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. 2022 Dec 19:1–12. Online ahead of print. doi: 10.1007/s12144-022-04149-w

How and when institutional trust helps deal with group crisis like COVID-19 pandemic for Chinese employees? A social perspective of motivation

Jiajin Tong 1,✉, Xueting Zhang 1, Xiangyi Zhu 1, Junhua Dang 2
PMCID: PMC9761631  PMID: 36570055

Abstract

Social factors cannot be neglected in predicting individual psychological health during a group crisis. Grounded in Vroom’s expectancy theory of motivation, the present research explores how and when institutional trust influences crisis related worries and griefs. Both the survey study (N = 234) and the experimental study (N = 111) were conducted to examine our hypothesized moderated mediation model. Multiple waves of surveys were delivered in Study 1 and participants were requested to rate their experiences and responses during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Study 2, participants from both the collectivism manipulation group and the control group were requested to rate their psychological responses in an imagined group crisis. Regression analyses showed that institutional trust reduced worries and griefs by improving personal resilience, which is more significant for individuals with high levels of collectivism. These findings point to the importance of understanding individual psychological health in a social perspective of motivation.

Keywords: Institutional trust, Collectivism, Resilience, Worries and griefs, Expectancy theory

Introduction

Group crisis such as natural disasters, technological disasters, pandemic, or terrorist attacks has extensive aftermath. Institutions are important in decision making, organization, and execution of group crisis management related activities. How institutions handle the event may impact the victims’ potential for healing (Chandra et al., 2011). Accordingly, trust in institutions may have a great impact on outcomes during group crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., mortality, see Oksanen et al., 2020; proactive response, see Kye & Hwang, 2020). However, few studies went beyond personal attributes (e.g., character strengths, Martinez-Marti et al., 2020; fortunate appraisals of the pandemic, Brose et al., 2020) and directly explored the predictive power of institutional trust on individual well-being during the pandemic (for one exception, Olagoke et al., 2020). Further, the mechanism by which trust relates to psychological health was largely unexplored (Tokuda et al., 2010; Zhang & Zhang, 2015).

The current research aims to investigate how and when institutional trust impacts employees’ psychological health during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as group crisis in general. First, invoking the expectancy theory (Vroom, 1964), institutional trust can improve individual motivations to follow the institutional directions and increase individual obedience and compliance. People who trust the institutions may conduct protective strategies with tenacity and resilience. Thus, we propose that institutional trust preserves psychological health (e.g., worries and grieves) by stimulating people’s resilience to cope with the pandemic. Second, we propose that whether institutional trust helps people effectively deal with group crisis may depend on their individual differences dealing with the individual-group relationship such as collectivistic orientation. The connectedness to the groups defined by collectivism (Gelfand et al., 2004) increases individual need to rely on the ingroups during difficulties, which may alter individual responses and reactions to institutional trust.

We conducted two studies to explore the conditional relationship between institutional trust and crisis-related worries/grieves varying with levels of collectivism. Institutional trust is constructed as a special social trust to capture the impact of all kinds of institutions for Chinese employees during the crisis. Worries and grieves are examined as salient psychological health indicators in crisis (Liu et al., 2021, 2020). Study 1 is a survey study testing a moderated mediation regarding people’s responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. That is to say, personal resilience mediates the relationship between institutional trust and worries/grieves, and collectivism moderates this mediation such that the indirect effect of resilience is stronger for those with higher collectivistic values. In Study 2, we manipulated collectivism and created a fictitious crisis, which aims to test whether the moderated mediation found for the COVID-19 pandemic can apply to group crisis in general.

Institutional trust, personal resilience, and well-being

Social trust includes both generalized trust and special trust (Paldam, 2000). Institutional trust is a kind of special trust. Institutional trust is a belief in the competence, honesty, or benevolence of the governmental institutions (McKnight & Chervany, 2000), also defined as the perceived probability that institutions will carry out their remit to a satisfactory degree (Hudson, 2006). It depends on personal experiences in interactions with institutions, including the police, justice system, civil service, health authorities, organizations, and other institutions (Thoresen et al., 2018). Significant country and individual differences were detected in institutional trust (Boda & Medve-Balint, 2014; Sønderskov & Dinesen, 2016).

