CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The outbreak of COVID-19 has been a major interrupting event for economies all over the globe. This event challenged the way societies and individuals deal with risks. Over and above public policies, an essential determinant of the spread of the virus is a series of small-scale individual decisions, such as wearing face masks in public space, regularly washing hands or deciding how often to go the office, class, store or anywhere else. According to decision theory, those decisions depend on tradeoffs between costs (or benefits) and risks, and those tradeoffs are deeply rooted in individual preferences. Considering the wide literature that has been devoted to the understanding of individual preferences and attitudes toward risk, their heterogeneity and their determinants (Dohmen et al., 2011), one of the key figures of the classical representation of behavior under uncertainty is that beliefs - in addition to risk attitudes - are key to explain decisions whenever they involve money, life duration, health states, approval of friends or well-being of others (Savage, 1954).

Uncertainty especially affects decisions regarding health where most probabilities are ambiguous and not objectively known (Attema et al., 2018). Smoking is a typical example of decisions for which subjective assessments of mortality risks have received a lot of attention (Viscusi, 1990; Khwaja et al., 2007). Beliefs and, more generally, risk perceptions are rather challenging to evaluate, especially for a new disease such as COVID-19. First, risk perceptions are threat-specific most of the time and incorporate different kinds of information through deliberative, affective and experiential processes (Slovic et al., 2004; Ferrer and Klein, 2015). In case of a new disease, the amount of available information, whenever it is publicized numerically or derived from personal experience, is limited. Second, the range of available methods to elicit beliefs is restricted. Experimental studies, which measure beliefs with monetary stakes, offer an array of incentive-compatible elicitation methods (Trautmann et al., 2015), but these methods are known to be difficult to implement in large representative samples (Dohmen et al., 2011). Additionally, incentive compatibility has no bite for events with serious health consequences such as COVID-19. In such cases, survey studies to assess beliefs and risks generally involve introspective judgments to assess beliefs and risks (Viscusi, 1990; Coe et al., 2012; Carman and Kooreman, 2014). Third, there is no pre-existing measuring rod to judge the accuracy of risk perceptions. In particular, without objective and subjective benchmarks, it is difficult to know if a low risk perception to catch the disease actually reflects optimism or pessimism, whenever it is considered as an absolute or a relative measure (Shepperd et al., 2013). Thus, understanding, predicting and aiding individual decisions in face of COVID-19 mainly relies on answers on a series of questions (Fischhoff, 2020), such as “how much of the disease is in the community?” (i.e., beliefs about the prevalence rate), “what is my risk of exposure to the COVID-19?” or “what is the risk to die if infected?” [i.e., beliefs about the infection fatality ratio (IFR)]. Because individual decisions are likely to be impacted by others’ decisions, and therefore by their beliefs, second-order beliefs (“how do the others perceive the risk?”) might also be of importance.

Several recent studies have reported information on the disease risk perception of COVID-19, and its perceived impact on health during the lockdown phase due to COVID-19, especially in Italy where the virus reached Europe the earliest, but also in other countries [e.g., (Barattucci et al., 2020; Cerami et al., 2020; Faasse and Newby, 2020; Lanciano et al., 2020; Liu M. et al., 2020; Moyce et al., 2020). These studies have shown that people perceive the impact of COVID-19 on their (mental) health as high (Tull et al., 2020; Xiong et al., 2020), and that their risk perception of this disease is correlated with adoption of preventative health behaviors (Dryhurst et al., 2020), but its level is not so high (Commodari and La Rosa, 2020; Lanciano et al., 2020; Liu M. et al., 2020), and lower than their concern for the future and for economic and social consequences of the pandemic (Lanciano et al., 2020).

Self-assessments about risks included the IFR for COVID-19, the surveyed individuals’ own personal risk to catch (or catch again) the disease, the risk as perceived by others and, finally, the expected prevalence rate after the COVID-19 pandemic in France. Those four self-assessments were measured twice during lockdown. In addition to shedding light on the determinants of beliefs in a representative population sample and their dynamics during lockdown, the paper also provides measures of the quality of these beliefs with respect to available evidence at the time of the surveys. Finally, comparing own personal risk to catch COVID-19 to expected prevalence in the two successive surveys provided a dynamic view of comparative optimism with respect to the disease. The organization of the paper is as follows. The next Section introduces the theoretical background and our resulting hypotheses. The Section ‘Materials and Methods’ describes the data from the two successive surveys and how we computed measures of objective risks. ‘Results’ presents the statistical methods used to analyze the survey responses and investigates dynamics, heterogeneity and determinants of the self-assessment of beliefs, assesses the quality of beliefs through calibration.

1. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Religion has an impact on well-being when people encounter stressful situations and adversities in life (Park, 2005). It acts as an important philosophical orientation that influences how people understand the world and comprehend reality and suffering (Pargament, 1997). Park (2005) found a pathway relationship for religion as a meaning-making coping (positive reappraisal coping), which leads to stress-related growth. Furthermore, religion is associated with active coping and positive reframing coping strategies, and electroencephalography activity was observed in the theta frequency band in the right hemisphere in association with religious coping (Imperatori et al., 2020).

Spirituality in the context of healthcare is a relatively new area yet becoming increasingly important. In the recent years, research has shown that religious beliefs and practices are associated with various health aspects, such as ability to cope with the disease, recovery after hospitalization and a positive attitude in a difficult situation, including health (Albers et al. 2010; Puchalski et al. 2009; Phelps et al. 2009).

Confidence in belief systems varies substantially across people, with some individuals reporting strong religious views, others endorsing religion only weakly, and with another group of people rejecting religious claims altogether (Aldridge, 2007; Burchardt et al., 2015). Furthermore, the strength of belief system often fluctuates throughout the life of even single individuals (Kimble & McFadden 2002; Rambo, 1999). Hence a fundamental question is which factors affect the strength of belief system.

In the light of the above scholars views and the gap that exist in the literature; the study will investigate the positive and negative effects of belief system as it affects the fight against Covid 19; it will examine the role of belief system in influencing the mental health condition and perceive level of attitude towards the fight against covid 19 and to ascertain the factors that affects the strength of human belief system. 

1. AIM AND OBJECTIVES

The aim of the study is to investigate the effect of belief systems factors affecting the fight against covid 19

Specifically, the study seeks to:

1. investigate the positive effects of belief system as it affects the fight against Covid 19
2. investigate the negative effects of belief system as it affects the fight against Covid 19
3. Examine the role of belief system in influencing the mental health condition and perceive level of attitude towards the fight against Covid 19
4. Ascertain the factors that affect the strength of human belief system

1. RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Arising from the research objectives, the following research questions will be addressed as presented below:

1. What are the positive effects of belief system as it affects the fight against Covid 19?
2. What are the negative effects of belief system as it affects the fight against Covid 19?
3. What is the role of belief system in influencing the mental health condition and perceive level of attitude towards the fight against Covid 19?
4. What are the factors that affect the strength of human belief system?

1. RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS

 H0 there is no significant effect of human belief system factors on the fight against Covid 19

H1 there is significant effect of human belief system factors on the fight against Covid 19

1. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The study will investigate into the effect human belief system factors as it affects the fight against Covid 19. The findings of the study will reveal whether a human belief system factor truly affects the fight against Covid.

Through it findings, it will be useful to religious believers, pastor and teachers of faith to take the fight of Covid 19 seriously without attaching meaning or interpretation on the deadly virus.

1. SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This study focuses mainly on the investigation of human belief system factors affecting the fight against Covid 19, specifically; the interest of the study will be restricted to Bogoro and Bauchi L.G.A of Bauchi State due to time and finance constraints.

1. LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

TIME CONSTRAINTS: One the challenges experienced by the researcher is the issue of time; the research will simultaneously engage in departmental activities like seminars and attendance to lectures. But the researcher was able to meet up with the deadline for the submission of the project.

FINANCIAL CONSTRAINTS: Every research work needs funding; however lack of adequate funds might affect the speed of the researcher in getting materials for completion of the project.

1.9 DEFINITION OF TERMS

Covid 19

COVID-19 is a disease caused by a new strain of coronavirus. 'CO' stands for corona, 'VI' for virus, and 'D' for disease. Formerly, this disease was referred to as '2019 novel coronavirus' or '2019-nCoV.'

Belief system

The belief system of a person or society is the set of beliefs that they have about what is right and wrong and what is true and false.

Religion

The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods. "ideas about the relationship between science and religion".

Health

The Constitution of the World Health Organization, which came into force on April 7, 1948, defined health “as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being.

Doctrine

Teaching, instruction") is a codification of beliefs or a body of teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the essence of teachings in a given branch of knowledge or in a belief system.