Using Behavioral Science to help fight the Coronavirus

Abstract

This rapid, narrative review summarizes useful evidence from behavioral science for fighting the COVID-19 outbreak. We undertook an extensive, multi-disciplinary literature search covering five issues: handwashing, face touching, self-isolation, public-spirited behavior, and responses to crisis communication. The search identified more than 100 relevant papers. We find effective behavioral interventions to increase handwashing, but not to reduce face touching. Social supports and behavioral plans can reduce the negative psychological effects of isolation, potentially reducing the disincentive to isolate. Public-spirited behavior is more likely with frequent communication of what is “best for all”, strong group identity, and social disapproval of noncompliance. Effective crisis communication involves speed, honesty, credibility, empathy, and promoting useful individual actions. Risks are probably best communicated through numbers, with ranges to describe uncertainty – simply stating a maximum may bias public perception. The findings aim to be useful not only for government and public health authorities, but for organizations and communities.

Personality differences and COVID-19: are extroversion and conscientiousness personality traits associated with engagement with containment measures?

“…When compared to extroversion, we observe higher means for conscientiousness in the groups of people who reported adhering to both or one of the containment individual behavioral responsibility in co-operating with containment measures to prevent even worse outcomes from this pandemic. 17,18 The lower scores for extroversion observed in the social distancing group, indicate the challenging task of reducing the social proximity typical of extroverted people, which seemed not to greatly impact their readiness to engage with hand hygiene recommendations.…”

“…1,2 Several publications warned of the need for containment measures, [11][12][13][14][15] mostly focusing on social distancing (defined as a set of actions aimed to stop or slow down the spread of a contagious disease, such as maintaining distance from other people and avoiding leaving the home) 16 and hand hygiene (including handwashing with soap and water, and hand sanitizing with alcoholic solutions). Although lacking empirical evidence, previous publications have argued that habits and behavioral trends (e.g., partying hard, not following norms) have impacts on containment measures, 17,18 stressing that individual behavior is crucial to controlling the spread of COVID-19.…”

Capability, opportunity, and motivation to enact hygienic practices in the early stages of the COVID‐19 outbreak in the United Kingdom

“…This is the first study to our knowledge to explore hygienic practices in relation to the current pandemic in the United Kingdom; we have captured the early behavioural response to the lockdown in a highly representative sample of the UK population and can make concrete recommendations for the design of interventions to help promote hygienic practices. Whilst there is a wide and good-quality literature on the enactment of hygiene behaviour, especially handwashing (Lunn et al, 2020), this study adds to our understanding of these behaviours in the current context where the drivers of behaviour and nature of the threat may be entirely different from usual circumstances.…”

Using social and behavioural science to support COVID-19 pandemic response

“…Research topics discussed here were identified by the corresponding authors as potentially relevant to pandemic response and thus are not exhaustive (for a review of research on specific actions, such as handwashing, face-touching and self-isolation, see ref. 2 ). Furthermore, research on these topics is ongoing and, in many cases, far from settled.…”