High levels of institutional trust benefit individual well-being (Hudson, 2006), as indexed by reduced psychological distress and mental health problems (Nilsen et al., 2019; Thoresen et al., 2018) as well as increased social support (Thoresen et al., 2018), perceived self-efficacy (Olagoke et al., 2020), perceived quality of life (Nilsen et al., 2019), life satisfaction (Zhang & Zhang, 2015), and positive behaviors such as citizenship behaviors (Guh et al., 2013). Therefore, we believe that institutional trust should help build up psychological health and cope with group crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Institutional trust has increasingly been regarded as the crucial but missing element for better crisis management (e.g., Győrffy 2018; Rowe & Calnan, 2006), such as the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak (Tang & Wong, 2005) and the 2014–2016 Ebola virus disease outbreak (Blair et al., 2017).

As extant research shows social trust relates to well-being, the mechanisms remain further exploration (Tokuda et al., 2010), especially referring to special trust such as institutional trust (Zhang & Zhang, 2015). As reviewed in the above, some individual and interpersonal variables may mediate the relationship between institutional trust and well-being. As resilience is an important motivational propensity dealing with adversity and achieving psychological well-being (e.g., Di Monte et al., 2020; Paredes et al., 2021; Windle, 2010) and some researchers directly identified trust in institutions as a resilience factor (e.g., Coulombe et al., 2020), the present research would explore personal resilience as a mediator.

Resilience specially deals with a crisis as “how quickly individuals… respond practically to external or internal shocks” (Zellner et al., 2012, p. 45). Resilience implies a system not only bounces back from negative experiences or adversities but also adapts to deal with changing conditions and reduces further vulnerabilities (Wang & Li, 2016). In nature, it defines the personal motivational characteristics that could promote one’s positive adaptation and recovery with fundamental change under stress and adversity (e.g., Wagnild & Young, 1993; Windle, 2010), manifested in purpose, goal-sticking, and perseverance or tenacity (Bronk et al., 2019; Connor & Davidson, 2003; White, 2020). During the pandemic, resilient individuals may have a strong sense of purpose to achieve positive adaptation by using multiple protective strategies such as self-isolation, social distancing, and restricted movements (e.g., Wilder-Smith & Freedman, 2020). Empirically, it has been consistently demonstrated as one of the most important predictors of psychological health during group crisis including the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., Di Monte et al., 2020).

Based on the expectancy theory of motivation (Vroom, 1964), there are several reasons regarding why institutional trust can improve personal resilience. Vroom’s (1964) expectancy theory argued that people are motivated to behave in a particular manner because they expect a high probability (i.e., Expectation) to obtain the desired outcome (i.e., Valence) than other alternative behaviors, and they have the ability to intentionally secure the preferred outcome or to prevent threatening issues based on alternative consequences comparison (i.e., Instrumentality). First, institutional trust makes people believe in the honesty or benevolence of the governmental institutions (McKnight & Chervany, 2000), thus people would expect the valence toward the outcomes of the pandemic related protective behaviors (mostly recommended by the institutions) as desired, with anticipated satisfaction (i.e., Valence). Second, institutional trust makes people believe that they have a high probability to achieve the desired outcome (i.e., Expectation) due to the competence of the institutions (McKnight & Chervany, 2000). Third, people who trust the institutions would believe in the government’s risk communication (i.e., a purposeful exchange of information about the nature, magnitude, significance, or control of a risk (Olagoke et al., 2020) on the outbreak status (e.g., number of cases, deaths, and recovery), and believe in the government’s recommended protective strategies such as self-isolation, social distancing, and restricted movements (e.g., Wilder-Smith & Freedman, 2020) to intentionally secure the preferred outcome or to prevent threatening issues (i.e. Instrumentality). They would be motivated to be engaged and persistent, even in face of adversity. As suggested by Vroom’s (1964) expectancy theory, the above valence (desired), expectation (high probability) of the potential outcome, and instrumentality of strengthened personal ability, achieved from institutional trust, would promote personal resilience as improving individual motivation to the goal-sticking and perseverant protective behaviors during the pandemic.

  • Hypothesis 1: Personal resilience mediates the relationship between institutional trust and worries and griefs in group crisis.

