Global Consciousness Predicts Behavioral Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Empirical Evidence From 35 Cultures

Abstract

COVID-19 has drastically changed human behaviors and posed a threat to globalism by spurring a resurgence of nationalism. Promoting prosocial behavior within and across borders is of paramount importance for global cooperation to combat pandemics. To examine both self-report and actual prosocial behavior, we conducted the first empirical test of global consciousness theory in a multinational study of 35 cultures (N = 18,171 community adults stratified by age, gender, and region of residence). Global consciousness encompassed cosmopolitan orientation, identification with all humanity, and multicultural acquisition, whereas national consciousness reflected ethnic protection. Both global consciousness and national consciousness positively predicted perceived risk of coronavirus and concern about coronavirus, after controlling for interdependent self-construal. While global consciousness positively predicted prosocial behavior in response to COVID-19, national consciousness positively predicted defensive behavior. These findings shed light on overcoming national parochialism and provide a theoretical framework for the study of global unity and cooperation.

As a global crisis, the coronavirus outbreak has brought about travel restrictions, lockdown measures, and disconnected national markets, all of which are damaging the world economy. The spread of COVID-19 has also triggered racism, xenophobia, and discrimination (e.g., Devakumar et al., 2020; Van Bavel et al., 2020), presenting a challenge to globalization. Infectious diseases have been linked with cross-cultural differences in psychological variables and social behaviors (e.g., Bond, 2021; Chen, Lam, et al., 2021; Kashima, 2021). For instance, the pathogen prevalence hypothesis posits that the prevalence of pathogenic diseases predicts collectivism, which emphasizes one’s groups over the self and prioritizes communal goals over individual goals (Hofstede, 1980; Triandis, 1995), and that behavioral manifestations of collectivism, such as ethnocentrism and conformity, would reduce the transmission of pathogens (Fincher et al., 2008). Consistent with this, Liu (2021) reported a country-level correlation of r = .52 for per capita COVID-19 infection rate and intellectual autonomy, a value reflecting individualism. This theory offers important insights into how culture shapes our defensive behaviors in response to pathogenic threats, but prosocial behavior that extends beyond the borders of one’s ingroup entails a theoretical account in the context of globalization. With an aim to identify mechanisms for fostering cooperation around the world, we propose global consciousness (Liu & Macdonald, 2016) and national consciousness as new dimensions to explain individual and cultural variations in people’s psychological orientation toward globalization, and provide the first empirical test of global consciousness theory in a multinational study to predict people’s concerns about and behavioral responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

While globalization promotes interdependency and interconnectedness through trade and transportation, it accelerates the speed, distance, and number of people traveling around the world. The process of globalization may exacerbate the transmission of infectious diseases. A localized outbreak of an infectious disease may spread quickly across borders and become a global epidemic, as witnessed by the 2009 H1N1 pandemic and the current COVID-19 pandemic. It is thus important to examine sociocultural ecologies that can facilitate or inhibit social contact. A recent study in 39 societies found a faster growth of confirmed cases and deaths related to COVID-19 during the early period of the outbreaks among societies high in relational mobility, where people have greater freedom and more opportunities to form new relationships and terminate existing relationships, compared with societies low in relational mobility (Salvador et al., 2020). A society’s social openness that reflects the degree of interactions with others by choice predicts faster spread of COVID-19.

Globalization at the societal level can also be captured by the KOF Globalization Index (Gygli et al., 2019), which represents a society’s degree of globalization in economic, social, and political domains. While the Globalization Index reflects societal globalization, a composite of actual international flows and activities, as well as policies and conditions, it does not incorporate citizens’ psychological orientation to globalization, which is more subjective. We adopt the theoretical framework of global consciousness to delineate the psychological state of mind of embracing globalization. Global consciousness refers to an awareness of both the interconnectedness and the diversity of humankind, and a willingness to take moral actions on its behalf in a reflexive manner (Liu & Macdonald, 2016). It is a state of potential, a willingness to engage with others who are different than oneself, and to be open to the possibilities this engagement might open up. Central to the concept of global consciousness is an openness to the potential of globalization to produce beneficial outcomes, but an awareness that this requires effort and reflexivity and an orientation toward justice to bring the layers of identity and interconnectedness together in a positive manner that bridges differences.

