The effect of norm-based messages on reading and understanding COVID-19 pandemic response governmental rules

Ennio Bilancini, Leonardo Boncinelli, Valerio Capraro () and Roberto Di Paolo
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Valerio Capraro: Middlesex University London
Roberto Di Paolo: IMT School of Advanced Studies, Lucca, Italy

Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy, 2020, vol. 4, issue S, 45-55

Abstract: The new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) threatens the lives of millions of people around the world, making it the largest health threat in recent times. Billions of people around the world are asked to adhere to strict shelter-in-place rules, finalized to slow down the spread of the virus. Appeals and messages are being used by leaders and policymakers to promote pandemic response. Given the stakes at play, it is thus important for social scientists to explore which messages are most effective in promoting pandemic response. In fact, some papers in the last month have explored the effect of several messages on people's intentions to engage in pandemic response behavior. In this paper, we make two contributions. First, we explore the effect of messages on people's actual engagement, and not on intentions. Specifically, our dependent variables are the level of understanding of official COVID-19 pandemic response governmental informative panels, measured through comprehension questions, and the time spent on reading these rules. Second, we test a novel set of appeals built through the theory of norms. One message targets the personal norm (what people think is the right thing to do), one targets the descriptive norm (what people think others are doing), and one targets the injunctive norm (what people think others approve or disapprove of). Our experiment is conducted online with a representative (with respect to gender, age, and location) sample of Italians. Norms are made salient using a flier. We find that norm-based fliers had no effect on comprehension and on time spent on the panels. These results suggest that norm-based interventions through fliers have very little impact on people's reading and understanding of COVID-19 pandemic response governmental rules.

Keywords: norm-based messages; nudging; health policy; pandemic response (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D91 I12 P35 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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