The moderation of collectivism

Although institutional trust is hypothesized to generally promote personal resilience in group crisis, the effectiveness of institutional trust may vary with the individual-group relationship. A significant construct dealing with the individual-group relationship is collectivism. Collectivism indicates a cultural value orientation that individuals view themselves as a member of the group, and individual goals are subordinate to collective goals (Triandis, 1989). Collectivism defines the individual-group relationship and emphasizes individual connectedness to the ingroups (e.g., Gelfand et al., 2004). In nature, collectivism can be regarded as a value orientation and a motivational construct influences individuals’ goal and need (see Kim & Lawrie 2019) to be a part of a group. As the pathogen-prevalence hypothesis (Schaller et al., 2015) argued, people with high collectivism would need to be more collectivistic to fight with new disease. Or as the climato-economic theory (Van de Vliert et al., 2012) argued, people with high collectivism would adapt by falling back more on their ingroups for setting and achieving goals in demanding situations.

Collectivists emphasize individual connectedness to the group (e.g., Gelfand et al., 2004), so they may be primarily concerned with and motivated by the goals and outcomes of their ingroups (e.g., Gelfand et al., 2004). For those with low collectivism, they are not motivated and do not get used to relying on the institutions or groups. In this case, people are reluctant to follow the guidance of group directions (for multiple personal purpose) even they trust the institutions, which leads to low levels of motivation to conduct universal protective strategies (e.g., wearing the masks, staying home). But people with high collectivism plan to rely more on the institutions to fight with the group crisis. Based on the promoted experiences in interactions with institutions, high trust in institutions made people find out that it is great to fight together with the institutions and ingroups, which leads to high levels of motivation to conduct protective strategies (i.e., high resilience). When the overall need of people with high collectivism (to rely on the ingroups) is satisfied, the group function is better (Kim & Lawrie, 2019). In the view of Vroom’s (1964) expectancy theory, people are motivated to behave in a protective manner as the valence of the outcome is positive and the expectation is high. Compared to people with low collectivism, those with a higher level of collectivism tend to define themselves as a part of a group purpose (Triandis, 2001). Therefore, collectivistic individuals are likely to value the group outcome (e.g., preventing the spread of COVID-19) more and hold a higher expectation to obtain the group outcome than individualistic individuals, which may further amplify the effect of institutional trust on personal resilience. In addition, from a resource perspective, individualistic people not only are independent of their in-group (Li et al., 2018) but also emphasize autonomy more than collectivistic people (Davis & Williamson, 2019). Although autonomy could be a personal resource to some extent (Baluku et al., 2020), emphasizing personal autonomy in group crisis may hinder the positive effect of institutional trust on personal resilience especially when autonomous personal choice (e.g., unwilling to wear masks) contradicts institutional recommendations (e.g., wearing masks). Thus, we argue that collectivism may promote the impact of institutional trust on personal resilience.

  • Hypothesis 2: The impact of institutional trust on personal resilience is stronger when collectivism is higher (vs. lower).

Combining Hypothesis 1 and Hypothesis 2, we proposed a moderated mediation model shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1.

Fig. 1

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Path models of the current research. Note: N = 234 for Study 1; N = 111 for Study 2. This model controls for age, gender, and education on the mediator and the dependent variable (additionally controlling for telework in Study 1). Unstandardized coefficients are reported in the figure. Bs before and after the dash were for Study 1 and Study 2, respectively. * p < .05. ** p < .01

  • Hypothesis 3: The indirect effect of institutional trust on worries and griefs via personal resilience is stronger when collectivism is higher (vs. lower).

The present study

We conducted two studies to test our hypotheses. Study 1 examined our hypothesized moderated mediation model using surveys referring to the COVID-19 context, with a multi-wave design. Although collectivism was measured as an individual difference in Study 1, it may vary at the situational level and can be manipulated (Choi et al., 2018; Oyserman & Lee, 2008). It may be a good way to booster the impact of institutional trust via collectivism manipulation. Building on the literature that emphasizing to strengthen institutional/governmental trust (Kye & Hwang, 2020; Oksanen et al., 2020), we go further to show that trust is not enough and we need group-value building to work better in a pandemic and similar group crisis. Study 2 generalized our hypothesized model to an imagined general group crisis, manipulated the levels of collectivism, and conducted an experiment to examine the impact of a collectivism orientation intervention on the effectiveness of institutional trust in protecting psychological well-being.

