Psychological predictors of prevention behaviors during the covid-19 pandemic

Widespread public adoption of behaviors that can prevent the spread of COVID-19 is key to controlling the infection rate. In a nationally representative survey administered April 24 to May 11, 2020, we identified psychological predictors of three preventive behaviors: social distancing, practicing respiratory hygiene (such as hand washing and coughing into a tissue), and mask wearing. All three behaviors were strongly predicted by their perceived effectiveness and were moderately predicted by anxiety about COVID-19 and by perceived behavioral norms. The perceived effectiveness of social distancing also predicted the self-reported number of exposures to people outside the household, and this relationship was mediated by social distancing behavior. In other words, greater perceived effectiveness of social distancing predicted greater compliance with distancing recommendations, which in turn was linked to lower exposure. On the basis of our findings, we suggest some actions that might promote long-term adherence to preventive behaviors even if rapidly shifting beliefs about the risks posed by the virus diminish the public’s susceptibility to intervention. © 2020, Brookings Institution Press. All rights reserved.

A megastudy of text-based nudges encouraging patients to get vaccinated at an upcoming doctor's appointment

Many Americans fail to get life-saving vaccines each year, and the availability of a vaccine for COVID-19 makes the challenge of encouraging vaccination more urgent than ever. We present a large field experiment (N = 47,306) testing 19 nudges delivered to patients via text message and designed to boost adoption of the influenza vaccine. Our findings suggest that text messages sent prior to a primary care visit can boost vaccination rates by an average of 5%. Overall, interventions performed better when they were 1) framed as reminders to get flu shots that were already reserved for the patient and 2) congruent with the sort of communications patients expected to receive from their healthcare provider (i.e., not surprising, casual, or interactive). The best-performing intervention in our study reminded patients twice to get their flu shot at their upcoming doctor's appointment and indicated it was reserved for them. This successful script could be used as a template for campaigns to encourage the adoption of life-saving vaccines, including against COVID-19.