Acceptance of societal and personal preventive measures during the COVID-19 pandemic among college students in three societies

The global effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) largely depends on the support of every citizen to comply with societal regulations (e.g., school closure) and personal precautions (e.g., wearing a facemask). In an online study with participants from three societies (United States, China, and Japan; Ns = 122, 215, 191, respectively), we examined people’s acceptance of societal and personal preventive measures and their reasons. Drawing on social domain theory, we distinguished among moral, societal, personal, and prudential considerations as potential reasons. In the present study, participants indicated their acceptance of different societal and personal preventive measures and then endorsed the reasons (considerations) they believed to be most important to their acceptance of these measures. Also, they completed scales measuring perceived vulnerability to disease and sense of control. They were also asked to identify societal regulations already implemented by the government of their home country. Finally, using two items, we assessed participants’ subjective evaluation of the controllability of the pandemic (through societal regulations) and the preventability of COVID-19 (through personal precautions). Please see the "measures" document for the full list of items used in this study, and the "data" file for the original data of the study. Code for statistical analyses are available in the form of a SPSS syntax file. We found that participants from the United States indicated the highest acceptance of personal preventive measures (e.g., handwashing, wearing facemasks), whereas participants from China indicated the highest acceptance of societal preventive measures (e.g., closing borders, shutting down non-essential businesses). Moral considerations predicted higher acceptance of societal preventive measures, whereas personal considerations predicted lower acceptance of both societal and personal preventive measures. Chinese participants, compared with American and Japanese participants, exhibited a stronger link between societal considerations and higher acceptance of societal preventive measures.全球为减缓2019冠状病毒病（COVID-19）传播所做出的努力，在很大程度上依赖全体公民遵守社会管控措施（如学校停课）与个人防护行为（如佩戴口罩）的配合。本研究针对来自美国、中国与日本三个社会群体的受访者开展线上调研（样本量分别为122、215与191），旨在考察民众对社会及个人防疫措施的接受度及其背后的动因。研究依托社会领域理论（social domain theory），将潜在动因划分为道德考量、社会考量、个人考量与审慎考量四类。 在本次调研中，受访者首先对各类社会及个人防疫措施的接受程度进行评分，随后勾选其认为对自身接受该类措施影响最大的动因。此外，受访者还完成了两份量表，分别用于测量其对疾病的感知易感性与控制感；同时要求其识别本国政府已实施的社会管控政策。最后，本研究通过两个条目评估受访者对两方面的主观评价：一是通过社会管控措施控制疫情的可控性，二是通过个人防护手段预防COVID-19的可行性。完整的调研条目详见「测量工具」文档，研究原始数据可于「数据集」文件中获取，统计分析代码以SPSS语法文件形式公开。 研究结果显示，美国受访者对个人防疫措施（如洗手、佩戴口罩）的接受度最高，而中国受访者对社会防疫措施（如边境封锁、关停非必需营业场所）的接受度最高。道德考量可正向预测社会防疫措施的接受度，而个人考量则会负向预测社会及个人防疫措施的接受度。相较于美国与日本受访者，中国受访者的社会考量与社会防疫措施接受度之间的关联强度更强。