Effectively motivating social distancing—keeping a physical distance from others —has become a global public health priority during the COVID-19 pandemic. This cross-country preregistered experiment (n=25,718 in 89 countries) tested hypotheses derived from self-determination theory concerning generalizable positive and negative outcomes of different motivational messages encouraging social distancing. Participants were randomly assigned to three conditions: an autonomy-supportive message promoting reflective choices, a controlling message that was restrictive and shaming, or no message. Results partially supported experimental hypotheses: the controlling message increased defiance relative to the autonomy-supportive message and increased controlled motivation (which itself correlated with more defiance and less long-term behavioural intentions to engage in social distancing) relative to no message, but messages did not influence behavioural intentions. Despite small experimental effects on defiance and motivation (rs= .07 and .10), this work highlights the potential harm of controlling public health messages and potential benefits of autonomy-supportive ones.

This study focuses on whether the COVID-19 crisis has affected general and specific pro-environmental behaviors and whether such potential change could be explained by a change in the level of environmental attitude or the behavioral costs of pro-environmental behaviors. We conducted a panel study (N = 206) before and during the COVID-19 lockdown focusing on self-reported engagement in 50 proenvironmental behaviors and the intention to choose environmentally friendly delivery of products purchased online. We found an ambivalent effect on proenvironmental behaviors and no statistically credible change in the general tendency of people to engage in proenvironmental behaviors. Exploratory Rasch analysis revealed that neither the behavioral costs of proenvironmental behaviors nor people’s attitude levels changed. Even though participants reported an increase in behavioral costs of online shopping, their tendency to choose green delivery of products has not changed.