Study 1

Method

Participants and procedure

We tested our hypotheses in a sample of 234 employees from Beijing companies, with 49.6% females and an average age of 35.12 (SD = 9.76). All the participants were recruited from Beijing communities via We-Chat, a popular and instant social media application. People can join groups for different topics in We-Chat, which makes it a suitable tool for conducting online surveys. For our study, we recruited Beijing working adults, requesting they share our survey QR codes with relevant We-Chat groups of Beijing communities. Data were collected in August, 2020, right after the repeated outbreaks of the pandemic in June, 2020. We collected three waves of data that were each sent one week apart to reduce common method bias (Podsakoff et al., 2003). At time 1, 382 participants completed the survey for collectivism and demographic information. At time 2, 336 (88%) completed the survey assessing institution trust and resilience. At time 3, 317 (83%) completed the survey measuring worries and griefs. To avoid social desirability, our surveys were anonymous and confidential, and participants’ identification codes were used for data matching. Excluding the participants who failed to answer the attention check items correctly, we arrived at a final sample of 234 participants.

Measures

Institutional trust

We measured institutional trust using a 5-item scale (α = 0.95) adapted from the World Values Survey 2005–2007 (Inglehart et al., 2014). Participants were asked to evaluate how much confidence they have in five types of institutions (the government, the police, the civil service, the medical service, and the organization). We added a new item of “the medical service” for this specific pandemic situation. Each item was rated on a 7-point Likert scale from none at all (1) to a great deal (7). The single factor (including items for the government, the police, the civil service, and the organization) accounts for 59.30% percent of the variance in ratings in World Values Survey: Round Five (Inglehart et al., 2014). The single factor with five items in the current study accounts for 83.53% percent of variance in ratings.

Resilience

We measured resilience using four items (α = 0.88) from the Chinese vision of Connor and Davidson’s Resilience Scale (Connor & Davidson, 2003), with good reliabilities and validities (Yu & Zhang, 2007). A sample item is: “Not easily discouraged by failure”. Each item was rated on a 7-point Likert scale from completely not true (1) to completely true (7).

Collectivism

Participants’ collectivistic orientation was measured using the 14-item (α = 0.82) collectivism scale (van de Vliert et al., 2012). A sample item is: “I view myself as a member of a social group”. Each item was rated on a 7-point Likert scale from strongly disagree (1) to very agree (7).

Worries and griefs

The 12-item worries and griefs scale (α = 0.93) was developed for the COVID-19 pandemic (Liu et al., 2021; Liu et al., 2020). A sample item is: “I am worried about maintaining employment during the subsequent economic downturn”. Each item was rated on a 7-point Likert scale from completely not true (1) to completely true (7).

Control variable

We controlled for age, gender, and education levels in our research model because these variables may predict resilience after a disaster (Bonanno et al., 2007). We also controlled for the telework experience during COVID-19 to rule out its potential influence on the effectiveness of institutional trust. Telework might reduce employees’ perceptions of their vulnerability to COVID-19 on the one hand (Guyot & Sawhill, 2020), but increase the emotional exhaustion of the employees with a high level of general task interdependence on the other hand (Chong et al., 2020).

Results

Descriptive statistics and confirmatory factor analysis

Table 1 presents the descriptive statistics and correlations. We conduct confirmatory factor analysis to verify the factor structure of our model. The four-factor model, consisting of institutional trust, collectivism, resilience, and worries, exhibited good fit, χ2(554) = 1604.02, p < .001; CFI = 0.92; RMSEA = 0.09; SRMR = 0.08. It had a better fit than all alternative models combining any two or more factors.

Table 1.

