Perceived severity, fear of retaliation, and suspect report intention of general public during COVID‐19 pandemic: A moderated moderation analysis

• Published date: 01 December 2022
• Author: Sitanshu Sekhar Das,Vipul Kumar
• Date: 01 December 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2734

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Perceived severity, fear of retaliation, and suspect report

intention of general public during COVID-19 pandemic:

A moderated moderation analysis

Sitanshu Sekhar Das

1

| Vipul Kumar

2

1

OB & HR area, Rajagiri Business School,

Kochi, India

2

Department of Psychology, University of

Allahabad, Prayagraj, India

Correspondence

Sitanshu Sekhar Das, Rajagiri Business School,

Rajagiri Valley, Kakkanad, Kochi 682039,

Kerala, India.

Email: sitanshusekhardas@gmail.com

Management of COVID-19 largely depends on the reporting of suspected or con-

firmed positive cases. This study examined public's suspect report intention during

COVID-19 using and extending the theory of planned behavior by adding two

incident-specific variables such as perceived severity of COVID-19 and fear of retali-

ation. Direct association of attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral con-

trol with suspect report intention and moderating role of perceived severity of

COVID-19 and fear of retaliation were probed. This study also investigated whether

the moderation of perceived severity of COVID-19 (primary moderator) varies with

different level of fear of retaliation (secondary moderator) using moderated modera-

tion analysis. Analyzing data collected from 554 Indian citizens provides evidence

that attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control were positively asso-

ciated with suspect report intention. Perceived severity of COVID-19 and fear of

retaliation negatively moderated such associations. When fear of retaliation was high,

high perceived severity of COVID-19 did not positively moderate the association of

attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control with suspect report inten-

tion. Perceived behavioral control was the most potent facilitator and fear of retalia-

tion was the strongest inhibitor of suspect report intention. Understanding people's

suspect report intention can assist in implementing awareness programs to encour-

age suspect report intention and stop the community spread of COVID-19.

KEYWORDS

fear of retaliation, moderated moderation, perceived severity, COVID-19, suspect report

intention, theory of planned behavior

1|INTRODUCTION

The COVID-19 pandemic has sustained for over a year now and new

lethal strains are emerging across many countries (Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention, 2021). Therefore, researchers recommend learn-

ing how to live with this virus (Giri et al., 2021) even after vaccination

drives. Governments across the globe have been working relentlessly to

flatten the COVID-19 curve through different containment and mitigation

strategies such as lockdown and shutdown and implementing a variety of

non-pharmaceutical interventions (Brauner et al., 2021). Effectiveness of

such strategies and interventions depends on the responsible behavior

(Campos-Mercade et al., 2021; Everett et al., 2020) or the compliance

behavior (Clark et al., 2020) of the citizens. Along with personal hygiene

and social distancing, citizens must play an active role in early reporting

and isolation of suspected or confirmed positive cases (WHO, 2020a). To

arrest contagion, authorities issued guidelines to the general public to

quickly report themselves or others in case of suspected symptoms or

contact of a confirmed case, and also voluntarily assist the administration

in case finding and contact tracing (Ministry of Health & Family

Welfare, 2020a;WHO,2020b). However, there were large scale

Received: 19 March 2021 Revised: 1 July 2021 Accepted: 23 July 2021

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2734

J Public Affairs. 2022;22(Suppl. 1):e2734. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 1of14

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2734