War Against COVID-19: How Is National Identification Linked With the Adoption of Disease-Preventive Behaviors in China and the United States?

Fighting the COVID-19 pandemic requires large numbers of citizens to adopt disease-preventive practices. We contend that national identification can mobilize and motivate people to engage in preventive behaviors to protect the collective, which in return would heighten national identification further. To test these reciprocal links, we conducted studies in two countries with diverse national tactics toward curbing the pandemic: (1) a two-wave longitudinal survey in China (Study 1,  = 1200), where a national goal to fight COVID-19 was clearly set, and (2) a five-wave longitudinal survey in the United States (Study 2,  = 1001), where the national leader, President Trump, rejected the severity of COVID-19 in its early stage.