The role of the Big Two in socially responsible behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic: Agency and communion in adolescents’ personal norm and behavioral adherence to instituted measures

• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0269018
• Publication Date: 2022-06-09T17:31:00Z
• Authors: Selma Korlat; Julia Holzer; Julia Reiter; Elisabeth Rosa Pe...; Barbara Schober; Christiane Spiel; Marko Lüftenegger
• Keywords: Adult; Male; 501004 Differential psychology; Adolescent; Science; Virus testing; 501004 Differentielle Psychologie; Adolescents; GOALS; 12. Responsible consumption; Sense of agency; 501021 Social psychology; Young Adult; 501016 Educational psychology; PEOPLE; Collective human behavior; Humans; 0501 psychology and cognitive sciences; 501016 Pädagogische Psychologie; ATTITUDES; Child; Social Behavior; 10. No inequality; Pandemics; PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR; Q; 05 social sciences; R; COVID-19; Gender Identity; Sexual and gender issues; SELF; 3. Good health; Adolescent Behavior; Prosocial behavior; COGNITION; Medicine; 501021 Sozialpsychologie; Female; COVID 19; TRAITS; Research Article

The outbreak of the COVID-19 virus urged all members of the society to adopt COVID-responsible behavioral patterns and practice them in everyday life. Given the variability in its adoption, it is critical to understand psychological factors associated with socially responsible behavior during the pandemic. This might be even more important among adolescents, who are less endangered by the virus but contribute to its spread. In this article, we focus on adolescent boys’ and girls’ agency and communion orientations to explain the level of importance they attribute to the instituted measures to contain the spread of the COVID-19 virus (personal norm), as well as their behavioral adherence to those measures. In total, 12,552 adolescents (67.6% girls, Mage = 15.06, SDage = 2.44, age range 10–21) answered inventory assessing adolescents’ agentic and communal orientation (GRI-JUG) and items related to personal norm regarding the instituted measures and behavioral adherence to the measures. The results showed a small positive role of communion in both boys’ and girls’ personal norm and behavioral adherence, whereas agency played a very small negative role in boys’ and girls’ personal norm and boys’ behavioral adherence to measures. Nevertheless, these findings could indicate the importance of enhancing communal traits and behaviors in both genders in order to assure socially responsible behavior during the pandemic.