Global consciousness comprises three qualities, namely, Cosmopolitan Orientation (Leung et al., 2015), Identification with All Humanity (McFarland et al., 2012), and Global Orientations (Chen et al., 2016). Cosmopolitan orientation (Leung et al., 2015) captures a set of attitudes, values, behaviors, and practices related to globalization, consisting of three components: Cultural openness refers to valuing and acquiring experience with other and different cultures, global prosociality denotes the moral obligation to help other people from other parts of the world, and respect for cultural diversity delineates the preservation of cultural diversity and respect for cultural differences. Identification with all humanity (McFarland et al., 2012) denotes the extent to which people feel close to and care about progressively larger groups, consisting of multiple identifications with people in one’s community, country, and with all humans everywhere. Global orientations (Chen et al., 2016) refer to the feelings, thoughts, and behaviors arising from contact with other cultures. One factor of global orientations, multicultural acquisition, reflects a proactive approach to globalization with promotion-focused endeavors and goal-oriented behaviors which maximize beneficial outcomes in cultural interactions.

Taken together, global consciousness encompasses an appreciation of cultural diversity, open-mindedness to cultural experiences, a perception of oneself as a world citizen, and a proactive and cooperative approach to globalization and cultural learning. It follows that this receptive, inclusive mindset predicts prosocial behavior, which denotes helpful, cooperative, and altruistic acts (Hui et al., 2020; Liu et al., 2020). Research has documented that individuals who are more globally connected exhibit greater propensities to favor cooperation with globally distal others, draw broader group boundaries than others, and prefer cosmopolitan to parochial motivations (Buchan et al., 2009). They would have concern about global issues including the current global health crisis and engage in prosocial behavior.

Compared with global consciousness, a group-protective, exclusive mind-set denotes national consciousness that puts one’s own culture in a central position and puts the welfare of one’s own culture over other cultures. The other factor of global orientations, ethnic protection, represents such national consciousness as individuals taking a defensive approach to globalization with prevention-focused mechanisms and risk-avoiding behaviors to minimize adverse consequences in cultural interactions (Chen et al., 2016). This state of mind reinforces defensive attitudes and behaviors, such as xenophobia, which represents dislike or fear of people from outgroups or foreign countries, to reduce exposure to novel pathogens (Fincher et al., 2008; Kim et al., 2016). The severity and mortality of COVID-19 may induce perceived threat and vulnerability among people high in national consciousness. When people feel vulnerable to infectious diseases, negative emotions, especially fear, lead to defensive reactions as an antipathogen function (Van Bavel et al., 2020).

Thus far, identification with all humanity has been found to predict willingness to help people and helpful responding during COVID-19 (Barragan et al., 2021; Deng, 2021), but it is yet to confirm the links of global consciousness which encompasses more than identification with all humanity to behavioral responses. Evidence investigating prosocial behavior across cultures is limited to self-report measures, or behavioral measures conducted in a limited set of nations. Here, we report a preregistered study in 35 cultures that measured both self-report and actual proposal behavior using stratified community samples. In this research, we examine how global consciousness and national consciousness are associated with behavioral responses to the coronavirus outbreak across cultures. Based on the above conceptualizations, both global consciousness and national consciousness are hypothesized to positively predict concern about coronavirus (e.g., searching and reading information about COVID-19). As being conscious of the world and humanity, especially the severity and mortality of the imminent global health crisis induce perceived threat and vulnerability, the perception of one’s personal risk to suffer from COVID-19 is also examined in addition to concern about coronavirus. We control for actual risk to examine how global consciousness and national consciousness predict the criterion variables, since actual risk of COVID-19 may be associated with helping behavior and defensive behavior. Global consciousness is expected to positively predict prosocial behavior, while national consciousness is expected to positively predict defensive behavior, namely, xenophobia. We control for interdependent self-construal, reflecting individual-level characteristics of collectivism, to demonstrate the incremental predictive power of global consciousness and national consciousness. We also explore the variation in the predicted associations across societies with different levels of globalization, as captured by the Globalization Index.

