Who do we trust and how do we cope with COVID-19? A mixed-methods sequential exploratory approach to understanding supportive messages across 35 cultures

The COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread economic, social, and psychological disruption, generating significant stress and anxiety globally. The study focuses on two key psychological concepts crucial for navigating the pandemic: trust and coping. Trust, defined as an affective bond with individuals, systems, or institutions, acts as a social capital indicator, influencing how individuals interpret information and seek treatment. Coping, encompassing cognitive and behavioral strategies for managing stress, significantly impacts mental health outcomes. The research explores the relationship between trust and coping during the pandemic, recognizing their potential impact on individual and societal well-being. Existing literature highlights the importance of trust in shaping coping mechanisms, with examples showing links between trust in God, social networks, and government and better coping outcomes. However, studies explicitly addressing cross-cultural patterns of trust and coping during the pandemic are scarce. Therefore, this study investigates the interplay between trust and coping strategies across diverse cultures, considering the influence of cultural, socioeconomic, and epidemiological factors.

Prior research highlights the critical role of trust in navigating crises. Trust acts as a window into social reality, shaping interactions and responses to challenging events. Trusted targets can range from personal relationships to institutions and even divine entities. During the pandemic, trust became a crucial social capital indicator, influencing information interpretation and treatment-seeking behavior. Studies indicate a strong relationship between trust and coping, with individuals high in interpersonal trust showing better coping mechanisms. Religious faith has been found to buffer stress, and reliance on social support networks improves coping outcomes. However, existing COVID-19 research largely adopts a quantitative approach, lacking the depth of understanding provided by qualitative methods. The influence of cultural dimensions (individualism-collectivism, cultural tightness-looseness), socioeconomic factors (globalization), and pandemic severity are also underexplored in relation to cross-cultural trust and coping.

This study employed a mixed-methods sequential exploratory design, starting with qualitative data collection and followed by a quantitative analysis. Qualitative data consisted of 10,072 supportive messages written by community adults across 35 societies (from a larger sample of 18,171 participants) between April 9th and 20th, 2020. The messages were collected through an online panel, with participants voluntarily providing open-ended responses to the prompt: "Would you like to write a few words to communicate support and encouragement for individuals who are affected by the coronavirus?" Non-English messages were professionally translated. Reflective thematic analysis and conceptual content analysis were used to identify patterns and quantify themes. Two pre-defined themes, trust and coping, were analyzed, resulting in five subthemes for trust (God, a larger us, country/government, science/healthcare, those affected) and six subthemes for coping (interpersonal/social, religious/spiritual, acceptance, blame, wishful thinking, strength-based). Interrater reliability was assessed using Fleiss' Kappa, achieving high levels of agreement (average Kappa = 0.86). The quantitative phase used SPSS 28 to analyze the number of themed messages per society. Correlations and regression analyses examined associations among trusted targets, coping strategies, and societal factors (individualism, cultural tightness, globalization, pandemic severity).

Qualitative analysis revealed five primary targets of trust and six distinct coping strategies employed across the 35 societies. Quantitative analysis revealed several key correlations. Societies trusting in science/healthcare were more likely to trust in collective efforts. Strength-based coping was negatively correlated with wishful thinking and acceptance, while interpersonal/social coping was positively correlated with blame. Trust in those affected was negatively associated with acceptance. Trust in a larger "us" was negatively associated with strength-based coping and positively associated with wishful thinking. Society-level analysis showed that higher confirmed COVID-19 cases were positively correlated with trust in a larger "us" and science/healthcare. Globalization was negatively correlated with trust in God, while cultural tightness was positively correlated with trust in those affected. Individualism was negatively correlated with strength-based coping, and pandemic severity was positively correlated with wishful thinking.

The findings demonstrate that trust and coping strategies during the early pandemic varied significantly across societies. Trust in science/healthcare often accompanied trust in collective action, highlighting the importance of public health messaging. The negative correlation between strength-based coping and wishful thinking suggests the importance of promoting realistic optimism and self-reliance. The positive relationship between interpersonal/social coping and blame underscores the complex role of social connectedness in navigating collective trauma. Society-level factors such as globalization and cultural tightness significantly influenced both trust and coping. Individualism was negatively associated with strength-based coping, potentially reflecting cultural differences in attribution. The positive relationship between pandemic severity and wishful thinking suggests a coping mechanism for managing overwhelming adversity. These findings offer valuable insights into the complex interplay of trust, coping, and cultural factors during a global pandemic, emphasizing the importance of culturally sensitive interventions.

This mixed-methods study provides novel insights into cross-cultural trust and coping during the COVID-19 pandemic. The identification of key trusted targets and coping strategies, along with their relationships to societal factors, has implications for public health interventions and psychological support. Future research could explore two-way interactions in virtual support, employ experience sampling methods to examine the effectiveness of coping strategies, consider additional societal factors (e.g., social axioms), and analyze individual-level influences on trust and coping.

The study's reliance on supportive messages as a proxy for actual trust and coping may limit the generalizability of findings. The cross-sectional nature of the data limits causal inferences. The focus on the early phase of the pandemic may not fully capture long-term patterns. The use of online panels may introduce sampling biases, potentially limiting the representativeness of the sample across societies.