Well‐being in the time of COVID‐19: Do metaphors and mindsets matter?

Abstract

Communications about the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID‐19) often employ metaphors, which can help people understand complex issues. For example, public health messages may focus on “fighting” the disease, attempting to rouse people to action by instilling a sense of urgency. In contrast, change‐focused metaphors may foster growth mindsets and self‐efficacy—cornerstones of well‐being and action. We randomly assigned participants to read one of two articles—either an article about coronavirus that focused on fighting the war or an article that highlighted the possibility of change. In Study 1 ( N = 426), participants who read the war, relative to the change, message reported lower growth mindsets and self‐efficacy and these in turn, predicted lower well‐being and weaker intentions to engage in health behaviours. In Study 2, ( N = 702), we sought to replicate findings and included a no treatment control. We failed to replicate the effects of message condition, although both messages predicted greater self‐efficacy compared to the control. Similar to Study 1, growth mindsets predicted intentions to engage in recommended health behaviours and self‐efficacy predicted both well‐being and action. We discuss theoretical reasons for discrepancies as well as practical applications for developing public health communications.

“It's a war! It's a battle! It's a fight!”: Do militaristic metaphors increase people's threat perceptions and support for COVID‐19 policies?

“…In short, the findings of all experiments show a low to non‐existent effectiveness of militaristic compared to non‐militaristic metaphors in the COVID‐19 context. This main finding echoes other research in various countries in which limited effectiveness of military metaphors in the COVID‐19 context was found, even when contrasted with other, more vivid counter framings (Burnette et al, 2021 ) or a non‐figurative control condition (Panzeri et al, 2021 ). Results of metaphor norming studies indicate that the use of militaristic compared to non‐militaristic metaphors shifts perceived responsibility in the pandemic situation away from the individual and over to the government.…”

“…Although this methodological approach was intended as a particularly strict test of the competing metaphors, the results cover only a limited range of possible framings of the pandemic. Nevertheless, there is also experimental research on the differential impact of pandemic metaphors that shows, even at higher semantic contrast (e.g., “war” vs. “change”), that militaristic metaphors still perform worse in achieving pragmatic goals (see Burnette et al, 2021 ).…”

“…Another limitation is that our research has mostly focused on behavioural compliance with and support for COVID‐19 measures. Such variables are often very difficult to influence through subtle linguistic framing or are mediated by softer variables such as the mindset activated by a framing or participants' emotional responses (Burnette et al, 2021 ).…”

Metaphors we Lie by: our ‘War’ against COVID-19

“…(1) Confrontation : War metaphors are confronted with either a neutral presentation (Panzeri et al, 2021 ) or with metaphors about change (Burnette et al, 2021 ) or struggle (Schnepf & Christmann, 2021 ).…”

“…Burnette et al ( 2021 ) indirectly touch on the same problem. Their focus is on how metaphors may foster a growth mindset and self-efficacy 5 regarding personal ability to manage the virus.…”