Method

Participants

We partnered with an international data collection company, Kantar, to conduct a multinational study by collecting data from 25,065 community adults from April 9 to 20, 2020, in 35 countries/societies from Asia, Europe, North America, South America, Oceania, and Africa (Chen, Ng, et al., 2021). We recruited samples stratified by age, gender, and region of residence within each country/society. Participants received reward points from Kantar to compensate for their participation in the study. To ensure data quality, we included three directed questions (Maniaci & Rogge, 2014) for attention check (e.g., “This is a control question. Select “Agree” and move on.”), which were distributed throughout the questionnaire. Participants who failed any of the three directed questions were removed from the survey, and thus the final sample consisted of 18,171 participants (49.8% male, 50.2% female, M_age = 43.66, SD = 15.97, age range 18–91). The average sample size for each society was 519, ranging from 507 in New Zealand to 530 in Brazil.

Procedure

Power analysis conducted prior to data collection indicated that to examine our hypothesized exogenous variables in the prediction of given endogenous variables at the individual level, a sample size of 445 participants is required for each country/society, yielding at least 80% statistical power. The estimation assumed a small-to-moderate size of correlations ( $\rho$ = 0.2) among exogenous variables and a small size of correlations (ρ = 0.1) between exogenous and endogenous variables (Cohen, 1988).

Standard procedures of translation from English to each of the 22 non-English languages and then back-translation to English were conducted for each language version of the survey (Brislin, 1986). The back-translation of each language version was then compared with the original English version and any discrepancies were discussed to revise the translation for accuracy. We administered the following measures, and asked participants to report demographic information, such as age, gender, and education level. Ethics approval for this study was obtained from the affiliated university of the first author. This study was pre-registered prior to data collection at the Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/g3hn4/?view_only=aea6905ff2f44c4a89fa478684ffa1c1.

Measures

Cosmopolitan Orientation

The 15-item Cosmopolitan Orientation Scale (Leung et al., 2015) was used to assess participants’ receptiveness and openness to other cultures, moral obligation to help other people from other parts of the world, and high tolerance of and appreciation for cultural differences on 6-point Likert-type scales, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). Cosmopolitan Orientation comprises three components, namely, cultural openness (e.g., “It is exciting to immerse in a foreign culture”), global prosociality (e.g., “I want to play my part to help make the world a better place for all”), and respect for cultural diversity (e.g., “I embrace cultural diversity”).

Identification With All Humanity

The Identification With All Humanity Scale (IWAH) (McFarland et al., 2012), consisting of 9 three-part items, was used to measure the extent to which participants care for all humanity rather than just their own ingroups. Items were rated on 6-point scales, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). A sample item is “How much do you identify with (that is, feel a part of, feel love toward, have concern for) each of the following? a. People in my community; b. Americans; c. All humans everywhere.” Item b was replaced by “People in my country/society.” IWAH was calculated by the sum of c items.

Global Orientations

The 25-item Global Orientations Scale (Chen et al., 2016) was used to assess participants’ feelings, thoughts, and behaviors arising from contact with other cultures under the influence of globalization on 7-point scales, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Global Orientations consist of two factors, namely multicultural acquisition (e.g., “I learn customs and traditions of other cultures”) and ethnic protection (e.g., “I stick to the norms of my own culture no matter where I am”).

Interdependent Self-Construal

Items were extracted from the Singelis Self-Construal Scale (Singelis, 1994) to measure interdependent self-views (D’Amico & Scrima, 2016). Five items (e.g., “I will sacrifice my self-interest for the benefit of the group I am in.”) were rated on 7-point scales, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Compared with the Singelis scale, the short version showed a more stable factor structure, similar internal consistency, and improved concurrent validity for the Interdependent Self-Construal Scale (D’Amico & Scrima, 2016), which was adopted by this study.

Concern About Coronavirus

Two items were developed to measure the extent to which participants concern about coronavirus on 7-point scales, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The two items are, “I spend a lot of time searching for and reading news and information about coronavirus.” and “I spend a lot of time doing things to prevent and combat coronavirus.” A composite was computed by averaging the two items.

