Trust in Formal Institutions in Times of Crisis and Behavioral Outcomes

Individuals’ trust in institutions shape compliance attitudes and behaviors in times of crises. Drawing on recreancy theory, we investigate the role that government-, medical system-, and media play in shaping consumers’ protective and irrational behavior when faced with a crisis. We argue that such a link is mediated through compliance attitude and that individual exhibit differences in compliance and subsequent behavior depending on the type of institutional and the type of governmental system. We compare two groups of countries: those with stricter versus those with looser crisis response stringency measures. We find that formal institutions impact compliance attitude differently across the countries and across the type of institution. Compliance in turn, impacts protective behavior and overbuying.