Plurality of Cases – Plurality of Values

Abstract

The mission of the Changing Societies & Personalities journal is quite ambitious: the journal “examines how rapid societal-level changes are reshaping individuallevel beliefs, motivations and values – and how these individual-level changes in turn are reshaping societies”. Fulfilling such a mission involves examining different cases happening to individuals in various countries, societies and communities. On the one hand, it is unlikely that we will ever face a lack of such cases; on the other, they demonstrate a vast diversity, thus requiring adequate and appropriate research methodologies. We hope that the current issue of CS&P is a good example of such adequacy and diversity through providing a tribune for authors from nine countries. The authors’ team representing three countries – Mohmmed Salah Hassan, Ali Najem, Asbah Razali (Malaysia), Hussam Al Halbusi, Fadi Abdel Muniem Abdel Fattah (Oman) and Kent A. Williams (Canada) – presents the results of a research study entitled Risk Perception, Self-Efficacy, Trust in Government, and the Moderating Role of Perceived Social Media Content During the COVID-19 Pandemic. The authors stress that, in the turbulent times of the pandemic, the critical duty of the research is “to explore and understand behavioural responses to the risk of infection..., especially how people assert their risk perception and how these perceptions shape self-efficacy beliefs”. Additional important fields of the research include the exploration of the risk perception as an interpretation and subjective judgment about a current risk; the evaluation of the social media’ exposure of the appropriate information; the trust in the government, which is vital to the policy’s success during a crisis; and the study of the construct of self-efficacy. The researchers gathered data from 512 individuals (students and academics) based in Malaysia. In investigating the impact of risk perception on trust in government and self-efficacy during the COVID 19 pandemic, the authors have made conclusions concerning, in particular, how social media helped shape behavioural patterns and attitudes.