Don’t get it or don’t spread it: comparing self-interested versus prosocial motivations for COVID-19 prevention behaviors
Name
s41598-021-97617-5.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
3.99 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
70a12af65a47aaaf4cbbe900ed680b51
Author(s)
Jordan, Jillian J
Yoeli, Erez
Rand, David G
Date Issued
2021
Journal
Scientific Reports
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Citation
Jordan, Jillian J, Yoeli, Erez and Rand, David G. 2021. "Don’t get it or don’t spread it: comparing self-interested versus prosocial motivations for COVID-19 prevention behaviors." Scientific Reports, 11 (1).
Version
Final published version
Abstract
AbstractCOVID-19 prevention behaviors may be seen as self-interested or prosocial. Using American samples from MTurk and Prolific (total n = 6850), we investigated which framing is more effective—and motivation is stronger—for fostering prevention behavior intentions. We evaluated messaging that emphasized personal, public, or personal and public benefits of prevention. In initial studies (conducted March 14–16, 2020), the Public treatment was more effective than the Personal treatment, and no less effective than the Personal + Public treatment. In additional studies (conducted April 17–30, 2020), all three treatments were similarly effective. Across all these studies, the perceived public threat of coronavirus was also more strongly associated with prevention intentions than the perceived personal threat. Furthermore, people who behaved prosocially in incentivized economic games years before the pandemic had greater prevention intentions. Finally, in a field experiment (conducted December 21–23, 2020), we used our three messaging strategies to motivate contact-tracing app signups (n = 152,556 newsletter subscribers). The design of this experiment prevents strong causal inference; however, the results provide suggestive evidence that the Personal + Public treatment may have been more effective than the Personal or Public treatment. Together, our results highlight the importance of prosocial motives for COVID-19 prevention.
MIT Department
Sloan School of Management
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/S41598-021-97617-5
