Do Cultural Values Effect How We Battle Covid-19?
Early on, researchers have been studying the response efforts of countries all over the world to the Covid-19 pandemic. What seems to be emerging are the differences among nations and their societies’ attitude towards the response. Why does attitude matter? Because the nature of this pandemic requires us to be mindful of others safety as well as our own. Countries whose first response was fear of the outgroup, (the group that was first infected by Covid-19) have, in large part influenced their leadership decisions and community response.
For example, the United States’ first reaction to the virus was to blame China, stop travel in and out of China, and scapegoat China for unleashing the pandemic on the world. Individualistic societies are more likely to react in this way; thus, in this case, distracting them from responding quicky in the first instance with measures to protect the community as a whole. In retrospect, the US lost precious time, and this alone may be the difference that matters.
Collectivist societies, like China, Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore reacted with massive social coordinations. Researchers at UC Santa Barbara when studying Ebola called this the “protective efficacy found in collectivist societies. Heejun Kim stated, “It seems like collectivistic people especially in the face of a perceived risk, tend to have a higher sense of efficacy, meaning that my group will do something to protect me or my community. And those protective processes are coordinated and work together.”
Another emerging observation seems to be that women-led countries are fairing well with their Covid-19 responses. What makes women better at managing a health crisis? A recent article in Politco seems to suggest three reasons why.
These women leaders are:
- More Collaborative
- More Empathetic
- Less Likely to be Driven by Ego
While these observations are anecdotal, they do have something in common with the research around cultural values and how individualist/collectivist societies act differently under crisis. Women in leadership tend to think more collaboratively, something they may have in common with more collectivist societies. As I always say, “culture is everything and everything is culture”.