Actual Risk

Actual risk of exposure to COVID-19 was operationalized as the total number of people being infected with coronavirus in participants’ circles. Participants were asked to indicate whether they had a family member, friend, colleague, or acquaintance being infected with coronavirus (Appendix S1 in Supplemental Materials). A sample question is, “Do you have a friend who has been infected with coronavirus?” They were given two choices: “Yes, how many? ___ (number)” or “No.” We coded each answer of “yes” as 1 and “no” as 0, and totaled the numbers to form the composite, which had a range from 0 to 4.

Perceived Risk

The Perceived Risk of HIV Scale (Napper et al., 2012) was adapted to measure perceived vulnerability to coronavirus by replacing HIV with coronavirus (Appendix S2 in Supplemental Materials). Following Kim et al. (2016), three sets of three items assessed perceived risk to oneself, one’s local community, and one’s country/society. A sample item is, “A coronavirus epidemic in my country/society is something I have thought about . . .” with responses anchored on 5-point scales ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (all the time). The items were averaged to form a composite.

Xenophobia

The measure of xenophobia related to Ebola in Kim et al. (2016) was adapted in this study to assess prejudice toward people with coronavirus and prejudice toward undocumented immigrants (Appendix S3 in Supplemental Materials). Participants were asked to rate their feelings toward each group on scales ranging from 1 (I do not feel this emotion at all) to 7 (I feel this emotion strongly), with three negative items (e.g., “disliking”), and three positive items (e.g., “acceptance”), which were reverse coded in each group. Adapted from the American Ethnocentrism Scale (Neuliep & McCroskey, 1997), four items were used to assess the tendency to put one’s own group in a position of centrality and use it as the standard to evaluate other groups (e.g., “My country/society should be the role model of the world.”). Responses were anchored on 5-point scales, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). A composite of xenophobia was computed by averaging the three indicators.

Self-Reported Prosocial Behavior

Based on Hui et al.’s meta-analysis on prosociality (Hui et al., 2020), five items were developed to assess cooperative and helping behavior in response to the COVID-19 outbreak using some wording and Likert-type scales from existing measures (Appendix S4 in Supplemental Materials). The items cover informal helping, formal helping (including humanitarian organizations), contributing time (including volunteering for an organization), skills, and knowledge (i.e., information), donating goods and money, and providing emotional support both online and offline in the context of the pandemic. The items (e.g., “I have given other people goods (e.g., surgical masks, sanitizers, food) to aid the response to the coronavirus outbreak.”) were rated on 5-point scales, ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (very often).

Actual Prosocial Behavior

As providing electronic messages for emotional support is considered as prosocial behavior (Sproull et al., 2005), we operationalized actual prosocial behavior as the response to the question “Would you like to write a few words to communicate support and encouragement for individuals who are affected by the coronavirus?” (coded as 1 = yes, 0 = no). A supportive message written by a participant was coded as actual prosocial behavior. This behavioral measure indicated if the participants were willing to sacrifice their time on doing something that was beneficial to others (the definition of prosocial behavior), in this case, to the people affected by COVID-19. ¹

Globalization Index

Data on the updated 2018 version of the KOF Globalization Index were obtained from Gygli et al. (2019). The index is a composite based on time-varying weighting of 43 variables capturing globalization in economic, social, and political domains.

The alphas of the variables are reported in Table S1 in Supplementary Materials.

