National ethics and public compliance in Indonesia: evidence from two policy cases

In this work, through correlational surveys, we explored the psychological antecedents of public compliance with the Indonesian government policies about COVID-19 containment measures in 2020 (Study 1; N = 1005) and the capital city relocation (Study 2; N = 1263) started in 2022 and planned to finish in 2045. Using the theoretical framework of the Value-Belief-Norm (VBN; Stern, 2002), we assessed the roles of shared responsibility and positive evaluations of national ethics in promoting participants’ compliance taking shape via self-sacrifice and policy-supporting actions. Findings across two studies revealed that higher levels of shared responsibility explained greater levels of self-sacrifice and policy support. In addition, stronger positive evaluations of national ethics fostered shared responsibility, which in turn mediated the role of the positive evaluations of national ethics in positively predicting both self-sacrifice and policy support. COVID-19 conspiratorial beliefs were negatively related to the positive evaluations of national ethics. In Study 2, the positive emotion of confidence in the capital city relocation mediated the role of shared responsibility in enhancing participants’ self-sacrifice and policy support. Study 2 also showed that national identification augmented shared responsibility, given its role in promoting participants’ positive evaluations of national ethics. These findings implicate the best practices of the government policies by framing public health measures and capital city relocation as a shared communal responsibility, to facilitate sustained policy support and self-sacrificial behaviours that can contribute to the promotion of justice and strong institutions.