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. 2022 Dec 21;17(12):e0279366.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0279366. eCollection 2022.

What Should I do and Who's to blame? A cross-national study on youth's attitudes and beliefs in times of COVID-19

Elisabeth L De Moor  1 , Ting-Yu Cheng  1 , Jenna E Spitzer  2 , Christian Berger  3 , Alexia Carrizales  4 , Claire F Garandeau  5 , Maria Gerbino  6 , Skyler T Hawk  7 , Goda Kaniušonytė  8 , Asiye Kumru  9 , Elisabeth Malonda  10 , Anna Rovella  11 , Yuh-Ling Shen  12 , Laura K Taylor  13 , Maarten van Zalk  14 , Susan Branje  1 , Gustavo Carlo  15 , Laura Padilla Walker  16 , Jolien Van der Graaff  1
Affiliations

What Should I do and Who's to blame? A cross-national study on youth's attitudes and beliefs in times of COVID-19

Elisabeth L De Moor et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

The COVID-19 crisis has had a major impact on youth. This study examined factors associated with youth's attitudes towards their government's response to the pandemic and their blaming of individuals from certain risk groups, ethnic backgrounds, and countries or regions. In a sample of 5,682 young adults (Mage = 22) from 14 countries, lower perceived burden due to COVID-19, more collectivistic and less individualistic values, and more empathy were associated with more positive attitudes towards the government and less blaming of individuals of certain groups. Youth's social identification with others in the pandemic mediated these associations in the same direction, apart from the COVID-19 burden on attitudes, which had a positive indirect effect. No evidence of country-level moderation was found.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Conceptual model of the studied relations.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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