Motivation, Intention and Action: Wearing Masks to Prevent the Spread of COVID-19

Abstract

Governments are seeking to slow the spread of COVID-19 by implementing measures that encourage, or mandate, changes in people’s behaviour such as the wearing of face masks. The success of these measures depends on the willingness of individuals to change their behaviour and their commitment and capacity to translate that intention into actions. Understanding and predicting both the willingness of individuals to change their behaviour and their enthusiasm to act on that willingness are needed to assess the likely effectiveness of these measures in slowing the spread of the virus. We analysed responses to two different regional surveys about people’s intentions and behaviour with respect to preventing the spread of COVID-19 in New Zealand. While motivations and intentions were largely similar across the regions, there were surprisingly large differences across the regions regarding the frequency of wearing face masks. These regional differences were not associated with regional differences in demographics (or in Alert levels) but were associated with regional differences in the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19. The results highlight the importance to policy design of distinguishing the factors that might influence the formation of behavioural intentions from those that might influence the implementation of those intentions.

Predicting Community Participation in Passive Pest Surveillance

“…Once a behavioural intention is formed, the second stage of the process, decisionimplementation, comes into force [23]. With respect to routine practices, decision implementation is familiar, tending to automatic [39]. With respect to novel practices, decision implementation assumes greater importance because it involves new choices for the actor and, in aggregate across a relevant population, it defines the rate of adoption of the novel practice.…”

“…the implementation of the intention may be influenced by a different, perhaps overlapping, set [23,32]. If barriers to implementing intentions are absent, then the most likely reason for not acting will be the lack of a perceived need to act [39]. Consequently, given that barriers to surveillance, such as problems with identifying an invasive pest, are absent, perceived need will most likely be motivated by the perceived imminent threat of infestation.…”

12 Weeks of Home-Based Resistance Training Decrease Visceral Fat Area During the Covid-19 Lockdown: A Case Report

“…In March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) recognized a pandemic, caused by the new coronavirus, originating in Wuhan, China (1) . Infected people may have respiratory symptoms similar to the common flu or be asymptomatic but still, transmit the disease (2) . Symptoms range from fever, dyspnea, cough, myalgias, and fatigue (3) .…”