Digital Contact Tracing for Pandemic Response: The Roles of Cultural Worldviews and Technology Awareness

The use of digital contact tracing (DCT) during the COVID-19 pandemic serves as a prime example of how government agencies and public authorities are leveraging information technologies to address complex societal challenges. However, during the period in which the study was conducted, the rate of voluntary adoption of DCT among individuals in the United States proved to be both low and uneven, falling short of the critical mass required for effective containment of viral transmission. Despite previous research suggesting that individuals’ willingness to use DCT is primarily driven by their perceived benefits and privacy concerns, and that DCT awareness could help individuals make more informed adoption decisions, the factors contributing to the mixed perceptions of DCT remain unexplored. Drawing on cultural cognition theory, we propose that individuals’ perceptions of risks, specifically privacy concerns in our context, and perceptions of benefits regarding DCT can be influenced by their cultural worldviews. Furthermore, the influence of DCT awareness on individuals’ perceptions of DCT is moderated by their cultural worldviews. This occurs because individuals tend to seek out and interpret information in a manner consistent with their existing worldviews. Based on a survey of 1,014 U.S. residents, our study demonstrates that cultural worldviews characterized by two dimensions, group, emphasizing collective responsibility in addressing personal needs, and grid, focusing on behavioral regulation based on values and attitudes pertaining to social hierarchies and established norms, significantly affect both perceived benefits and privacy concerns related to DCT. These perceptions, in turn, impact individuals’ intention to use DCT. Furthermore, individuals with a high-group worldview or a low-grid worldview exhibit a stronger positive association between DCT awareness and perceived benefits, and a stronger negative association between DCT awareness and privacy concerns. Our findings further reveal that cultural worldviews not only influence individuals’ biases in selecting media outlets for technological information but also shape their risk–benefit assessment of other emerging technologies designed to tackle societal issues. In summary, this study highlights the pivotal role that cultural worldviews play in understanding public support for information technologies aimed at addressing complex societal challenges.