{"id":14061,"date":"2022-05-01T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-01T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/normativeorders.net\/?post_type=publikation&#038;p=14061"},"modified":"2026-08-18T16:04:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T14:04:13","slug":"how-national-leaders-keep-us-safe-a-longitudinal-four-nation-study-exploring-the-role-of-identity-leadership-as-a-predictor-of-adherence-to-covid-19-non-pharmaceutical-interventions","status":"publish","type":"publikation","link":"https:\/\/normativeorders.net\/en\/publikation\/how-national-leaders-keep-us-safe-a-longitudinal-four-nation-study-exploring-the-role-of-identity-leadership-as-a-predictor-of-adherence-to-covid-19-non-pharmaceutical-interventions\/","title":{"rendered":"How national leaders keep &#8216;us&#8217; safe: A longitudinal, four-nation study exploring the role of identity leadership as a predictor of adherence to COVID-19 non-pharmaceutical interventions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Objectives:&nbsp;<\/strong>To investigate whether citizens&#8217; adherence to health-protective non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) during the COVID-19 pandemic is predicted by identity leadership, wherein leaders are perceived to create a sense of shared national identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Design:&nbsp;<\/strong>Observational two-wave study. Hypotheses testing was conducted with structural equation modelling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Setting:&nbsp;<\/strong>Data collection during the COVID-19 pandemic in China, Germany, Israel and the USA in April\/May 2020 and four weeks later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Participants:&nbsp;<\/strong>Adults in China (n=548, 66.6% women), Germany (n=182, 78% women), Israel (n=198, 51.0% women) and the USA (n=108, 58.3% women).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Measures:&nbsp;<\/strong>Identity leadership (assessed by the four-item Identity Leadership Inventory Short-Form) at Time 1, perceived shared national identification (PSNI; assessed with four items) and adherence to health-protective NPIs (assessed with 10 items that describe different health-protective interventions; for example, wearing face masks) at Time 2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Results:&nbsp;<\/strong>Identity leadership was positively associated with PSNI (95% CI 0.11 to 0.30, p&lt;0.001) in all countries. This, in turn, was related to more adherence to health-protective NPIs in all countries (95% CI 0.03 to 0.36, 0.001\u2264<em>p<\/em>\u22640.017) except Israel (95% CI -0.03 to 0.27, p=0.119). In Germany, the more people saw Chancellor Merkel as engaging in identity leadership, the&nbsp;<em>more<\/em>&nbsp;they adhered to health-protective NPIs (95% CI 0.04 to 0.18, p=0.002). In the USA, in contrast, the more people perceived President Trump as engaging in identity leadership, the&nbsp;<em>less<\/em>&nbsp;they adhered to health-protective NPIs (95% CI -0.17 to -0.04, p=0.002).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Conclusions:&nbsp;<\/strong>National leaders can make a difference by promoting a sense of shared identity among their citizens because people are more inclined to follow health-protective NPIs to the extent that they feel part of a united &#8216;us&#8217;. However, the content of identity leadership (perceptions of what it means to be a nation&#8217;s citizen) is essential, because this can also encourage people to disregard such recommendations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>van Dick, Rolf et al. (2022): How national leaders keep \u2018us\u2019 safe: A longitudinal four-nation study exploring the role of identity leadership as a predictor of adherence to COVID-19 non-pharmaceutical interventions. In: BMJ Open, 12(5): e054980.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"publikation_cat":[98],"disciplines":[398],"series":[],"class_list":["post-14061","publikation","type-publikation","status-publish","hentry","publikation_cat-zeitschriftenartikel","disciplines-psychologie"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/normativeorders.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publikation\/14061"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/normativeorders.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publikation"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/normativeorders.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/publikation"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/normativeorders.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/normativeorders.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"publikation_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/normativeorders.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publikation_cat?post=14061"},{"taxonomy":"disciplines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/normativeorders.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disciplines?post=14061"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/normativeorders.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=14061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}