COVID-19 in social networks: unravelling its impact on youth risk perception, motivations and protective behaviours during the initial stages of the pandemic

ABSTRACT

The study explores the roles of youth prosocial, self-interested and controlled motivations to comply with recommended protective behaviour during the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. We test the interrelations of awareness of COVID-19 cases in social network, risk perception, motivation and behaviour, via structural equation modelling on self-reported data from 1,265 undergraduate university students. Analysis identified prosocial motivation and self-interested motivation as equally strong for predicting young people’s behaviour while controlled motivation revealed no association. The presence of known COVID-19 cases in social networks could differently affect perceived risks of disease and motivation to comply with protective measures. While awareness of severe consequences positively affects motivation, awareness of mild cases, in contrast, decreases perceived disease severity.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• protective behaviour
• perceived severity
• perceived susceptibility
• controlled motivation
• prosocial motivation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in OSF project at http://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/9SKQU.

Supplemental material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/02673843.2023.2245012

Additional information

Funding

This article is an output of a research project implemented as part of the Basic Research Program at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE University).

Notes on contributors

Marta Anson

Marta Anson is a research assistant in the Centre for Interdisciplinary Basic Research. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Social Informatics from National Research University Higher School of Economics, Saint-Petersburg, Russia. Her research is focused on the application of psychological theories to the identification of factors that may help to shape health-protective behaviours as well as inner motivation behind the implementation of protective behaviours. She also holds the position of an Analyst in the research department of a digital healthcare IT company.

Ksenia Eritsyan

Ksenia Eritsyan, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Sociology department of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, Saint-Petersburg, Russia. Her research is focused on identifying and addressing challenges in health-related decision-making as well as implementation of health-related behaviour by different groups, including the most vulnerable. Before earning her PhD in Social Psychology from Moscow State University she has served for 10 years as a head of research in NGO. In that role, she was in charge of planning and carrying out applied public health research on a national and international scale that was supported by major international organizations like the WHO, CDC, and UNODC.