On the association between socio-demographics and daily moralization during the pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically affected people's lives worldwide and provoked a vast variety of behavioural changes such as social distancing, increased hygiene measures, remote learning and working. Our study explores the association between individual differences based on socio-demographic characteristics such as gender, nationality, country of living, income, and well-being and the moralization of everyday life behaviours during the pandemic. We collected a large cross-cultural and multidimensional data set. By analysing the factor loadings of the moralisation scale using Confirmatory Multidimensional Item Response Theory (IRT) models, we found four distinct moralisation dimensions which were: unnecessary risk-taking, selfish behaviour, failing to do good, health and hygiene. We found no significant associations between socio-demographic variables and these moralisation dimensions. The impact of personality differences, emotional regulation, risk perception and pandemic fatigue on moralization needs to be investigated in future studies.