Personal need for structure as a protective factor on beliefs and coping with COVID-19: A crowd-sourced multicultural exploration

A pre-registered, crowd-sourced, multicultural study assessed how the personal need for structure (PNFS) predicted perceptions, behaviors, and coping mechanisms in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Collaborators, invited to collect online survey data through Psi Chi's Network for International Collaborative Exchange crowd-sourcing initiative (Edlund et al., 2019), recruited approximately 100 participants across 22 data-collection locations (final N = 4620). Participants completed randomized online surveys, which inquired about an individual's PNFS, and current perceptions, behaviors and knowledge surrounding the pandemic. Results indicated that individuals with higher PNFS fared better at navigating the rules and restrictions that came with the pandemic. Specifically, and contrary to hypotheses, higher PNFS positively predicted knowledge of COVID-19 and support for government restrictions and negatively predicted belief in pandemic misinformation. Additionally, PNFS significantly positively predicted the use of problem and emotion-focused coping strategies and did not predict dysfunctional coping mechanisms. Our findings emphasize the role individual differences play in navigating the pandemic, and future research should evaluate PNFS in light of COVID-19 and in relation to other behavioral and psychological outcomes.