Compliance and Self-Reporting During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Cultural Study of Trust and Self-Conscious Emotions in the United States, Italy, and South Korea.

The coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented health crisis. Many governments around the world have responded by implementing lockdown measures of various degrees of intensity. To be effective, these measures must rely on citizens' cooperation. In the present study, we drew samples from the United States (N = 597), Italy (N = 606), and South Korea (N = 693) and examined predictors of compliance with social distancing and intentions to report the infection to both authorities and acquaintances. Data were collected between April 6th and 8th 2020. We investigated the role of cultural orientations of horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism, self-conscious emotions of shame and guilt related to the infection and trust in the government's action. Across all countries, vertical collectivism (VC) predicted stronger shame, whereas horizontal collectivism predicted stronger trust in the government. Only in the United States, VC was associated with stronger trust. Stronger feelings of shame predicted lower compliance and intentions to report the infection to both authorities and acquaintances. In contrast, guilt was associated with stronger intentions to report the infection to the authorities. Finally, trust was associated with stronger compliance and intentions to report the infection to the authorities. Unlike Italy and South Korea, the association between trust on compliance was not statistically significant in the United States, implications of the findings, and directions for future research are discussed.

Social Value Orientation and Endorsement of Horizontal and Vertical Individualism and Collectivism: An Exploratory Study Comparing Individuals From North America and South Korea.

Individuals' cultural tendencies of horizontal/vertical individualism and collectivism interact with their dispositional traits and contextual factors to shape social interactions. A key dispositional trait is social value orientation (SVO), a general tendency toward competition (proself) vs. cooperation (prosocial) in social exchanges. The present study (N = 1032) explored the relationship between SVO and personal cultural tendencies of horizontal/vertical individualism and collectivism in two different cultural settings, the United States (a vertical individualist setting) and South Korea (a vertical collectivistic setting). We hypothesized that each value orientation would be associated with the congruent personal cultural tendency across settings. We further hypothesized that this association would be specific to the context, so that SVO would play a more relevant role where the cultural theme was less dominant. Results indicated that, across contexts, proself individuals endorsed vertical individualistic values more strongly than prosocial individuals. Conversely, prosocial individuals endorsed horizontal collectivistic values more strongly than proself individuals. In addition, the effect of SVO was different in the two cultural contexts. Compared to proself individuals, prosocial individuals endorsed horizontal collectivism more strongly in the United States context, and horizontal individualism less strongly in the Korea context. Theoretical implications and limitations of the findings, as well as directions for future work are discussed.