The effect of messaging and gender on intentions to wear a face covering to slow down COVID-19 transmission

Capraro, Valerio; Barcelo, Hélène

doi:10.31234/osf.io/tg7vz

Cited by 228 publications

(317 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…9 The exceptions are working from home and being female, which remain significant predictors. The gender result is consistent with work by Capraro and Barcelo (2020) and Jordan et al (2020) who show that women are more likely to comply with…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 87%

Compliance with Social Distancing: Theory and Empirical Evidence from Ontario during COVID-19

2020

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We study the factors associated with compliance with social-distancing regulations using a unique dataset on the behaviour of Ontarians during the COVID-19 pandemic. To start, we build a simple theoretical model of social distancing in order to understand how some individual and community-level factors influence compliance. We test our model's predictions by designing and conducting a survey on Ontarians in which we elicit their degree of compliance with current distancing regulations as well as proposed regulations that impose different fine levels on violators or grant wage subsidies to encourage staying at home. In line with the model's predictions, we show that variables related to one's risk of infection (e.g., health status, age, necessity of working outside the home, regional COVID-19 cases) are significant predictors of compliance as are gender, political beliefs, risk and time preferences. Furthermore, we demonstrate that fines and wage subsidies can be powerful policy tools for promoting full compliance with regulations.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 87%

Compliance with Social Distancing: Theory and Empirical Evidence from Ontario during COVID-19

2020

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“…This is in line with evidence in the literature showing that women are usually risk averse and take more precautions than men [59,60]. A recent study has shown, for example, that women more than men intended to wear a face mask during the Covid-19 pandemic and that men believe it is shameful to wear a face covering [61]. However, while this effect was seen in Study 2, it did not appear in Study 1, which featured a more balanced group of participants in terms of gender and age.…”

Section: Plos Onesupporting

confidence: 87%

“…However, while this effect was seen in Study 2, it did not appear in Study 1, which featured a more balanced group of participants in terms of gender and age. It seems, though, that young men (who were the majority of male participants in Study 2) may feel that needing any measure to protect them from coronavirus is a sign of weakness (see [61] for a similar effect).…”

Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 99%

The acceptance of Covid-19 tracking technologies: The role of perceived threat, lack of control, and ideological beliefs

2020

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New technological solutions play an important role in preventing the spread of Covid-19. Many countries have implemented tracking applications or other surveillance systems, which may raise concerns about privacy and civil rights violations but may be also perceived by citizens as a way to reduce threat and uncertainty. Our research examined whether feelings evoked by the pandemic (perceived threat and lack of control) as well as more stable ideological views predict the acceptance of such technologies. In two studies conducted in Poland, we found that perceived personal threat and lack of personal control were significantly positively related to the acceptance of surveillance technologies, but their predictive value was smaller than that of individual differences in authoritarianism and endorsement of liberty. Moreover, we found that the relationship between the acceptance of surveillance technologies and both perceived threat and lack of control was particularly strong among people high in authoritarianism. Our research shows that the negative feelings evoked by the unprecedented global crisis may inspire positive attitudes towards helpful but controversial surveillance technologies but that they do so to a lesser extent than ideological beliefs.

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“…The first one is methodological: we develop an experimental design aimed at measuring pandemic relevant actual behaviors. To this end, compared to previous works, we consider a different dependent measure: instead of focusing directly on behaviors such as practicing physical distancing (Everett et al, 2020;Jordan et al, 2020) or wearing a face covering (Capraro & Barcelo, 2020), which are clearly hard to measure in reality, we focus on reading panels containing detailed and official information about the coronavirus. This measure is incentivized, not with money, of course, but with time.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of norm-based messages on reading and understanding COVID-19 pandemic response governmental rules

Bilancini¹,

Boncinelli²,

Capraro³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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The new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) threatens the lives of millions of people around the world, making it the largest health threat in recent times. Billions of people around the world are asked to adhere to strict shelter-in-place rules, finalised to slow down the spread of the virus. Appeals and messages are being used by leaders and policy-makers to promote pandemic response. Given the stakes at play, it is thus important for social scientists to explore which messages are most effective in promoting pandemic response. In fact, some papers in the last month have explored the effect of several messages on people’s intentions to engage in pandemic response behaviour. In this paper, we make two contributions. First, we explore the effect of messages on people’s actual engagement, and not on intentions. Specifically, our dependent variables are the level of understanding of official COVID-19 pandemic response governmental informative panels, measured through comprehension questions, and the time spent on reading these rules. Second, we test a novel set of appeals built through the theory of norms. One message targets the personal norm (what people think is the right thing to do), one targets the descriptive norm (what people think others are doing), and one targets the injunctive norm (what people think others approve or disapprove of). Our experiment is conducted online with a representative (with respect to gender, age, and location) sample of Italians. Norms are made salient using a flier. We find that norm-based fliers had no effect on comprehension and on time spent on the panels. These results suggest that norm-based interventions through fliers have very little impact on people’s reading and understanding of COVID-19 pandemic response governmental rules.

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The effect of messaging and gender on intentions to wear a face covering to slow down COVID-19 transmission

Cited by 228 publications

References 26 publications

Compliance with Social Distancing: Theory and Empirical Evidence from Ontario during COVID-19

Compliance with Social Distancing: Theory and Empirical Evidence from Ontario during COVID-19

The acceptance of Covid-19 tracking technologies: The role of perceived threat, lack of control, and ideological beliefs

The effect of norm-based messages on reading and understanding COVID-19 pandemic response governmental rules

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