The emotional path to action: Empathy promotes physical distancing and wearing of face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

<p>The COVID-19 pandemic presents a major challenge to societies all over the globe. To curb the spread of the disease, two measures implemented in many countries are minimizing close contact between people (“physical distancing”) and wearing face masks. In the present research, we tested the idea that physical distancing and wearing face masks can be the result of a genuine prosocial emotion—empathy for those most vulnerable to the virus. In four pre-registered studies (total N = 3,718, Western population), we show that (i) empathy is indeed a basic motivation for physical distancing and wearing face masks, and (ii) inducing empathy for those most vulnerable to the virus promotes the motivation to adhere to these measures (whereas providing mere information about its importance is not). In sum, the present research provides a better understanding of the promoting factors underlying the willingness to follow two important measures during the COVID-19 pandemic.</p>

The association between age, COVID-19 symptoms, and social distancing behavior in the United States

“…Based on location tracking data from cell phones, political party affiliation at the county level in the United States has been found to be predictive of movement [11,12]. Survey data have found that compliance increased with empathy for vulnerable groups in the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany [13], while reported willingness to comply was higher for shorter rather than longer expected periods of restriction in Italy [14]. However, a recent international open web-based survey of 324 individuals found that fear of contracting the virus was the only strong predictor of social distancing behavior [15].…”

Functional Fear Predicts Public Health Compliance in the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…This sense of duty taps into themes of interpersonal empathy, with Oosterhoff and Palmer (2020) findings that American adolescents who demonstrated higher levels of subjective self-interest were more likely to hoard supplies and less likely to refrain from nonessential social interactions. Pfattheicher et al (2020) reported how trait empathy for vulnerable members of the population encourages the reduction of physical social interactions, while inducing empathy maintains this behavior. Further, a rapid review of the evidence into compliance with quarantine advice during pandemics recently reported that appealing to altruistic motivations to comply with distancing instructions appears to maintain motivation to maintain social distance from others over an extended period of time (Brooks et al 2020).…”

Do Survey Estimates of the Public’s Compliance with COVID-19 Regulations Suffer from Social Desirability Bias?

“…A large literature in Public Administration explore has studied how governments might get citizens to co-produce (for recent reviews, see Voorberg et al 2015, Pestoff et al 2013. It is imperative that governments take stock of this literature, as well as related literatures in science and political communication (e.g., Jamieson 2017, Pfattheicher et al 2020, when thinking about how to increase citizen compliance with government recommendations.…”