Why would people accept some of the strictest pandemic controls in the world? This study argues that the answer is not culture alone, but how cultural values work through trust in government and influential voices.

This study seeks to explain the wide acceptance of the stringent zero-COVID policy in two Chinese societies—Mainland China and Taiwan—from the perspectives of cultural values and trust. The study identifies significant indirect effects of trust in government and key opinion leaders, or KOLs, on people’s policy acceptance in both societies.

People who interpret the pandemic as a collectivist issue and who trust in government are more accepting of the zero-COVID policy, whereas people who frame the pandemic as an individual issue tend to refuse the policy. Trust in government functions as a more important mediator in both societies, while the different contexts of the two Chinese societies shape these relationships.

Starting from the end of twenty nineteen, COVID-19 had infected more than six hundred seventeen point six million people worldwide and caused over six point five million deaths as of October twenty twenty-two. The long-lasting pandemic had also wreaked havoc on the economy and daily lives worldwide.

The global economy was estimated to have shrunk by four point four percent in twenty twenty, with six point five percent of the global population out of work. Some countries instead suggested they must live with COVID, meaning lifting stringent interventions such as social distancing and masking, deemphasizing testing, and treating the disease like influenza.

Mainland China and Taiwan were two representatives of regions sticking with the zero-COVID strategy. Unlike living with COVID, zero-COVID used rigid preventive measures including mass lockdowns, mandated testing, international travel bans, and mandatory quarantines to crush any hint of an outbreak.

Both Mainland China and Taiwan adopted this strategy from the beginning of the pandemic in December twenty nineteen. Compared with protests against lockdowns in parts of the West, these two regions endured tightened public health controls almost without public resistance.

That contrast leads to the study’s central question: what could explain overall acceptance of zero-COVID in these two Chinese societies? The first research question asks how collectivist and individualist values predict acceptance of the zero-COVID strategy in Mainland China and Taiwan.

The second asks how trust in government and KOLs mediates the association between cultural values and the zero-COVID strategy. The third asks to what extent the effect of cultural values on policy acceptance differs in Mainland China and Taiwan. The research also introduces the effect of self-efficacy on people’s trust and examines the interplay between cultural values and trust in policy attitudes.

In the Chinese context, the zero-COVID policy is considered a form of preventive mandates because governments in Mainland China and Taiwan insisted on it to combat COVID. Respondents’ issue interpretation of the pandemic was used as a proxy for their values.

Collectivists, whose personal identity hinges on group membership and social identity, are more motivated to defend group interests when facing existential risks. Individualists, whose identity is determined by personal rather than group factors, are more likely to accept an individual-oriented perspective after evaluating collective actions against their own self-determination.

Figure one presents the study’s proposed model in two versions. Panel A links collectivist interpretation to acceptance of the zero-COVID policy, with government trust and KOL trust shown as possible mediating pathways; Panel B repeats this structure for individualist interpretation.

Region is modeled as an influence on these interpretations and trust relationships, while hypotheses H1 through H8 label the proposed links. Cultural values have been found to affect trust in many empirical studies.

The underlying mechanism behind cultural values and people’s trust in certain subjects lies in their perception of self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is people’s ability to perform a specific response, and self-efficacy perception influences decision-making, aspirations, and problem-solving.

When people perceive low self-efficacy in a crisis, they put more trust in other entities such as government and other institutions; higher self-efficacy is assumed to correlate with lower trust in other entities. The study focuses on trust in government to manifest political trust and trust in key opinion leaders to manifest social trust.

So the proposed mechanism distinguishes trust in government from trust in KOLs rather than treating trust as a single undifferentiated concept. Contextual factors in the two societies are considered possible moderators affecting the path connecting people’s cultural values with their trust.

Mainland China and Taiwan share political-cultural features including similar beliefs in allocative self-interests, avoidance of conflicts, and a hierarchical relationship with authority. Those similarities control the influence of cultural values between the regions, while differences in political and media environments provide a comparison for how external factors influence policy acceptance.

From November to December twenty twenty-one, online surveys were conducted in Mainland China and Taiwan, with recruitment overseen by independent agencies. In Mainland China, a mix of Probabilities Proportional to Size sampling and quota sampling with gender and age was used, based on the twenty ten Mainland population census.

The combination was intended to ensure that Mainland samples were sufficiently representative in age, gender, and residence areas. In Taiwan, Random Digit Dialing sampling was based on the Taiwan twenty twenty household registration database. Collectivist issue interpretation of the pandemic was measured as an indicator of collectivist values with three question items on a seven-point Likert scale, from strongly disagree to strongly agree.

