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Peers for the fearless: Social norms facilitate preventive behaviour when individuals perceive low COVID-19 health risks

A strategy frequently adopted to contain the COVID-19 pandemic involves three non-pharmaceutical interventions that depend on high levels of compliance in society: maintaining physical distance from others, minimizing social contacts, and wearing a face mask. These measures require substantial chang...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Kittel, Bernhard, Kalleitner, Fabian, Schiestl, David W.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8659684/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34882685
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260171
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author Kittel, Bernhard
Kalleitner, Fabian
Schiestl, David W.
author_facet Kittel, Bernhard
Kalleitner, Fabian
Schiestl, David W.
author_sort Kittel, Bernhard
collection PubMed
description A strategy frequently adopted to contain the COVID-19 pandemic involves three non-pharmaceutical interventions that depend on high levels of compliance in society: maintaining physical distance from others, minimizing social contacts, and wearing a face mask. These measures require substantial changes in established practices of social interaction, raising the question of which factors motivate individuals to comply with these preventive behaviours. Using Austrian panel survey data from April 2020 to April 2021, we show that perceived health risks, social norms, and trust in political institutions stimulate people to engage in preventive behaviour. A moderation analysis shows that the effectiveness of social norms in facilitating preventive behaviour increases when people’s perceptions of health risks decrease. No such moderation effect is observed for trust in political institutions. These results suggest that strong social norms play a crucial role in achieving high rates of preventive behaviour, especially when perceived levels of health risks are low.
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spelling pubmed-86596842021-12-10 Peers for the fearless: Social norms facilitate preventive behaviour when individuals perceive low COVID-19 health risks Kittel, Bernhard Kalleitner, Fabian Schiestl, David W. PLoS One Research Article A strategy frequently adopted to contain the COVID-19 pandemic involves three non-pharmaceutical interventions that depend on high levels of compliance in society: maintaining physical distance from others, minimizing social contacts, and wearing a face mask. These measures require substantial changes in established practices of social interaction, raising the question of which factors motivate individuals to comply with these preventive behaviours. Using Austrian panel survey data from April 2020 to April 2021, we show that perceived health risks, social norms, and trust in political institutions stimulate people to engage in preventive behaviour. A moderation analysis shows that the effectiveness of social norms in facilitating preventive behaviour increases when people’s perceptions of health risks decrease. No such moderation effect is observed for trust in political institutions. These results suggest that strong social norms play a crucial role in achieving high rates of preventive behaviour, especially when perceived levels of health risks are low. Public Library of Science 2021-12-09 /pmc/articles/PMC8659684/ /pubmed/34882685 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260171 Text en © 2021 Kittel et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Kittel, Bernhard
Kalleitner, Fabian
Schiestl, David W.
Peers for the fearless: Social norms facilitate preventive behaviour when individuals perceive low COVID-19 health risks
title Peers for the fearless: Social norms facilitate preventive behaviour when individuals perceive low COVID-19 health risks
title_full Peers for the fearless: Social norms facilitate preventive behaviour when individuals perceive low COVID-19 health risks
title_fullStr Peers for the fearless: Social norms facilitate preventive behaviour when individuals perceive low COVID-19 health risks
title_full_unstemmed Peers for the fearless: Social norms facilitate preventive behaviour when individuals perceive low COVID-19 health risks
title_short Peers for the fearless: Social norms facilitate preventive behaviour when individuals perceive low COVID-19 health risks
title_sort peers for the fearless: social norms facilitate preventive behaviour when individuals perceive low covid-19 health risks
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8659684/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34882685
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260171
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