Societal values versus individual rights with respect to public health related practices during the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S.
Courtney Bir, Nicole Olynk Widmar, Christopher A Wolf, Torrie Sheridan, Maria Berikou · 2026
Read Societal values versus individual rights with respect to public health related practices during the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. by Courtney Bir, Nicole Olynk Widmar, Christopher A Wolf, Torrie Sheridan, Maria Berikou (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/plos-pone-0358741.txt.
Description
Courtney Bir and four colleagues analyze American attitudes toward pandemic rules in a 2026 PLOS ONE article, using survey data from January 2021. COVID-19 controls asked people to give up ordinary freedoms for a shared benefit, and resistance was loud. The authors probed how beliefs about society's duties and personal rights lined up with actually following spread reducing behaviors.
Agreement that healthcare is a human right, that society must protect the elderly, and seat belt wearing all went with a higher likelihood of taking part in protective behaviors. Having someone at high risk in the household also raised participation. Belief that gun ownership is a right pulled the other way, lowering participation across behaviors. The pattern maps a values divide that future public health campaigns will still have to cross.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Courtney Bir, Nicole Olynk Widmar, Christopher A Wolf, Torrie Sheridan, Maria Berikou |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 54326 |
| LICENSE | CC_BY |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | PLOS |