Abstract
We investigated factors related to preventive behaviors and fear of COVID-19: values and beliefs about threat to values because of COVID-19. In two studies, participants reported their own values and evaluated how COVID-19 may threaten values. They also reported their preventive behaviors (washing hands, wearing a facial mask, keeping social distance, and avoiding public places) and fear of COVID-19. COVID-19 is perceived as a threat to personal focused values (openness and self-enhancement values) rather than social focused values (conservation and self-transcendence values). Both value importance and perceived threats to values are related to preventive behaviors and fear of COVID-19. Greater importance of conservation values was related to engaging in preventive behaviors and increased fear of COVID-19. Perceived threats to personal focused values (self-enhancement and openness values) were also related to engaging in preventive behaviors and fear of COVID-19.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 739-746 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Journal of Health Psychology |
| Volume | 28 |
| Issue number | 8 |
| Early online date | 2 Jan 2023 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jul 2023 |
Keywords
- COVID-19
- Fear
- Health
- Health behaviors
- Values
Access to Document
- Iosifyan_2023_JHP_Beliefs-COVID-19_CC
Copyright © The Author(s) 2023. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).