Results

A poststratification adjustment of iterative raking was performed, so that the stratified sample was more representative of the underlying population through weighting (see Supplemental Materials). ²

Factor Structure of Global Consciousness

We first tested the factor structure of global consciousness as a new measure at the individual level, based on the items in the measures of cosmopolitan orientation, identification with all humanity, and global orientations. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was performed on the entire sample with the sandwich variance estimator that takes the nested data structure into account (Asparouhov, 2005; Muthén & Satorra, 1995). The maximum likelihood method was used for factor extraction, and the Geomin method was used for oblique factor rotation. We regarded rotated factor loadings greater than .30 as non-trivial factor loadings. Results of eigenvalues suggested one to seven factors. However, the one-, two- and three-factor solutions yielded unacceptable model fit, CFI = .797–.877, RMSEA = .046–.056, and SRMR = .043–.085. Among the four- to seven-factor solutions, the four-factor solution represented a clearer and simpler factor structure with fewer double loadings. Besides, the four-factor solution provided a more interpretable factor structure with all the items loaded on their corresponding factors proposed by previous research, namely, multicultural acquisition, cosmopolitan orientation, identification with all humanity, and ethnic protection. The four-factor solution was therefore selected as the final solution: χ²(986) = 30,657.70, p < .001, CFI = .907, RMSEA = .041, and SRMR = .033.

To validate the EFA results, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed on the items of the four measures with the sandwich estimator, and the results supported the factorial validity of these constructs (see Supplemental Materials). To explore if a second-order factor structure could explain the shared variance of the first-order factors, we tested a CFA model (see Supplemental Materials). The second-order factor model supported the notion that cosmopolitan orientation, identification with all humanity, and multicultural acquisition can be regarded as indicators of global consciousness, while ethnic protection reflects national consciousness. Therefore, the composite of global consciousness was computed by averaging the standardized scores of cosmopolitan orientation, identification with all humanity, and multicultural acquisition, whereas national consciousness was measured by the items of ethnic protection in the Global Orientations Scale (Chen et al., 2016).

Finally, to ensure that the results of the factor structure extracted from the entire sample were adequately represented in each society, we performed a Procrustes rotation (van de Vijver & Leung, 1997) and computed the congruence coefficient of Tucker’s phi (Tucker, 1951) to evaluate the factorial agreement across societies. Cosmopolitan orientation (an average of Tucker’s phi = .94), identification with all humanity (an average of Tucker’s phi = .94), multicultural acquisition (an average of Tucker’s phi = .94), and ethnic protection (an average of Tucker’s phi = .94) yielded Tucker’s phi greater than .85 in most of the societies, supporting the fair factorial agreement across societies (Lorenzo-Seva & Ten Berge, 2006). ³

Mean values, standard deviations, and Cronbach’s alphas for global consciousness and national consciousness in each society are summarized in Table 1. Exploratory analysis on the correlations between global consciousness, national consciousness, and other cultural dimensions was conducted and reported in Supplemental Materials (Table S3).

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics and Cronbach’s Alpha of Global Consciousness and National Consciousness across Countries/Societies.

Country/Society		Global consciousness			National consciousness
	n	A	M	SD	α	M	SD
Argentina	522	.93	0.28	0.66	.75	−0.48	0.87
Australia	515	.97	−0.31	1.04	.84	−0.19	1.05
Brazil	530	.94	0.42	0.69	.74	−0.46	0.90
Canada	526	.96	−0.24	0.90	.81	−0.29	0.98
China	519	.94	−0.07	0.62	.86	0.46	0.99
Egypt	516	.93	0.43	0.59	.77	0.35	0.92
Finland	518	.96	−0.55	0.87	.79	0.15	0.86
France	523	.97	−0.39	0.95	.79	−0.18	0.91
Germany	528	.97	−0.53	1.00	.85	−0.08	1.01
Hong Kong	526	.96	−0.28	0.64	.81	0.16	0.76
India	519	.94	0.62	0.66	.87	0.52	1.23
Indonesia	526	.93	0.50	0.58	.77	0.18	0.91
Italy	527	.96	−0.14	0.86	.86	−0.09	1.01
Japan	515	.96	−1.17	0.84	.70	0.21	0.63
Malaysia	525	.94	0.30	0.62	.82	0.13	0.97
Mexico	525	.91	0.50	0.57	.77	−0.39	0.95
The Netherlands	511	.97	−0.53	0.91	.82	−0.25	0.95
New Zealand	507	.96	−0.34	0.86	.80	−0.24	0.89
Nigeria	516	.91	0.73	0.53	.77	−0.35	1.01
Pakistan	518	.91	0.39	0.61	.81	0.20	1.06
Philippines	510	.94	0.55	0.60	.82	0.30	0.97
Portugal	511	.94	0.18	0.65	.77	−0.20	0.89
Russia	517	.95	−0.22	0.78	.77	0.04	0.78
South Africa	523	.95	0.34	0.72	.80	−0.40	1.03
South Korea	523	.95	−0.63	0.65	.71	0.62	0.60
Singapore	524	.96	−0.02	0.75	.85	0.01	0.97
Spain	518	.94	0.16	0.70	.80	−0.15	0.99
Sweden	510	.97	−0.45	1.01	.82	−0.27	1.03
Taiwan	515	.95	−0.23	0.63	.83	0.07	0.82
Thailand	516	.96	0.13	0.71	.84	0.58	0.92
Turkey	515	.94	0.20	0.67	.79	−0.06	0.98
UAE	525	.94	0.64	0.62	.81	0.24	1.09
United Kingdom	523	.97	−0.40	1.00	.82	−0.10	0.99
United States	516	.96	−0.20	0.94	.84	−0.33	1.07
Vietnam	513	.95	0.42	0.64	.87	0.41	1.09

