- Title
- Risk attitudes and human mobility during the COVID-19 pandemic
- Creator
- Chan, Ho Fai; Skali, Ahmed; Savage, David A.; Stadelmann, David; Torgler, Benno
- Relation
- Scientific Reports Vol. 10, Issue 1, no. 19931
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-76763-2
- Publisher
- Nature Publishing Group
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2020
- Description
- Behavioural responses to pandemics are less shaped by actual mortality or hospitalisation risks than they are by risk attitudes. We explore human mobility patterns as a measure of behavioural responses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results indicate that risk-taking attitudes are a critical factor in predicting reductions in human mobility and social confinement around the globe. We find that the sharp decline in mobility after the WHO (World Health Organization) declared COVID-19 to be a pandemic can be attributed to risk attitudes. Our results suggest that regions with risk-averse attitudes are more likely to adjust their behavioural activity in response to the declaration of a pandemic even before official government lockdowns. Further understanding of the basis of responses to epidemics, e.g., precautionary behaviour, will help improve the containment of the spread of the virus.
- Subject
- human behaviour; psychology; public health; covid 19; SDG 3; Sustainable Development Goals
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1450710
- Identifier
- uon:44010
- Identifier
- ISSN:2045-2322
- Rights
- © Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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