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Worry About Guest Mistreatment and Endorsement of COVID-19 Safety Policies

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Abstract

Organizations can introduce a variety of policies that mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and encourage vaccinations to promote public health. Previous research suggests employees are hesitant about organizational changes because they may be perceived as threatening. In the current study, we suggest that employees may support the introduction of some policies precisely because these policies help reduce threats to well-being and safety in the work environment, especially those concerns that rise to the level of worry. Using a two-wave sample of frontline theme park workers surveyed at a time when COVID-19 safety policies had not yet been decided, we test the idea that workers are more likely to endorse COVID-19 safety policies when they are worried about COVID-related environmental risk in the form of mistreatment by guests and, subsequently, guest and worker vaccination status. Results suggest that worry about guest mistreatment predicts later endorsement of COVID-19 safety policies, and this effect is partly explained by worry about others’ vaccination status. These effects occur independent of workers’ dispositional tendencies to worry (trait neuroticism) and general optimism (trait optimism) about the future.

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Notes

  1. Note that we conducted the study at a time when vaccination was popularly thought to eliminate the spread of the COVID-19 virus, which was later shown to not be the case.

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Funding

This article was supported by grant number T42OH008438, funded by the National Institute Occupational Safety (NIOSH) and Health under the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

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  1. Department of Psychology, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, 32816, USA

    Michael J. DiStaso, Ann E. Schlotzhauer, Mindy K. Shoss & Amanda C. Grinley

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  1. Michael J. DiStaso
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Correspondence to Michael J. DiStaso.

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This study was reviewed by the University of Central Florida Institutional Review Board. The human subjects research study was determined exempt from regulation in December 2020 under protocol ID “STUDY00002348”.

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DiStaso, M.J., Schlotzhauer, A.E., Shoss, M.K. et al. Worry About Guest Mistreatment and Endorsement of COVID-19 Safety Policies. Occup Health Sci 7, 771–792 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41542-023-00153-z

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