Predicting Concern About Coronavirus and Behavioral Responses

A series of multilevel regression models was established to regress the coronavirus-related outcomes on global consciousness and national consciousness, accounting for interdependent self-construal (Table 2). In addition, we also included age, gender, education level, and actual risk as covariates. ⁴ Additional analyses were conducted based on the first-order factors (namely, cosmopolitan orientation, identification with all humanity, multicultural acquisition, and ethnic protection) that comprised global consciousness and national consciousness. To account for the multilevel data structure (individuals nested within societies), multilevel structural equation modeling was conducted to decompose variables into within- and between-level variations (Muthén, 1994; Muthén & Asparouhov, 2011). Models were tested with random intercepts and fixed slopes across countries/societies.

Table 2.

Multilevel Regression Predicting Coronavirus-Related Outcomes by Global Consciousness and National Consciousness.

	CON	PR	XEN	SPB	APB
	B	β	β	β	β
Age	.06***	.01	−.05***	−.00	.10***
Gender a	.04***	.08***	.00	−.00	.01
Education level	.01	.02	.00	.04***	−.01
Actual risk	.04***	.10***	−.01	.12***	.07***
Interdependent self-construal	.15***	.08***	−.03*	.15***	.09***
Global consciousness	.31***	.19***	−.38***	.43***	.26***
National consciousness	.14***	.13***	.32***	.12***	−.08**

Note. CON = concern about coronavirus; PR = perceived risk; XEN = xenophobia; SPB = self-reported prosocial behavior; APB = actual prosocial behavior.

^aMale = reference group.

^*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

After controlling for the covariates, one’s global consciousness positively predicted concern about coronavirus, b = 0.47, β = .31, p < .001, perceived risk, b = 0.16, β = .19, p < .001, and not only self-reported prosocial behavior, b = 0.44, β = .43, p < .001, but also actual prosocial behavior, b = 0.56, β = .26, p < .001, while negatively predicting xenophobia, b = −0.32, β = −.38, p < .001. Conversely, national consciousness positively predicted concern about coronavirus, b = 0.21, β = .14, p < .001, perceived risk, b = 0.11, β = .13, p < .001, xenophobia, b = 0.26, β = .32, p < .001, and self-reported prosocial behavior, b = 0.12, β = .12, p < .001, while negatively predicting actual prosocial behavior, b = −0.16, β = −.08, p = .001. ⁵ The first-order factors significantly predicted the coronavirus-related outcomes; the directions of the predictions were also consistent with the higher-order factor of global consciousness and national consciousness (Table S4 in Supplemental Materials).

