Psychological Study of the Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Students: The Effect of Empathy and Resilience on Policy Acceptances and its Implications on Compliance

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought about fundamental changes to the way people live their daily activities. This condition makes certain institutions, especially universities, follow pandemic policies by limiting activities on campus and carrying out online learning. Students must experience a difficult situation with these conditions. This study seeks to examine how the influence of student empathy and resilience in the city of Jakarta on the acceptance of government policies that have implications for compliance. This study involved 641,047 respondents from over 288 universities, using descriptive and verification analysis methods with structural equation modelling and confirmatory factor analysis methods. The results of the study indicate that empathy and resilience have a positive and significant impact on policy acceptance which also has a positive and significant impact on compliance. These results confirm that the adherence of students who represent the academic community to the rules and policies set by the government is an important capital needed to effectively deal with the Covid-19 Pandemic.