A global experiment on motivating social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Finding communication strategies that effectively motivate social distancing continues to be a global public health priority during the COVID-19 pandemic. This cross-country, preregistered experiment (n = 25,718 from 89 countries) tested hypotheses concerning generalizable positive and negative outcomes of social distancing messages that promoted personal agency and reflective choices (i.e., an autonomy-supportive message) or were restrictive and shaming (i.e., a controlling message) compared with no message at all. Results partially supported experimental hypotheses in that the controlling message increased controlled motivation (a poorly internalized form of motivation relying on shame, guilt, and fear of social consequences) relative to no message. On the other hand, the autonomy-supportive message lowered feelings of defiance compared with the controlling message, but the controlling message did not differ from receiving no message at all. Unexpectedly, messages did not influence autonomous motivation (a highly internalized form of motivation relying on one’s core values) or behavioral intentions. Results supported hypothesized associations between people’s existing autonomous and controlled motivations and self-reported behavioral intentions to engage in social distancing. Controlled motivation was associated with more defiance and less long-term behavioral intention to engage in social distancing, whereas autonomous motivation was associated with less defiance and more short- and long-term intentions to social distance. Overall, this work highlights the potential harm of using shaming and pressuring language in public health communication, with implications for the current and future global health challenges.

Keywords: COVID-19; behavior change; health communication; motivation; self-determination theory.

Fig. 1.

Flowchart delineating the final samples used in analyses.

Fig. 2.

Data distributions for all study variables (the y axis indicates the proportion of sample, and the x axis indicates response scales).

Fig. 3.

Illustrating confirmatory effects testing Hypothesis 1. Effect sizes are drawn from intercept-only models in Table 2 (n = 25,718). Values to the left of zero indicate that no message (or the autonomy-supportive message) yielded lower scores on outcomes than the controlling message. Values to the right of zero indicate that no message (or the autonomy-supportive message) yielded higher scores on those outcomes than the controlling message. The square represents the observed effect size, and the whiskers represents the 95% CIs; if the effect and its 95% CI fall outside the dotted lines (the interval null of r_p = −0.025 to 0.025), the effect is considered practically meaningful.