Explaining Resistance to the COVID-19 Preventive Measures: A Psychological Reactance Perspective

Rabia Bokhari and Khurram Shahzad
Additional contact information
Rabia Bokhari: Hekma School of Business and Law, Dar Al-Hekma University, Jeddah 22246, Saudi Arabia
Khurram Shahzad: Faculty of Economics and Administration, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 8, 1-23

Abstract: This paper examines the impact that psychological reactance has on the COVID-19 adherence-related behavior and vaccine motivations of the residents of Saudi Arabia. A cross-sectional, online survey was administered, and 604 usable responses were analyzed to discover the level of psychological reactance, and its impact on adherence to COVID-19 preventive measures and vaccine intentions. Results of the Kruskal–Wallis H test demonstrated statistically significant evidence ( p < 0.05) of differences between the mean ranks for four out of seven key COVID-19 preventive measures studied, and four out of five items related to vaccine motivations, as a result of psychological reactance. These results suggest that while the majority of the population is adhering to COVID-19 preventive measures, for the subset of the population that are not fully compliant, psychological reactance is a significant factor in influencing behavior. Governments are, therefore, recommended to ensure that their public health messages are autonomy supporting, and take into consideration psychological and personality-based differences in individuals.

Keywords: psychological reactance; COVID-19; vaccine hesitancy; COVID-19 preventive measures (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/8/4476/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/8/4476/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:8:p:4476-:d:790112

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().