To Be Scared or Not to Be Scared: Social Representations of COVID-19 in Young People (A Cross-Cultural Study)

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is a serious global threat to the world’s population. The aim of the presented exploratory study was to reveal and analyse social thinking about COVID-19 in two different cultural contexts: Russia and Malaysia. Social representation (SR) theory is a promising framework to analyse the symbolic response to the global health emergency. This exploratory study was conducted at the time of new COVID-19 variants’ emergence, accompanied by quarantine measures, and mass vaccination was not elaborated yet (12 October–15 December 2020). The total sample (convenience sampling) consisted of 349 young adults from Malaysia (n = 195, 35.4% males, 64.6% females) and Russia (n = 154, 10% males, 90% females) aged 17–36 years. Convenience sampling was used to recruit participants, and an online version of the questionnaire was proposed to participants. The free association technique was used as the main tool in order to reveal the content of SRs. This prototypical analysis allowed us to reveal a hypothetical structure of SRs in the two cultural groups. These SR structures in each sample were crystallised around mostly negative elements. While in the Malaysian sample, the key elements were troubling and disturbing (death, pandemic, virus, quarantine), in the Russian sample (quarantine, disease), these elements could be seen as a rationalisation (or even a denial) of the COVID-19 threat.