemic. In this context, it is important to elucidate what psychological traits underlie people’s (lack of) compliance with official recommendations to slow the spread of the virus. In three exploratory studies and one preregistered replication in a representative sample of US participants, we found converging evidence that compliance with official recommendations is not related to epistemic attitudes such as beliefs in conspiracy theories and pseudoscience, fear, or psychological reactance. Instead, participants’ behavioral intentions were predicted by their (1) disgust towards pathogens, and (2) moral values regarding the importance of caring about others.