Descriptive statistics and correlations in Study 1 and Study 2

Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1.Age — 0.13 − 0.19* — 0.01 0.27** 0.13 − 0.15
2.Gender − 0.28** — − 0.14 — 0.05 − 0.11 − 0.06 0.13
3.Education − 0.11 0.11† — — − 0.001 − 0.02 0.19* − 0.05
4.Telework 0.18** 0.03 − 0.37** — — — — —
5.Institution trust − 0.08 0.14* − 0.08 0.16* — 0.03 0.27** − 0.35**
6.Collectivism − 0.01 0.01 − 0.07 0.10 0.53** — 0.09 − 0.001
7.Resilience 0.08 − 0.16* − 0.10 0.04 0.28** 0.21** — − 0.33**
8.Worries − 0.12† 0.01 0.09 − 0.07 − 0.20** − 0.13* − 0.30** —
M 1 35.12 1.50 1.67 1.37 5.91 5.06 4.04 2.55
SD 1 9.76 0.50 0.47 0.48 1.12 0.77 0.74 1.16
M 2 29.55 1.65 2.21 — 5.30 0.47 3.84 4.10
SD 2 8.95 0.48 0.68 — 0.98 0.50 0.71 1.31
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N1 = 234. N2 = 111. For education. 1 = High school graduate or below; 2 = College degree or above. For gender. 1 = male. 2 = female. For telework. 1 = Telework; 2 = No telework during the COVID-19 epidemic (Study 1). For collectivism. 0 = control group. 1 = collectivistic group (Study 2)

†p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01

To test our hypothesis, we conducted a mediation model and a moderated mediation model in the PROCESS macro of SPSS. Regression analysis showed that institutional trust was positively related to resilience (B = 0.22, SE = 0.05, p < .001) and resilience was negatively related to worries (B = − 0.38, SE = 0.11, p < .001). The indirect effect of resilience relating institutional trust to worries was significant (effect=-0.08; 95% CI [-0.16, − 0.04], explaining 36.58% of the total effect. It supported hypothesis 1.

Table 2 summarizes the moderated mediation effect predicting resilience and worries. The interaction of institutional trust and collectivism was significant for predicting resilience (B = 0.10, SE = 0.04, p = .02). The significant interaction at +/- 1 SD from the mean of collectivism was plotted in Fig. 2-a. The simple slope analysis showed that institutional trust was related to more resilience for the high levels of collectivism (B = 0.49, t(230) = 7.08, p < .001) than for the low levels of collectivism (B = 0.24, t(230) = 4.72, p < .001), supporting Hypothesis 2.

Table 2.

Coefficients from the moderated mediation model in Study 1

Resilience Worries
Variable b SE t p b SE t p
Constant 4.25 0.31 13.83** < 0.001 4.38 0.67 6.52** < 0.001
Age 0.01 0.01 2.88 0.004 − 0.01 0.01 -1.65 0.10
Gender − 0.34 0.10 -3.50 < 0.001 0.04 0.16 0.26 0.79
Education − 0.06 0.10 − 0.54 0.59 0.08 0.17 0.49 0.63
Telework − 0.12 0.10 -1.15 0.25 − 0.02 0.16 − 0.13 0.90
Institutional trust 0.24 0.05 4.69** < 0.001 − 0.16 0.07 -2.06* 0.04
Collectivism 0.07 0.07 0.97 0.34
Institution trust * collectivism 0.10 0.04 2.37* 0.02
Resilience − 0.38 0.11 -3.60** < 0.001
R2 0.17 0.12
F 6.77** 5.07**
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N = 234. Unstandardized regression coefficients are reported. We also tested a model that did not include any control variable, the result remained qualitatively unchanged

†p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01

Fig. 2.

Fig. 2

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Interaction of institution trust and collectivism on resilience. a Study 1. b Study 2 

Resilience was positively related to worries (B = − 0.38, SE = 0.11, p < .001). Consistent with Hypothesis 3, the indirect effect between institutional trust and worries via resilience was stronger when collectivism was high (indirect effect = − 0.12; 95% CI [-0.23, − 0.05]), while the indirect effect was weaker when collectivism was low (indirect effect = − 0.06; 95% CI [-0.14, − 0.02]). The index of moderated mediation was significant (index = − 0.04; 95% CI [-0.10, − 0.004]).

Study 2

The correlation between the independent variable and the moderator are moderate (0.53) in Study 1, so there may be limited cases in the category of high institutional trust with low collectivism or low institutional trust with high collectivism. Acknowledging this issue, we conduct an experiment to deal with this concern. Also, study 2 generalized our hypothesized model to general group crisis.

Method

Participants and procedure

We tested our hypotheses in a sample of 111 employees from Beijing companies, with 64.9% females and an average age of 29.55 (SD = 8.95). The experiment was conducted by priming and surveys on an online platform in the end of November, 2020. The link was sent to participants (N = 194) now residing in Beijing via WeChat. We excluded participants who failed to answer the two attention check items correctly.

