Will you shake my hand? Factors of noncompliance with COVID-19 behavioral rules in the framework of enforced social isolation in Russia

This research paper is devoted to the investigation of reasons for not complying with behavioral rules in the context of epidemiological situation aggravation because of COVID-19 spread.

The study was conducted within the framework of a mixed methodology: a series of semistructured interviews and an online survey. In the first stage, 15 interviews were conducted to understand the possible reasons for not following the self-isolation rules or ignoring self-precaution recommendations. In the second stage, an online survey was conducted from 10th to 20th May 2020, gathering a total of 540 responses. This paper describes existing approaches for understanding the process of making a choice for not following recommended or obligatory behavioral rules as well as the significant reasons for making this choice.

As a result of the qualitative stage, the process of choosing to perform risky physical contact with another person was analyzed. Moreover, the possible factors that influence this behavior were discovered: primarily social environment and trust in the government, Internet, media. The way of coping with emerging conflict of making a traditional physical contact or staying in distance was also discussed. As a result of the quantitative stage, a significant contribution of trust toward institutions and official statistics on the number of people infected in different aspects of precautionary behavior was discovered, as well as other factors, such as the presence of infected in a social environment of a respondent.

This study contains valuable information about possible reasons for following or not following all precautions in the risky epidemiological situation and about the thinking process of an individual who does not follow precautions.