Collective Reactions to Epidemic Threat: Attachment and Cultural Orientations Predict Early COVID-19 Infection and Mortality Rates and Trajectories

Abstract

Hypotheses on culture-level attachment and individualism/collectivism relationships with COVID-19 infection and death rates during a period at the beginning of the epidemic were tested in data from 53 countries and 50 U.S. states. Results from multilevel growth curve analyses showed group-average anxious attachment predicted a lower initial number of cases and deaths cross-culturally and in the United States, while avoidant attachment predicted a higher initial number of COVID-19 infections in the United States and a higher initial number of deaths in both studies. Yet, during this period, culture-level anxious attachment was associated with a higher growth rate of infections and deaths, while a lower growth rate of infections and deaths was observed in countries and U.S. states with higher individualism and avoidance. The research provides new insights into attachment and culture relationships and points to different mechanisms that may explain initial and growth rate trajectories at the beginning of the epidemic.