After measuring institutional trust, we manipulated participants’ levels of collectivism. We randomly divided participants into two groups, the collectivist group (N = 52) and the control group (N = 59). They were given three pictures and instructed to write down the unedited dialogue that runs through his/her mind when viewing the picture, starting with “I am thinking…” (cf. Choi et al., 2018). Participants were requested to write at least a few sentences and more than 20 words. This free-flowing self-talk method represents a natural and subtle method for assessing collectivism that is less subject to distortion (Englert et al., 1991). For the collectivist group, the pictures were about collective goal-striving and cooperation (e.g., the volleyball team members win medals together). For the control group, the pictures were about personal goal-striving and competition (e.g., a table tennis player wins the medal alone). After the manipulation, participants were instructed to imagine that the country is facing a group crisis and imagine how they feel in the crisis. We assessed resilience, worries, and control variables.

Measures

We used the same measures of institutional trust (α = 0.88), resilience (α = 0.80), and demographic variables as Study 1. We measured worries using the same scale (α = 0.92) as study 1 by rewording COVID-19 into general group crisis, and the item only for COVID-19 (“I am worried that I will not able to obtain a COVID-19 test if I become sick”) was deleted.

Results

We evaluated the effectiveness of the collectivism manipulation by analyzing the sentences written by participants (N = 111). We recruited three volunteers, who are undergraduate or graduated students studying psychology for 3–7 years. First, three volunteers independently analyzed 20 participants’ responses by counting the total number of words related to collectivistic values (e.g., “shared goals”, “cooperation”) in the free-writing process (cf. Choi et al., 2018). The inter-rater reliability among the three coders was high (α = 0.95). The coders discussed any discrepancies and reached agreement. Second, the three coders rated the remaining 91 participants’ responses, with each rating around 30. The coders were not aware of the research purpose when coding. The coding score of the collectivistic group (M = 3.48, SD = 1.91, N = 52) was significantly higher than the control group (M = 0.58, SD = 0.70, N = 59), t(62.9) = 10.33, p < .001, d = 2.90, indicating an effective manipulation1. The validity of the manipulation was supported in prior work (Choi et al., 2018).

The descriptive statistics and correlations were shown in Table 1. We conduct confirmatory factor analysis to verify the factor structure. The three-factor model, consisting of institution trust, resilience, and worries, exhibited good fit, 𝜒2(167) = 487.17, p < .001; CFI = 0.90; RMSEA = 0.12; SRMR = 0.08. It had a better fit than all alternative models combining any two or more factors.

We coded the collectivism condition (1 = collectivism condition, 0 = control condition) for the analysis, and conducted same regression analyses as in Study 1. Regression analysis showed that institutional trust was positively related to resilience (B = 0.26, SE = 0.06, p < .001) and resilience was negatively related to worries (B = − 0.35, SE = 0.18, p = .056). The indirect effect of resilience relating institutional trust to worries was significant (effect=-0.09; 95% CI [-0.21, − 0.02], explaining 19.29% of the total effect. It supported hypothesis 1.

Table 3 summarizes the moderated mediation analyses. The interaction of institution trust and collectivism was significant for resilience (B = 0.27, SE = 0.13, p = .04). The significant interaction at +/- 1 SD from the mean of collectivism was plotted in Fig. 2-b. The simple slope analysis showed that institutional trust was related to more resilience for the collectivism manipulation group (B = 0.48, t(107) = 3.12, p = .002) rather than the control group (B = 0.30, t(107) = 4.55, p < .001), supporting Hypothesis 2.

Table 3.

