This article was written by Cameo Hazlewood, Gwyneth Teo, Justin Thompson, and Jordan Sessa, students in the Masters of Behavioral and Decision Sciences Program at the University of Pennsylvania.

Stay at home to save lives.

Stay at home to save your grandmother’s life.

Stay at home to save your life.

These types of messages have been circulating media messaging from news programs to advertisements to Instagram to Tik Tok.

But what is the most effective way to convince people like you (yes, you!) to stay home during Covid-19?

Behavioural Science and insights from Social Norms research offer a perspective. A social norm can be defined as a set of behaviours that people collectively believe ought to be done, or what is socially approved or disapproved of. Creating a new social norm of staying at home is an interdependent behavioural problem, meaning the action of one person affects the actions of another.

Imagine the following: you are at home, following social distancing guidelines, and washing your hands frequently. You scroll through Instagram or turn on the news to see your friends or people your age still going out to beaches and hosting parties. Your perception of the guidelines and how they affect you will most likely change for the worse.

Messaging Effectively

Current and ongoing research during Covid-19 is measuring different types of wording that can be used in messaging.

One study run on U.S. participants looks at the effectiveness of moral messages on Americans’ self-reported intentions to wash their hands, avoid social gatherings, self-isolate, and share health messages, as well as their beliefs about others’ intentions. By presenting Facebook posts from either a citizen (high school teacher) or leader (Department of Education director), participants then rated their public health behavioural intentions.

Messages highlighting risks to younger adults, in addition to risks to older adults, made the individuals in the study perceive Covid-19 as a more serious threat

The researchers tested the efficacy of various messages by presenting messages to 1,032 participants representative of U.S. age, sex, and race/ethnicity. These were:

  • Non-moral messages: like “We all need to do this, however difficult,”
  • deontological messages: such as “It’s your duty”
  • virtue messages, like “Be a good person”
  • and utilitarian messages, including “Think of the consequences”

The researchers found that deontological messages focused on duties and responsibilities toward family, friends, and fellow citizens might be an effective messaging strategy, as deontological messaging improved reported behaviour and intentions more than the other messages tested. Additionally, where the message was coming from, either a leader or fellow citizen, did not change the effectiveness of the message, which is good news for government; this may mean messaging from governments will prove effective. Although not yet corroborated by other studies, these results show the importance of message phrasing as well as the impact of from where the messaging comes.

This framework represents the potential of using behavioural insights broadly to encourage good behaviour

Another important study published on April 6, 2020, is looking at the effect of the age category used in messaging. Does highlighting the risk to older adults influence the attitudes and behaviours of young adults beyond the effects of a broad informational message? Using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (Mturk), a popular survey service, to survey participants in the United States, the researchers have found that messages highlighting the risk to older adults alone have little power in influencing attitudes and behaviours among those age 40 or younger, encompassing the millennial generation and generation Z. However, messages highlighting risks to younger adults, in addition to risks to older adults, made the individuals in the study perceive Covid-19 as a more serious threat.

Norm Change and Measurement

Based on this prior research, we have developed a framework for how governments may nudge young adults to stay at home.

This framework represents the potential of using behavioural insights broadly to encourage good behaviour. One of the limitations of this approach is that it can only nudge. This approach does not use fines or force; it only recommends and attempts to persuade. Additionally, contradictory information about the virus complicates the overall insights that can be gained.

Governments looking to use nudges to encourage stay at home behaviour among young adults during Covid-19 can follow the behavioural change phases from the Theory of Cooperative Behavior Adoption when developing interventions:

Generate collective demand

  • People must believe staying at home should occur (Personal Normative Beliefs)
  • People must believe that others think people should stay at home (Normative Expectations)

Coordinate a shift in behaviour

  • People must believe that others are (or soon will be) adopting the stay at home behaviour (Empirical Expectations)

Strengthen the new social norm

  • People must believe that others will find out if someone does not stay at home (observability)
  • People must believe that if one is caught not staying at home that no excuse will be seen as valid (eliminate excuses)

The severity of this health crisis means that we cannot in good faith say that governments should simply follow this framework. Anyone looking to apply this will need to incorporate all the available knowledge that we have about the pandemic so far, and weigh all the options. However, based on the available information we have at this time, we believe this is a more effective way of ensuring young people stay at home than what is being implemented in many countries. — Cameo Hazlewood, Gwyneth Teo, Justin Thompson and Jordan Sessa

(Picture credit: Unsplash)

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