THE ATTITUDE–BEHAVIOR DICHOTOMY IN THE TIME OF COVID-19: AN EXPLORATION USING GENERALIZED STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODELING

Richard Carson, W. Michael Hanemann (), Dohyeong Kim (), Hanna Shin () and Dale Whittington
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W. Michael Hanemann: Department of Economics, Arizona State University, United States
Dohyeong Kim: School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences University of Texas, Dallas, United States
Hanna Shin: School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences University of Texas, Dallas, United States
Dale Whittington: Departments of Environmental Sciences & Engineering and City & Regional Planning, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, United States

The Singapore Economic Review (SER), 2024, vol. 69, issue 04, 1571-1599

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic brought the need to quickly deploy non-pharmaceutical measures like facemasks to reduce transmission rates into sharp focus. Factors influencing this behavior are examined through the classic attitude–behavior lens of Fishbein and Ajzen [Belief, Attitude, Intention, and Behavior: An Introduction to Theory and Research. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley] cast in the language of property rights and social norms. Behavior is operationalized as wearing a facemask (or not) and attitude in terms of supporting a mandatory mask mandate. This yields targetable segments of the population as they are referred to in a marketing context: wearing/supporting, wearing/not supporting, not wearing/supporting, not wearing/not supporting [Kim, D, RT Carson, D Whittington and WM Hanemann (2022). Support for regulation versus compliance: Face masks during COVID-19. Public Health in Practice, 5, 100324]. Membership in each segment is predicted using a generalized structural equation modelling (GSEM) approach focused on three broad factors. The first includes political and demographic variables, which represent exogenous taste parameters. The second is a set of knowledge variables characterizing the COVID-19 information a person possesses. These are potentially influenceable by health officials. The third relates to risk cast in the form of knowing someone who had tested positive for COVID-19, been hospitalized or died from it. The GSEM results paint a rich picture of how our factor sets interact with the four targetable segments of the population in a critical situation where high but not perfect compliance is needed.

Keywords: Attitude–behavior nexus; facemasks; structural equal modeling; social norms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C31 H12 I12 I18 M31 P14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1142/S0217590824450073

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