The items included the statement, “COVID-19 pandemic is mainly a social, group, or national issue.” Responses were averaged to create the collectivist issue interpretation measure, with a mean of five point three three, a standard deviation of one point zero three, and Cronbach’s alpha of zero point seven eight.

The study first used SPSS to conduct parametric correlation analyses in two databases, finding that most study variables were significantly correlated. Those variables included collectivist and individualist issue interpretations, trust in government, trust in KOLs, and acceptance of the zero-COVID policy.

A Bonferroni correction was conducted to protect against Type One Error. With five correlation analyses, the altered alpha value was zero point zero five divided by five, or zero point zero one, so statistical significance required p less than zero point zero one.

Figure two tests two proposed mediation models: panel A treats the pandemic as a collectivist concern, while panel B treats it as an individual issue. In both panels, interpretation is linked to acceptance of the zero-COVID policy, with government trust also positively associated with acceptance—beta equals zero point five six in panel A and zero point five two in panel B—while the region moderates several trust relationships.

The figure matters because it maps the proposed pathways connecting issue interpretation, regional context, trust in government and KOLs, and policy acceptance. Controlling for demographics, collectivist issue interpretation of the pandemic was significantly correlated with acceptance of the zero-COVID policy, with beta equal to zero point one six and p less than zero point zero zero one.

The zero-COVID strategy was more likely to be endorsed by people who regarded the COVID-19 epidemic as a collective concern. Individualist issue interpretation of the pandemic was negatively correlated with policy acceptance, with beta equal to negative zero point three two and p less than zero point zero zero one.

The block states that H Two was supported and that greater interpretation of the pandemic as an individual issue was associated with greater likelihood of accepting the zero-COVID policy. Table three tests whether trust in government and trust in key opinion leaders indirectly connect cultural issue interpretations with acceptance of the zero-COVID policy.

For the collectivist model, both indirect effects are statistically supported because their bootstrap confidence intervals exclude zero: zero point one six four through trust in government, and negative zero point zero five nine through trust in KOLs. In the individualist model, trust in government is not supported, while trust in KOLs is supported with an indirect effect of negative zero point zero two nine.

The results in Table three suggested an indirect effect of cultural values on acceptance of the zero-COVID policy. For the path from collectivist issue interpretation to policy acceptance, trust in government was a significant mediator. Trust in KOLs was also a significant mediator of that collectivist path.

For the individualist path, trust in government was not a significant mediator, while trust in KOLs was significant; the difference between the two indirect paths was significant. Table four reports conditional indirect effects of cultural-value interpretations on acceptance of the zero-COVID policy, with region moderating the pathways through trust in government and trust in KOLs.

For collectivist interpretation, trust in government is significant in both Mainland China and Taiwan, while trust in KOLs has a confidence interval excluding zero only in Mainland China. For individualist interpretation, the reported confidence intervals show significant indirect effects through both mediators in Mainland China and Taiwan, providing evidence that these pathways vary by region and mediator.

Under the continually severe pandemic, people’s attitudes toward the COVID policy make a difference. The study suggests that cultural values, collectivism versus individualism, directly and indirectly influence acceptance of the zero-COVID policy implemented by the government.

Trust in government and trust in key opinion leaders help explain the underlying efficacy mechanism toward zero-COVID policy acceptance. The study presents an integrated model combining cultural values, trust, and policy acceptance. That model offers new insights into how policy attitudes can be co-created by cultural values and trust, generating mechanisms for the formation of policy acceptance.

The study presents differentiated impacts of social and political trust on acceptance of zero-COVID policies. By involving Mainland China and Taiwan, the study suggests that contextual factors such as traditionalism and strictness of preventive policies influence the whole process.

Practically, governmental institutions and policymakers should prioritize their own ability and care for the public to promote government trust, rather than emphasizing opinion leaders on media platforms. The study has several limitations, including that Mainland China used a non-probabilistic sample, although the sample size was enlarged and the sample was drawn based on national parameters.

Future studies may adopt probability sampling to replicate the study. Because the study concerns the individualism–collectivism dichotomy, examining the framework in societies with a relatively higher level of collectivism is not sufficient. The central finding is that collectivist interpretations of the pandemic were linked to greater zero-COVID acceptance, with trust in government acting as the more important mediator across both societies, although context shaped the relationships.