Exploratory Analyses on Cross-Level Moderation

After testing the preregistered hypotheses, we conducted additional analyses to explore cross-level moderation with an aim to examine whether societies with different levels of globalization vary in the prediction of outcomes. ⁶

Among the five outcome variables, the random slopes of global consciousness on concern about coronavirus, b = −0.006, p = .030, and self-reported prosocial behavior, b = −0.009, p < .001, were significantly moderated by the Globalization Index. To understand these significant cross-level moderation, simple slope analyses were performed to estimate the prediction of global consciousness at ±1SD of the Globalization Index. The positive associations of global consciousness with concern about coronavirus, b = 0.56, p < .001, and self-reported prosocial behavior, b = 0.56, p < .001, were stronger in societies low in the Globalization Index, whereas these associations with concern about coronavirus, b = 0.43, p < .001, and self-reported prosocial behavior, b = 0.38, p < .001, were weaker in societies high in the Globalization Index.

The random slopes of national consciousness on perceived risk, b = 0.003, p = .012, and xenophobia, b = 0.006, p < .001, were significantly moderated by the Globalization Index. Simple slope analyses indicated that in societies high in the Globalization Index, one’s national consciousness had stronger predictions of perceived risk, b = 0.14, p < .001, and xenophobia, b = 0.33, p < .001, whereas in societies low in the Globalization index, the predictions of perceived risk, b = 0.08, p < .001, and xenophobia, b = 0.21, p < .001, were weaker. By and large, the predicted power of global consciousness and national consciousness varied across different levels of globalization.

Discussion

In the present research, we examined how global consciousness and national consciousness were associated with behavioral responses to the COVID-19 pandemic across 35 cultures. Global consciousness encompasses cosmopolitan orientation, identification with all humanity, and multicultural acquisition, whereas national consciousness reflects ethnic protection. After controlling for age, gender, education level, and interdependent self-construal, global and national consciousness predicted heightened concern of coronavirus and perceived risk across culture. However, global consciousness and national consciousness are linked to differential responses to the threat posed by the pandemic. As expected, one’s global consciousness positively predicted self-reported and actual prosocial behavior, whereas one’s national consciousness positively predicted xenophobia. Similar patterns of results were observed when the three components of global consciousness were used, suggesting that these predictions were not driven by a particular component such as identification with all humanity.

Global consciousness represents citizens’ psychological orientation to globalization, which is different from a society’s degree of globalization and is actually more salient in less globalized societies (r = −.68; Table S3 in Supplemental Materials). The cultural openness and human heartedness underpinning global consciousness promote prosocial attitudes and behaviors that reflect global citizenship and compassion toward cultural others. Despite developed and globalized societies having benefited from robust economic development brought about by the early stages of globalization, they show lower global consciousness compared with less developed and less globalized societies, such as South Asian, African, and South American countries/societies, and Mexico. These results might seem counter-intuitive, until one considers that global consciousness encompasses reflexivity and openness to the potential, and not just the current actuality of globalization. These latter societies have started to experience economic growth from opening domestic markets, encountering new opportunities to access developed countries and consumer products, and enjoying benefits from technology transfer and social media, which contribute to a growing global mind-set. For these people, globalization from the mind-set of global consciousness is something that can be channeled for the greater good in the future, as opposed to being something that is to be feared as an erosion of privileges accumulated from the past. This interpretation is consistent with data on living historical memory (Choi et al., 2021), where people from developing societies show markedly more positive collective memories of events within their own lifetimes and the lifetimes of people they have known compared with those living in more prosperous and politically stable developed societies (i.e., those high in the human development index). It is likely hope and optimism for the future that is responsible for this difference.

By contrast, national consciousness reflects ethnic protection, and taking pride in one’s culture to the extent of believing in its superiority to other cultures. It places one’s culture in a position of centrality and priority and fosters defensive behavior in response to the threat posed by the pandemic. Whereas collectivistic cultures have tight social norms and less tolerance for deviant behaviors, not all of them show high national consciousness. Asian countries/societies, the Middle East, and its nearby countries/societies, such as Egypt, the UAE, and Russia, are characterized by high national consciousness.