Coefficients from the moderated mediation model in Study 2

Resilience Worries
Variable b SE t p b SE t p
Constant 3.02 0.40 7.52** < 0.001 5.72 0.89 6.39** < 0.001
Age 0.01 0.007 1.67† 0.10 − 0.02 0.01 -1.64 0.10
Gender − 0.06 0.14 − 0.43 0.67 0.41 0.24 1.69† 0.09
Education 0.22 0.09 2.38* 0.02 − 0.04 0.17 − 0.20 0.84
Institution trust 0.21 0.06 3.29** < 0.001 − 0.39 0.12 -3.27** 0.002
Collectivism 0.09 0.13 0.73 0.46
Institution trust * collectivism 0.27 0.13 2.06* 0.04
Resilience − 0.41 0.17 -2.39* 0.02
R 2 0.18 0.22
F 3.80** 5.94**
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N = 111. For education. 1 = High school graduate below; 2 = College degree; 3 = Postgraduate degree. For collectivism. 0 = control group. 1 = collectivistic group. Unstandardized regression coefficients are reported

†p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01

Resilience was positively related to worries (B = − 0.41, SE = 0.17, p = .02). Consistent with Hypothesis 3, the indirect effect between institutional trust and worries via resilience was stronger and significant for the collectivism group (indirect effect = -0.15; 95% CI [-0.30, -0.04]) than for the control group (indirect effect = -0.04; 95% CI [-0.20, 0.04]). The index of moderated mediation was significant (index = − 0.11; 95% CI [-0.34, -0.02]), supporting Hypothesis 3. Monte Carlo analysis showed that the interaction’s predictive power is 0.87 and the MEDMOD index’s power is 0.82 when sample size is 111 and number of replications is 500.

Discussion

The purpose of this paper is to explore the mechanism of how and when institutional trust influences individual psychological health in group crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic. We found institutional trust helps reduce crisis-related worries and griefs via building up personal resilience, and this mediation is more effective for people with higher levels of collectivism. Evidence from both survey and experimental studies supported our hypothesized moderated mediation model. These findings can be generalized from COVID-19 to general group crisis management.

Theoretical and practical implications

Overall, these findings provide a new social perspective of motivation in predicting crisis-related well-being besides existing personal attributes (e.g., Martinez-Marti et al., 2020; Paredes et al., 2021). As group crisis is social based, social perspective cannot be neglected. The harmful COVID-19 related rumors (e.g., Bastani & Bahrami, 2020) also emphasized the special importance of institutional trust in such group crisis. However, research exploring the impact of social factors such as institutional trust (independent from generalized trust) on psychological health and its underlying mechanism is scarce. Our research provides initial evidence and calls for future research that combines both individual and social factors in building an integrated model to better predict and protect psychological health in group crisis. The new social perspective of motivation also broadens the application of Vroom’s (1964) expectancy theory into the social interactions. Vroom’s (1964) expectancy theory is usually used to examine individual events (e.g., work performance, see Van Eerde & Thierry, 1996). Our research provides a new application of this theory in understanding social events (e.g., group crisis). The important elements of valence, expectation and instrumentality in expectancy theory provide effective and feasible ways for understanding the impact of institutional trust on personal resilience during group crises. It implies that expectancy theory may play a role in crisis management, and future research may investigate in depth.

Further, institutional trust may not be universally beneficial and guarantee worry-free in group crisis. Collectivism was found as an important booster to strengthen the effectiveness of institutional trust. Collectivism was found helpful and protective to deal with climato-economic challenges (Van de Vliert et al., 2012) and prevalence pathogen such as the Ebola outbreak (Kim et al., 2016) via group-protective practices. Our findings further confirm the function of collectivism and contribute to the cultural value literature.

To cope with group crisis and protect psychological health, it should be practical to trust the institutions and to emphasize the importance of group-value building. As institutional trust including organizational trust may influence positive organizational behaviors such as OCB (Guh et al., 2013), it is important for organizations to cultivate institutional trust in the workplace to improve employees’ psychological health and positive behaviors. Our findings guide the managers to booster the positive impact of institutional trust by improving employees’ collectivistic orientation, or more generally group/organizational identification (Tajfel, 1982).

Limitations and future directions

There are some limitations in this research. First, all the focal variables were self-reported, but we adopted valid ways to help reduce potential common-method error (e.g., Podsakoff et al., 2003): Focal research variables were measured in three waves in Study 1 and the moderator was manipulated in Study 2.

