Evaluating expectations from social and behavioral science about COVID-19 and lessons for the next pandemic (preprint)

Social and behavioral science research proliferated during the COVID-19 pandemic, reflecting the substantial increase in influence of behavioral science in public health and public policy more broadly. This review presents a comprehensive assessment of 742 scientific articles on human behavior during COVID-19. Two independent teams evaluated 19 substantive policy recommendations (“claims”) on potentially critical aspects of behaviors during the pandemic drawn from the most widely cited behavioral science papers on COVID-19. Teams were made up of original authors and an independent team, all of whom were blinded to other team member reviews throughout. Both teams found evidence in support of 16 of the claims; for two claims, teams found only null evidence; and for no claims did the teams find evidence of effects in the opposite direction. One claim had no evidence available to assess. Seemingly due to the risks of the pandemic, most studies were limited to surveys, highlighting a need for more investment in field research and behavioral validation studies. The strongest findings indicate interventions that combat misinformation and polarization, and to utilize effective forms of messaging that engage trusted leaders and emphasize positive social norms.

Elite Party Cues Increase Vaccination Intentions among Republicans (preprint)

Overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic requires motivating the vast majority of Americans to get vaccinated. However, vaccination rates have become politically polarized, and a substantial proportion of Republicans have remained vaccine-hesitant for months. Here, we explore how endorsements by party elites affect Republicans’ COVID-19 vaccine intentions and attitudes. In a pre-registered survey experiment (N = 1,480), we varied whether self-identified Republicans saw endorsements of the vaccine from prominent Republicans (including video of a speech by former President Donald Trump), from the Democratic party (including video of a speech by President Joseph Biden), or a neutral control condition including no endorsements. Unvaccinated Republicans who were exposed to the Republican elite endorsement reported 7.0% higher vaccination intentions than those who viewed the Democratic elite endorsement and 5.7% higher than those in the neutral control condition. These effects were statistically mediated by participants’ reports of how much they thought Republican politicians would want them to get vaccinated. We also found evidence of backlash effects against Democratic elites: Republicans who viewed the Democratic elite endorsement reported they would be significantly less likely to encourage others to vaccinate and had more negative attitudes towards the vaccine, compared with those who viewed the Republican elite endorsement or the neutral control. These results demonstrate the relative advantage of cues from Republican elites - and the risks of messaging from Democrats currently in power - for promoting vaccination among the largest vaccine-hesitant subgroup in the U.S.

Using Short Messages to Encourage COVID-19 Prevention Behaviors (preprint)

Controlling the spread of COVID-19 requires persuading the mass public to change their behavior in significant ways. Many efforts to encourage behavior change, such as public service announcements, social media posts, and billboards, involve short, persuasive appeals, yet the effectiveness of these messages is unknown. Here, we test whether short messages increase intentions to comply with public health guidelines. Research was conducted in the United States from March-July 2020. To identify promising messages, we conducted two pretests (total N = 1,596) where participants rated the persuasiveness of 56 unique messages: 31 based on the persuasion and social influence literature and 25 from a pool of 600 crowdsourced messages by online respondents. The four top-rated messages emphasized 1) civic responsibility to reciprocate the sacrifices of health care workers, 2) caring for the elderly and vulnerable, 3) a specific, sympathetic victim, and 4) limited health care system capacity. We then conducted three well-powered, pre-registered experiments (total N = 3,719) testing whether these four top-rated messages and a standard public health message based on language from the CDC increased intentions to comply with public health guidelines. In Study 1, we find the four messages and the standard public health message significantly outperformed a null control. In Studies 2 and 3, we compared the effects of persuasive messages to the standard public health message, finding that none consistently out-performed the standard public health message. Short messages can increase intentions to comply with public health guidelines, but short messages featuring persuasive techniques from the social science literature did not substantially outperform standard public health messages.

Using social and behavioural science to support COVID-19 pandemic response (preprint)

The COVID-19 pandemic represents a massive global health crisis. Because the crisis requires large-scale behaviour change and places significant psychological burdens on individuals, insights from the social and behavioural sciences can be used to help align human behavior with the recommendations of epidemiologists and public health experts. Here we discuss evidence from a selection of research topics relevant to pandemics, including work on navigating threats, social and cultural influences on behaviour, science communication, moral decision-making, leadership, and stress and coping. In each section, we note the nature and quality of prior research, including uncertainty and unsettled issues. We identify several insights for effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and also highlight important gaps researchers should move quickly to fill in the coming weeks and months.