COVID-19 in person's social network: Unravelling the Impact on Youth Motivations and Protective Behaviours during the Initial Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic

The study explores what motivated youth to comply with recommended protective behaviour while being less vulnerable to COVID-19 comparing to other age groups. Additionally, we looked at the relationships between awareness of COVID-19 cases in participants’ social networks and perceptions of risk, motivation, and behaviour in reaction to the pandemic. We applied structural equation modelling on self-reported data from 1,265 undergraduate university students to investigate the role of different motivation types in predicting adherence to a wide range of protective behaviours. The prosocial motivation was equally as strong as the self-interested motivation in explaining young people's behaviour, while controlled motivation revealed no association. The presence of known COVID-19 cases in people’s social networks affects both perceived risks of disease and motivation to comply. However, while awareness about severe consequences positively affects them, awareness about the mild cases, in contrast, decreases the perceived disease severity.