TY - JOUR

T1 - Coming together after standing apart

T2 - What predicts felt safety in the post-coronavirus crowd?

AU - Morton, Thomas A.

AU - Power, Séamus A.

N1 - Funding Information: Thanks to Roskilde Festival for providing access to respondents, and especially to Morten Therkildsen and Nethe Katrine J?rgensen for assistance, input and advice preparing the survey. Thanks also to John Drury, Nick Hopkins and Steve Reicher for advice and input. Publisher Copyright: © 2021

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - Rationale: Over a year after the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2, and the ensuing COVID-19 pandemic with its lockdowns and social distancing requirements, being together with others again seems possible. Against this backdrop, important questions arise about how to safely manage gatherings of large numbers of unrelated people – like festivals, concerts and sporting matches – and how individuals contemplating involvement in such events feel about the risks presented. Methods: To begin answering these questions, the current research surveyed would-be attendees at one of Europe's largest outdoor music festivals (n = 18353). Drawing on social psychological theories of crowd behavior and risk perception, we explored the identity processes that contributed to individual feelings of safety within the planned event. Results: The results show that shared identity with other festival goers and the perception of collectivistic (versus individualistic) values as defining of that festival, contributed to more trust in relevant others, stronger expectations that others would behave with safety rather than risk, and through these increased comfort with, and acceptance of the risks presented by, the planned festival. Conclusion: These results highlight identity forces that might be leveraged for crowd management in the context of disease risk.

AB - Rationale: Over a year after the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2, and the ensuing COVID-19 pandemic with its lockdowns and social distancing requirements, being together with others again seems possible. Against this backdrop, important questions arise about how to safely manage gatherings of large numbers of unrelated people – like festivals, concerts and sporting matches – and how individuals contemplating involvement in such events feel about the risks presented. Methods: To begin answering these questions, the current research surveyed would-be attendees at one of Europe's largest outdoor music festivals (n = 18353). Drawing on social psychological theories of crowd behavior and risk perception, we explored the identity processes that contributed to individual feelings of safety within the planned event. Results: The results show that shared identity with other festival goers and the perception of collectivistic (versus individualistic) values as defining of that festival, contributed to more trust in relevant others, stronger expectations that others would behave with safety rather than risk, and through these increased comfort with, and acceptance of the risks presented by, the planned festival. Conclusion: These results highlight identity forces that might be leveraged for crowd management in the context of disease risk.

KW - COVID-19

KW - Crowd psychology

KW - Identity

KW - Mass gatherings

KW - Risk

KW - Trust

U2 - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114649

DO - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114649

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 34906827

AN - SCOPUS:85120933186

VL - 293

JO - Social Science & Medicine

JF - Social Science & Medicine

SN - 0277-9536

M1 - 114649

ER -