Greater Traditionalism Predicts COVID-19 Precautionary Behaviors Across 27 Societies (preprint)

People vary in the extent to which they embrace their society’s traditions, impacting a range of social and political phenomena. People also vary in the degree to which they perceive disparate dangers as salient and necessitating a response. Over evolutionary time, traditions likely regularly offered direct and indirect avenues for addressing hazards; consequently, via multiple possible pathways, orientations toward tradition and toward danger may have become associated. Emerging research documents connections between individual differences in traditionalism and variation in threat responsivity in general, and pathogen-avoidance motivations in particular. Importantly, because threat-mitigating behaviors can conflict with competing priorities, the precise associations between traditionalism and pathogen avoidance likely depend on contextually contingent costs and benefits. The COVID-19 pandemic requires individuals to make decisions about consequential and costly pathogen-avoidance behaviors that can clash with other priorities. The pandemic therefore provides a real-world setting in which to test the posited relationship between traditionalism and pathogen avoidance across socio-political contexts. Across 27 societies (N = 7,844), we find that costly COVID-19-avoidance behaviors positively correlate with greater endorsement of traditional norms and values in a majority of countries. Accounting for the conflict that arises in some societies between public health precautions and competing priorities, such as the exercise of personal liberties, reveals a consistent relationship between traditionalism and COVID-19 precautions across an even wider range of social and cultural contexts. These findings support the thesis that traditionalism is associated with an enhanced tendency to attend to hazards.

COVID-19 and deferred tax reversals

Purpose>This paper aims to examine the financial statement impact resulting from the tax depreciation on buildings that was reinstated on 25 March 2020 as part of the New Zealand Government’s coronavirus (COVID-19) tax support package. The COVID-19 pandemic and the tax relief created an accounting response to map the environment to accounting reports, reversing previously recognized deferred tax liabilities and increasing reported income as a result.Design/methodology/approach>This is an exploratory and descriptive study to understand the accounting response and impact on companies’ financial statements following a COVID-19 tax relief to support businesses in a dire financial situation as the effects of COVID-19 took hold.Findings>First, the accounting response provided the appropriate mapping from the COVID-19 environment to accounting reports. Second, the financial statement impacts are material, especially for companies with extensive holdings of buildings that are held for use. Third, while the accounting relief was immediate, the economic (cash flow) support does not occur until a year later.Research limitations/implications>The financial statement impacts are based on a subset of NZX 50 companies with the available information at the time of writing. However, they do not compromise the external validity of the findings because the tax depreciation relief applies to other listed companies, unlisted public and private companies, trust, partnerships and individuals.Practical implications>The New Zealand Government could have been more helpful to businesses by allowing an immediate depreciation deduction in the 2020 year as opposed to implementing it from 2021. Further, it could have legislated a backlog depreciation deduction from 2010 – when the depreciation on buildings was disallowed – to 2020.Originality/value>This paper documents the evolution of the accounting for deferred taxes when the New Zealand Government withdrew the tax depreciation in 2010, how NZ IAS 12 evolved as a result of that event and now the reversal effect with the reinstatement of the tax depreciation during COVID-19. The paper also blends in the accounting responses and considers whether they are opportunistic or efficient.