Let's (Not) Get Together!: The Role of Social Norms in Social Distancing during COVID-19
While effective preventive measures against COVID-19 are now widely known, many individuals fail to adopt them. This paper provides experimental evidence about one potentially important driver of compliance with social distancing: social norms. We asked each of 23,000 survey respondents in Mexico to predict how a fictional person would behave when faced with the choice about whether or not to attend a friend's birthday gathering. Every respondent was randomly assigned to one of four social norms conditions. Expecting that other people would attend the gathering and/or believing that other people approved of attending the gathering both increased the predicted probability that the fictional character would attend the gathering by 25% in comparison with a scenario where other people were not expected to attend nor to approve of attending. Our results speak to the potential effects of communication campaigns and media coverage of, compliance with, and normative views about COVID-19 preventive measures. They also suggest that policies aimed at modifying social norms or making existing ones salient could impact compliance.
Main Author: | |
---|---|
Other Authors: | |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Inter-American Development Bank
|
Subjects: | Health Behavior, Coronavirus, Pandemic, Social Distancing, Social Norm, I12 - Health Behavior, D91 - Intertemporal Household Choice • Life Cycle Models and Saving, I18 - Government Policy • Regulation • Public Health, D90 - Intertemporal Choice: General, D19;Social distancing;Social norms;Normative expectations;Empirical expectations;Compliance, |
Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.18235/0003044 https://publications.iadb.org/en/lets-not-get-together-role-social-norms-social-distancing-during-covid-19 |
Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
id |
dig-bid-node-29747 |
---|---|
record_format |
koha |
spelling |
dig-bid-node-297472023-09-12T20:34:29ZLet's (Not) Get Together!: The Role of Social Norms in Social Distancing during COVID-19 2021-02-11T00:00:00+0000 http://dx.doi.org/10.18235/0003044 https://publications.iadb.org/en/lets-not-get-together-role-social-norms-social-distancing-during-covid-19 Inter-American Development Bank Health Behavior Coronavirus Pandemic Social Distancing Social Norm I12 - Health Behavior D91 - Intertemporal Household Choice • Life Cycle Models and Saving I18 - Government Policy • Regulation • Public Health D90 - Intertemporal Choice: General D19;Social distancing;Social norms;Normative expectations;Empirical expectations;Compliance While effective preventive measures against COVID-19 are now widely known, many individuals fail to adopt them. This paper provides experimental evidence about one potentially important driver of compliance with social distancing: social norms. We asked each of 23,000 survey respondents in Mexico to predict how a fictional person would behave when faced with the choice about whether or not to attend a friend's birthday gathering. Every respondent was randomly assigned to one of four social norms conditions. Expecting that other people would attend the gathering and/or believing that other people approved of attending the gathering both increased the predicted probability that the fictional character would attend the gathering by 25% in comparison with a scenario where other people were not expected to attend nor to approve of attending. Our results speak to the potential effects of communication campaigns and media coverage of, compliance with, and normative views about COVID-19 preventive measures. They also suggest that policies aimed at modifying social norms or making existing ones salient could impact compliance. Inter-American Development Bank Déborah Martínez Villarreal Cristina Parilli Carlos Scartascini Alberto Simpser application/pdf IDB Publications Mexico en |
institution |
BID |
collection |
DSpace |
country |
Estados Unidos |
countrycode |
US |
component |
Bibliográfico |
access |
En linea |
databasecode |
dig-bid |
tag |
biblioteca |
region |
America del Norte |
libraryname |
Biblioteca Felipe Herrera del BID |
language |
English |
topic |
Health Behavior Coronavirus Pandemic Social Distancing Social Norm I12 - Health Behavior D91 - Intertemporal Household Choice • Life Cycle Models and Saving I18 - Government Policy • Regulation • Public Health D90 - Intertemporal Choice: General D19;Social distancing;Social norms;Normative expectations;Empirical expectations;Compliance Health Behavior Coronavirus Pandemic Social Distancing Social Norm I12 - Health Behavior D91 - Intertemporal Household Choice • Life Cycle Models and Saving I18 - Government Policy • Regulation • Public Health D90 - Intertemporal Choice: General D19;Social distancing;Social norms;Normative expectations;Empirical expectations;Compliance |
spellingShingle |
Health Behavior Coronavirus Pandemic Social Distancing Social Norm I12 - Health Behavior D91 - Intertemporal Household Choice • Life Cycle Models and Saving I18 - Government Policy • Regulation • Public Health D90 - Intertemporal Choice: General D19;Social distancing;Social norms;Normative expectations;Empirical expectations;Compliance Health Behavior Coronavirus Pandemic Social Distancing Social Norm I12 - Health Behavior D91 - Intertemporal Household Choice • Life Cycle Models and Saving I18 - Government Policy • Regulation • Public Health D90 - Intertemporal Choice: General D19;Social distancing;Social norms;Normative expectations;Empirical expectations;Compliance Inter-American Development Bank Let's (Not) Get Together!: The Role of Social Norms in Social Distancing during COVID-19 |
description |
While effective preventive measures against COVID-19 are now widely known, many individuals fail to adopt them. This paper provides experimental evidence about one potentially important driver of compliance with social distancing: social norms. We asked each of 23,000 survey respondents in Mexico to predict how a fictional person would behave when faced with the choice about whether or not to attend a friend's birthday gathering. Every respondent was randomly assigned to one of four social norms conditions. Expecting that other people would attend the gathering and/or believing that other people approved of attending the gathering both increased the predicted probability that the fictional character would attend the gathering by 25% in comparison with a scenario where other people were not expected to attend nor to approve of attending. Our results speak to the potential effects of communication campaigns and media coverage of, compliance with, and normative views about COVID-19 preventive measures. They also suggest that policies aimed at modifying social norms or making existing ones salient could impact compliance. |
author2 |
Déborah Martínez Villarreal |
author_facet |
Déborah Martínez Villarreal Inter-American Development Bank |
topic_facet |
Health Behavior Coronavirus Pandemic Social Distancing Social Norm I12 - Health Behavior D91 - Intertemporal Household Choice • Life Cycle Models and Saving I18 - Government Policy • Regulation • Public Health D90 - Intertemporal Choice: General D19;Social distancing;Social norms;Normative expectations;Empirical expectations;Compliance |
author |
Inter-American Development Bank |
author_sort |
Inter-American Development Bank |
title |
Let's (Not) Get Together!: The Role of Social Norms in Social Distancing during COVID-19 |
title_short |
Let's (Not) Get Together!: The Role of Social Norms in Social Distancing during COVID-19 |
title_full |
Let's (Not) Get Together!: The Role of Social Norms in Social Distancing during COVID-19 |
title_fullStr |
Let's (Not) Get Together!: The Role of Social Norms in Social Distancing during COVID-19 |
title_full_unstemmed |
Let's (Not) Get Together!: The Role of Social Norms in Social Distancing during COVID-19 |
title_sort |
let's (not) get together!: the role of social norms in social distancing during covid-19 |
publisher |
Inter-American Development Bank |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.18235/0003044 https://publications.iadb.org/en/lets-not-get-together-role-social-norms-social-distancing-during-covid-19 |
work_keys_str_mv |
AT interamericandevelopmentbank letsnotgettogethertheroleofsocialnormsinsocialdistancingduringcovid19 |
_version_ |
1809108118529900544 |