We found that the association of global consciousness with self-reported prosocial behavior was stronger in less globalized societies than in more globalized societies. In contrast, the association of national consciousness with xenophobia was stronger in more globalized societies than in less globalized societies. National parochialism, the tendency to cooperate with people of the same nation, has been found to be prevalent across 42 societies (Romano et al., 2021). Yet, cooperation between strangers varies by institutions, norms, values, and social ecological conditions. Impersonal cooperation is higher in societies with higher individualistic values and lower historical prevalence of infectious diseases (Romano et al., 2021), which characterize globalized societies. Higher levels of globalization are also associated with greater propensities to favor cooperation with globally distal others (Buchan et al., 2009). Prosocial behavior in response to COVID-19, as measured in our study, benefits individuals who are affected by the pandemic and may be strangers to participants. While cooperative behavior toward general others is already salient in globalized societies, the enhancing effect of global consciousness on prosocial behavior is relatively stronger in less globalized societies. However, the pathogen prevalence hypothesis (Fincher et al., 2008) argues that collectivistic value systems emphasize tradition, conformity, and distinction between ingroups and outgroups, making members of collectivistic cultures cautious about contact with foreigners and other outgroups. These cultural characteristics are manifested in ethnocentrism, xenophobia, and interpersonal prejudice, but can reduce exposure to novel pathogens. While group-protective behavior is already salient in less globalized societies, the enhancing effect of national consciousness on xenophobia is relatively stronger in more globalized societies. Our findings are consistent with Ariely’s (2017, 2019) analyses on cross-national surveys, which found that country-level globalization moderated the relation between global identification and xenophobia, such that the negative link was stronger in countries with higher rather than lower levels of globalization. Our cross-level moderation are exploratory and await for further investigation.

Both global consciousness and national consciousness significantly predicted concern about the current health crisis, xenophobia, and prosocial behavior, over and above interdependent self-construal. These results reveal the incremental values of global and national consciousness beyond interdependent self-construal in the prediction of prosocial and defensive behavior. Interdependent self-construal reflects individual-level characteristics of collectivism (versus individualism), which represents an orientation to connectedness and cohesiveness among ingroup instead of outgroup members. Global consciousness involves the interplay of knowledge/awareness, morality/ethics, and action/identification components (Liu & Macdonald, 2016), with an orientation to all humanity and respect for other cultures. This inclusiveness mind-set fosters moral actions that benefit people from other cultures and beyond ingroup members emphasized by collectivism. Thus, the complex state of mind reflected by global consciousness promotes moral interdependence and self-cultivated mutual support action. It allows individuals raised under particular cultural circumstances to go beyond these and connect to others different from themselves in a beneficial manner that is forward looking.

Therefore, global and national consciousness (which captures embracing vs. excluding cultural others) differs from individualism-collectivism (on the self vs. group continuum). The theory of global consciousness advances our understanding of prosocial versus defensive behavior in response to catastrophic pandemics, but the cross-sectional design of the present research precludes any causal conclusion on the direction of influences. Global consciousness and national consciousness are conceptualized as general mindsets and orientations that affect behavior at a given time and in a specific context. Future research may address this limitation using an experimental design and may examine whether engaging in prosocial behaviors during a pandemic also influences global and national consciousness. The mechanisms identified by this research provide evidence-based implications for enhancing cooperative behavior by promoting global consciousness in public, so as to overcome national parochialism and foster prosocial acts toward people with COVID-19. Global consciousness and national consciousness provide a conceptual framework to study global cooperation in face of unforeseen challenges.

Author Biographies

Sylvia Xiaohua Chen is a Professor in the Department of Applied Social Sciences at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Jacky C. K. Ng is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied Social Sciences at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Bryant P. H. Hui is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied Social Sciences at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Algae K. Y. Au is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Applied Social Sciences at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Ben C. P. Lam is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Center for Healthy Brain Aging, The University of New South Wales.

Wesley C. H. Wu is Director of Customer Experience, Asia, Manulife.

Ngai Pun is a Chair Professor and Head of the Department of Applied Social Sciences at Lingnan University in Hong Kong.

Peter Beattie is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Social Science at The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Christian Welzel is the Political Culture Research Professor at Leuphana University in Lueneburg, Germany and Chief Foreign Director of the Laboratory for Comparative Social Research (LCSR) at the National Research University-Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg and Moscow, Russia.

James H. Liu is a Professor of Psychology at Massey University in New Zealand.