Why People Comply to COIVD Policy? An Explanation of Authoritarian Personality

• In Event: Understanding Mass Behavior in Taiwan in a New Era

Abstract

In the past few years, the Taiwan government has initiated a series of policies countering COVID, including quarantine, mandatory masks, and other restricted regulations. These policies inconvenience the public and even violate their liberty and freedom. However, why do major Taiwanese comply with these policies? In addition to the fear of COVID, the article proposes the deeper personality as an alternative but missing literature: authoritarian personality. People with such personality would tend to obey and respect their authority and collective interests.

Following the literature on authoritarian personality, the paper conducts an empirical assessment of the Taiwanese complying with the COVID policy with an online survey. We argue that a person with a more authoritarian personality tends to cooperate with the government's COVID policy actively. With 1400 respondents, we find that authoritarianism plays a positive role in explaining public policy compliance. Furthermore, respondents' degree of authoritarian personality mitigates the effects of their human rights concerns on policy compliance. While including the influence of authoritarian personality, the paper adds new findings to the literature on COIVD and policy compliance.

Authors

• Yi-Chang Lai

• Wei-hao Huang, National sun-yat sen university