Telling people to "rely on their reasoning" increases intentions to wear a face covering to slow down COVID-19 transmission

Abstract

Finding messaging to promote the use of face masks is fundamental during a pandemic. Study 1 (N = 399) shows that telling people to "rely on their reasoning" increases intentions to wear a face mask, compared with telling them to "rely on their emotions." In Study 2 (N = 591) we add a baseline. However, the results show only a non-significant trend. Study 3 reports a well-powered replication of Study 2 (N = 930). In line with Study 1, this study shows that telling people to "rely on their reasoning" increases intentions to wear a face mask, compared to telling them to "rely on their emotions." Two internal meta-analyses show that telling people to "rely on their reasoning" increases intentions to wear a face mask compared (1) to telling them to "rely on their emotions" and (2) to the baseline. These findings suggest interventions to promote intentions to wear a face mask.

Keywords: COVID‐19; dual process; emotion; face masks; reason.

FIGURE 1

Intentions to wear a face covering split by treatment, all studies together; y‐axis from 0 to 10. Error bars represent the SE of the mean. p‐values refer to the post‐hoc comparisons after a one‐way ANOVA with Bonferroni correction. Note that the SEs do not take into account Bonferroni correction [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]