Promoting social distancing in a pandemic: Beyond good intentions.

Paolo Falco,Sarah Zaccagni,Nikolaos Askitas

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0260457

Abstract

Do reminders to promote social distancing achieve the desired effects on behavior? Much of the existing literature analyses impacts on people's intentions to comply. We run a randomised controlled trial in Denmark to test different versions of a reminder to stay home at the beginning of the crisis. Using a two-stage design, we follow up with recipients and analyse their subsequent self-reported behaviour. We find that the reminder increases ex-ante intentions to comply when it emphasises the consequences of non-compliance for the subjects themselves and their families, while it has no effect when the emphasis is on other people or the country as a whole. We also find, however, that impacts on intentions do not translate into equivalent impacts on actions. Only people in poor health react to the reminder by staying home significantly more. Our results shed light on important gaps between people's intentions and their actions in responding to the recommendations of health authorities.

Highlights

In the first months of 2020, a new type of coronavirus named SARS-CoV-2 began to spread like wildfire from China to the rest of the world
The reminder with no framing—akin to the slogans commonly seen on social media (e.g., # STAYHOME) and promoted by governments around the world (e.g., the SMS sent by the UK government and the Danish Police (Source: The Local DK (March 24, 2020) [link]; UK Government website (March 24, 2020) [link].)—has a statistically insignificant effect (26%, p = 0.19)
They are consistent with the findings of an interesting recent literature that uses experimental methods to study pro-social behaviour as a driver of health behaviour, including social distancing ([3, 26, 34])

Summary

Introduction

In the first months of 2020, a new type of coronavirus named SARS-CoV-2 began to spread like wildfire from China to the rest of the world. A summary of our data shows that less than 15% of respondents intend to stay home the day during the most critical period of the first pandemic wave, and 42% of them do not follow the declared intentions and go out instead (Fig 1).

Results

Conclusion