Second, data were collected from one country. Cultural related variables may be better examined using cross-cultural samples. Previous research had different cross-cultural findings for the pandemic. For example, Ballada et al., (2021) found that perceived COVID-19 threat consistently predicted national resilience across Israel, the Philippines, and Brazil, showing certain consistency across cultures. But Moret-Tatay and Murphy (2022) found that the relationship between anxiety and resilience during COVID-19 was moderated by country. Future research may compare cultures and regions with different levels of collectivistic orientation and institutional trust to examine the potential influence of culture. Another culture-related issue is that the spending on healthcare is higher in individualistic societies than in collectivistic societies (Hofstede et al., 2010), which implies that people from individualistic cultures may have more resources against widespread illnesses or epidemics. Thus, for those from collectivistic cultures, institutional trust might become more crucial during the crisis. Future research could take into consideration of these financial factors in cross-cultural comparisons.

Third, personal resilience was found to be an important mediator relating institutional trust to worries, but the remaining significant direct effect in both studies indicated that future research attention may be given to untangling potential new mediators such as individual variables of belief in a just world (Zhang & Zhang, 2015), interpersonal variables of helping (Guh et al., 2013), social support (Thoresen et al., 2018), and social connections (Prime et al., 2020). For example, institutional trust may promote individual obedience and compliance to policies for group crisis based on the social exchange theory (Cook & Rice, 2006). People may be more psychologically and behaviorally involved, and engage in more prosocial behaviors (e.g., helping, social connections) when they identify with the institutions (Johnson et al., 2006), based on social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). Loss of institutional trust may add to the inhibition of help-seeking due to barriers such as institutional wrongdoings, ignorance, or lack of interest or understanding (Thoresen et al., 2018). Moreover, future research can measure collective resilience (Cutter et al., 2008; Norris et al., 2008) and relate it to personal resilience or other individual-level mediators. Integrating more theories, future research may better explore the big picture of how institutional trust functions.

Fourth, institutional trust was relatively stable, but it can also be changed. When institutions could not take responsibility, allocate resources, and take actions to issues related to victims’ needs during and after the disaster, people would lose their trust in institutions along with a generalized loss of their belief in a safe and fair society (Bos et al., 2005; Freudenburg, 1997). Future research may examine the monthly or yearly fluctuations on institutional trust and its impact on the effectiveness of crisis management.

Finally, telework was controlled in Study 1, but it is valuable to explore its influence on our model in future research. Telework was proved to be exhausting (Chong et al., 2020), but with better organization, collaborative resilience can be achieved with the help of information and communication technologies and satisfying societal needs during telework (Wang & Li, 2016).

Conclusion

In the era of COVID-19, how individuals cope with the pandemic and its negative outcomes becomes a central topic. In addition to personal characteristics, institutions’ crisis-managing activities and public’s institutional trust may play a crucial role in reaction toward the pandemic. In the present research, we conducted two studies and demonstrated that social perspective predictors are important to cope with group crisis and improve individual psychological health. Institutional trust helps cultivate personal resilience and reduce crisis-related worries, especially for individuals with higher levels of collectivistic orientation. This research highlights the importance of individual-group relationships and social perspective of motivation in the face of shared challenges. Future research could benefit from the results of the present studies and further develop practical intervention tools in order to help individuals get through group crises.

Author contributions

Jiajin Tong and Junhua Dang contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Jiajin Tong, Xueting Zhang, and Xiangyi Zhu. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Jiajin Tong and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Declarations

Ethics approval

The authors assert that all procedures contributing to this work comply with the ethical standards of the relevant national and institutional committees on human experimentation and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1964 and its later amendments. This research protocol was approved by the lead author’s university’s institutional review board (Peking University) with a project name of “Exploring the function of building social shared destiny on capital people’s response to group crisis: Using COVID-19 as an example” and the approval number of 2020-06-06.

Consent to participate

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in this research.

Conflict of interest

On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.

Research involving human participants and/or animals

Human participants.

Informed consent

Yes.

Footnotes

1

Alternatively, we calculated the percentage of words (related to collectivistic values) in the total words of the imagined dialogue. The coding score of the collectivistic group (M = 0.04, SD = 0.02, N = 52) was significantly higher than the control group (M = 0.01, SD = 0.01, N = 59), t(66.5) = 9.97, p < .001, d = 0.03) too.

Publisher’s note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Contributor Information

Jiajin Tong, Email: tongttong@163.com.

Xueting Zhang, Email: zhangxueting1996@sina.com.

Xiangyi Zhu, Email: zhuxy@pku.edu.cn.

Junhua Dang, Email: dangjunhua@gmail.com.

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Associated Data

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Data Availability Statement

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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