Research Insights: Unintended Byproducts of News Coverage about Noncompliance: A Social Norms Exploration

Social norms used in communications can help/hurt compliance with public health guidelines. In Mexico, a survey experiment was conducted to explore the knowledge-behavior gap in social distancing noncompliance. Despite believing that attending social gatherings is inappropriate, communicating to a person that friends are highly likely to attend the party increases the probability of generalizing others attendance and possibly their own. Believing that it is appropriate to attend a party during COVID-19 and knowing that most friends will go does not make one more likely to guess that a person will attend that party than if one believed it was not appropriate to attend the party. This represents a contradiction.

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Inter-American Development Bank
Other Authors: Déborah Martínez Villarreal
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,
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.18235/0003256
https://publications.iadb.org/en/research-insights-unintended-byproducts-news-coverage-about-noncompliance-social-norms-exploration
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Summary:Social norms used in communications can help/hurt compliance with public health guidelines. In Mexico, a survey experiment was conducted to explore the knowledge-behavior gap in social distancing noncompliance. Despite believing that attending social gatherings is inappropriate, communicating to a person that friends are highly likely to attend the party increases the probability of generalizing others attendance and possibly their own. Believing that it is appropriate to attend a party during COVID-19 and knowing that most friends will go does not make one more likely to guess that a person will attend that party than if one believed it was not appropriate to attend the party. This represents a contradiction.