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Psychological factors shaping public responses to COVID-19 digital contact tracing technologies in Germany

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen one of the first large-scale uses of digital contact tracing to track a chain of infection and contain the spread of a virus. The new technology has posed challenges both for governments aiming at high and effective uptake and for citizens weighing its benefits (e.g.,...

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Autores principales: Kozyreva, Anastasia, Lorenz-Spreen, Philipp, Lewandowsky, Stephan, Garrett, Paul M., Herzog, Stefan M., Pachur, Thorsten, Hertwig, Ralph
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8455538/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34548550
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-98249-5
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author Kozyreva, Anastasia
Lorenz-Spreen, Philipp
Lewandowsky, Stephan
Garrett, Paul M.
Herzog, Stefan M.
Pachur, Thorsten
Hertwig, Ralph
author_facet Kozyreva, Anastasia
Lorenz-Spreen, Philipp
Lewandowsky, Stephan
Garrett, Paul M.
Herzog, Stefan M.
Pachur, Thorsten
Hertwig, Ralph
author_sort Kozyreva, Anastasia
collection PubMed
description The COVID-19 pandemic has seen one of the first large-scale uses of digital contact tracing to track a chain of infection and contain the spread of a virus. The new technology has posed challenges both for governments aiming at high and effective uptake and for citizens weighing its benefits (e.g., protecting others’ health) against the potential risks (e.g., loss of data privacy). Our cross-sectional survey with repeated measures across four samples in Germany ([Formula: see text] ) focused on psychological factors contributing to the public adoption of digital contact tracing. We found that public acceptance of privacy-encroaching measures (e.g., granting the government emergency access to people’s medical records or location tracking data) decreased over the course of the pandemic. Intentions to use contact tracing apps—hypothetical ones or the Corona-Warn-App launched in Germany in June 2020—were high. Users and non-users of the Corona-Warn-App differed in their assessment of its risks and benefits, in their knowledge of the underlying technology, and in their reasons to download or not to download the app. Trust in the app’s perceived security and belief in its effectiveness emerged as psychological factors playing a key role in its adoption. We incorporate our findings into a behavioral framework for digital contact tracing and provide policy recommendations.
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spelling pubmed-84555382021-09-22 Psychological factors shaping public responses to COVID-19 digital contact tracing technologies in Germany Kozyreva, Anastasia Lorenz-Spreen, Philipp Lewandowsky, Stephan Garrett, Paul M. Herzog, Stefan M. Pachur, Thorsten Hertwig, Ralph Sci Rep Article The COVID-19 pandemic has seen one of the first large-scale uses of digital contact tracing to track a chain of infection and contain the spread of a virus. The new technology has posed challenges both for governments aiming at high and effective uptake and for citizens weighing its benefits (e.g., protecting others’ health) against the potential risks (e.g., loss of data privacy). Our cross-sectional survey with repeated measures across four samples in Germany ([Formula: see text] ) focused on psychological factors contributing to the public adoption of digital contact tracing. We found that public acceptance of privacy-encroaching measures (e.g., granting the government emergency access to people’s medical records or location tracking data) decreased over the course of the pandemic. Intentions to use contact tracing apps—hypothetical ones or the Corona-Warn-App launched in Germany in June 2020—were high. Users and non-users of the Corona-Warn-App differed in their assessment of its risks and benefits, in their knowledge of the underlying technology, and in their reasons to download or not to download the app. Trust in the app’s perceived security and belief in its effectiveness emerged as psychological factors playing a key role in its adoption. We incorporate our findings into a behavioral framework for digital contact tracing and provide policy recommendations. Nature Publishing Group UK 2021-09-21 /pmc/articles/PMC8455538/ /pubmed/34548550 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-98249-5 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Kozyreva, Anastasia
Lorenz-Spreen, Philipp
Lewandowsky, Stephan
Garrett, Paul M.
Herzog, Stefan M.
Pachur, Thorsten
Hertwig, Ralph
Psychological factors shaping public responses to COVID-19 digital contact tracing technologies in Germany
title Psychological factors shaping public responses to COVID-19 digital contact tracing technologies in Germany
title_full Psychological factors shaping public responses to COVID-19 digital contact tracing technologies in Germany
title_fullStr Psychological factors shaping public responses to COVID-19 digital contact tracing technologies in Germany
title_full_unstemmed Psychological factors shaping public responses to COVID-19 digital contact tracing technologies in Germany
title_short Psychological factors shaping public responses to COVID-19 digital contact tracing technologies in Germany
title_sort psychological factors shaping public responses to covid-19 digital contact tracing technologies in germany
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8455538/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34548550
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-98249-5
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