RAPID: Who is (Not) Complying with the Social Distancing Directive and Why?

Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences - In the current COVID-19 pandemic, one approach to minimizing the spread of the virus focuses on people?s behavior ? social distancing. Since the start of the pandemic, government leaders and health experts have requested citizens to follow social distancing directives. Despite this repeated message and despite the fact that many people are taking the message seriously, many others are violating the new norms. That raises important questions: who is and who is not complying, and why? Understanding why people choose not to practice social distancing is crucial for designing effective public service campaigns. This research investigates who complies, what specific beliefs should be addressed, and what factors make public campaigns believable. The project seeks to identify the factors that lead to greater compliance for the greater good, and will inform future public service campaigns.

A series of studies examines how social distancing behaviors vary as a function of belief systems. An innovative measure of social distancing is developed ? one that is more behavioral in nature than the typical survey. The critical beliefs that are to be examined stem from a conceptual framework regarding a directive as involving three essential components. One is the source -- someone is requesting people to change their behavior. A second is the surrounding context -- the request is in response to some challenge. The third component is the target -- the persons to whom the request is addressed. Belief systems relevant to each of these three components are expected to influence the likelihood that people will comply with the request. As a result, an entire network of beliefs is expected to influence how people respond and why. Some individuals? belief systems will lead them to view the request favorably, thus promoting appropriate social distancing behaviors. Others will reach more negative conclusions and subsequently refuse to take directives seriously. Once the concerns about the pandemic have lessened, study participants will be re-contacted and asked to again respond to social distancing behavioral scenarios and to indicate if they had experienced virus symptoms in the interim. Those follow-up data will shed light on the relationship between individuals? social distancing behaviors and their subsequent likelihood of infection. The research aims to inform theory regarding social compliance processes, and will provide a stronger foundation for developing future public service campaigns.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.