Predicting attitudes towards easing COVID-19 restrictions in the United States of America: The role of health concerns, demographic, political, and individual difference factors.

Despite rising cases of COVID-19 in the United States of America, several states are easing restrictions (e.g., relaxing physical distancing requirements, reopening businesses) that were imposed to limit community transmission of the virus. Individuals hold differing opinions regarding whether restrictions should continue to be imposed or lifted, evidenced, for example, by debate and protests regarding reopening of businesses and venues. Health and social psychological research suggest that perceptions of COVID-19related risk, experiences of the virus, and individual difference factors can help explain individuals' attitudes towards health initiatives and their tendency to be persuaded towards a specific course of action. The purpose of this study was to investigate what factors influence support or opposition to easing COVID-19-related restrictions. A sample of 350 United States citizens, responding to an anonymous survey, were asked about the extent to which they support/oppose easing of COVID-19-related restrictions, both generally and in relation to specific restrictions. Respondents completed measures of their experiences of COVID-19, individual difference factors, and demographic variables, including political affiliation and degree of social and economic conservatism. In a series of regression analyses, significant demographic predictors of support or opposition for easing restrictions were gender, age, ethnicity, and education, with political affiliation and degree of social and economic conservatism also predicting attitudes. Experiences related to COVID-19 that predicted attitudes were concerns for self and family, perceptions of threat posed by the virus, perceived ability to adhere to restrictions, willingness to take government direction, and belief in COVID-19-related conspiracy theories. At an individual differences level, uncertainty avoidance, collectivism, long-term orientation, masculinity, empathic concern, personal distress, reactance, and general conspiracy theory beliefs all significantly precited attitudes to easing restrictions. Understanding the factors that help explain attitudes towards COVID-19 restrictions can inform how best to position health messaging and initiatives going forward, particularly as states or countries open borders.

Making sense of crisis: Charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic leadership in response to COVID-19.

The incursion of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) reached global scale in 2020, requiring a response from leaders worldwide. Although the virus is a ubiquitous problem, world leaders have varied appreciably in their responses resulting in substantially different outcomes in terms of virus mitigation, population health, and economic stability. One explanation for this inconsistency is that leaders have taken differential approaches to making sense of the crisis that, in turn, have driven their approaches to decision making and communication. The present article elaborates on the role of leaders as sensemakers and explains how a leader's sensemaking approach is a critical element in successful crisis management efforts. Through the charismatic, ideological, pragmatic (CIP) leadership model, a sensemaking-focused theory of leadership, it is explained how specific, relatively stable sensemaking approaches manifest and what actions leaders engaged in those styles are likely to take in times of crisis. These connections are then reinforced through case examples of 3 world leaders, framed through CIP, and demonstrate how their sensemaking approach has influenced their response to COVID-19. The article concludes with a discussion of the impacts that these differential approaches to COVID-19 may have on the global community, and recommendations for more explicit incorporation of sensemaking into our understanding of leadership. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).