The role of impulsivity and delay discounting in student compliance with COVID-19 protective measures

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.110925Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • We investigate compliance with public health measures during the COVID-19 pandemic.

  • Self-reported impulsivity is negatively related to compliance among students.

  • The discount rate is weakly positively related to compliance among students.

  • Links are similar for compliance with social distancing and hygiene measures.

Abstract

During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, governments set recommendations and restrictions that have given rise to new situations that require residents to deliberate and respond nonautomatically. For highly impulsive individuals, dealing with these situations may be harder, as they tend to deliberate less about the consequences of their behaviors. In this study, we investigate the relationship between impulsivity and delay discounting on the one hand and compliance with COVID-19 restrictions on the other hand. We distinguish between compliance with social distancing measures and compliance with hygiene measures. Regression analyses of an international sample of 6759 students from seven European countries reveal that the self-reported personality construct of impulsivity is negatively related to both types of compliance behavior. However, and unexpectedly, we also find a weak positive association between the discount rate—as measured by a behavioral task—and compliance. Our study highlights the importance of individual differences in impulsivity in regard to compliance with public health measures during a pandemic.

Keywords

COVID-19
Compliance
Impulsivity
Delay discounting
Students
Public health

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