Abstract
This confirmatory research investigates the influence of risk framing of COVID-19 on support for restrictive government policy based on two web survey experiments in Russia. Using 2x2 factorial design, we estimated two main effects-factors of risk severity (low vs. high) and object at risk (individual losses vs. losses to others). First, focusing on higher risks had a positive effect on support for the government's restrictive policy. Second, focusing on the losses for others did not produce stronger support for the restrictive policy compared to focusing on personal losses. However, we found a positive moderation effect of such prosocial values as universalism and benevolence. We found that those with prosocial values had a stronger positive effect in the "losses for others" condition and were more willing to support government restrictive policy when others were included. The effects found in our experimental study reveal both positive and negative aspects in risk communication during the pandemic, which may have a great and long-term impact on trust, attitudes, and behavior.
Highlights
As COVID-19 turns into a pandemic, a political debate is simultaneously raging about whether autocracies or democracies are better at fighting epidemics [1]
Some other experimental studies found no effect of prosocial framing on clickthrough rates while delivering advertisements on Facebook, compared to self-focused framing [53] and comprehension of the information regarding recommended behaviors [54]. In spite of this mixed evidence, we suggest that the framing which highlights losses to others would increase support for restrictive government policy compared to the condition in which we highlight only personal losses
We found that the conditional average treatment effects (CATEs) of risk severity framing increase for those who perceived the information as credible
Summary
As COVID-19 turns into a pandemic, a political debate is simultaneously raging about whether autocracies or democracies are better at fighting epidemics [1]. Media pundits and global health officials praise draconian security measures imposed by the Chinese government to prevent the spread of COVID-19 [2, 3], and severely criticize the Swedish government for being excessively lax and soft about containing the virus [4]. How many people would rather ’stay at home’ and keep a safe ’social distance’ instead of reaping the benefits of limitless freedom which most of them enjoyed before the COVID-19 outbreak?
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