The influence of gain-loss framing and its interaction with political ideology on social distancing and mask wearing compliance during the COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused millions of cases and over half a million deaths in the United States. While health experts urge citizens to adopt preventative measures such as social distancing and wearing a mask, these recommended behaviors are not always followed by the public. To find a way to...
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Published in | Current psychology (New Brunswick, N.J.) Vol. 42; no. 10; pp. 8028 - 8038 |
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Main Authors | , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
New York
Springer US
01.04.2023
Springer Springer Nature B.V |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | The COVID-19 pandemic has caused millions of cases and over half a million deaths in the United States. While health experts urge citizens to adopt preventative measures such as social distancing and wearing a mask, these recommended behaviors are not always followed by the public. To find a way to promote preventative measures, the present study examined the role of gain-loss framing of COVID-19 related messages on social distancing and mask wearing compliance. Moreover, the study also tested potential moderating effects on framing with three individual characteristics: political ideology, subjective numeracy, and risk attitude. A sample of 375 U.S. adult residents were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk. Each participant read either a gain or loss-framed message related to practicing protective behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants also completed scales of preventative behaviors, risk attitude, subjective numeracy, political ideology, and other demographic variables. It was found that those who were more liberal, risk-averse and had greater subjective numeracy were more likely to wear a mask and/or follow social distancing. Furthermore, in the presence of demographic and psychological factors, the study found participants in the loss-framed condition than in the gain-framed condition were more likely to adopt both preventative measures, supporting the notion of loss aversion. Additionally, the framing effect was also moderated by political ideology on mask-wearing, with the effect being stronger in liberals than in conservatives. Collectively, the study implies message framing may be a useful means to promote preventative measures in the current pandemic. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 1046-1310 1936-4733 |
DOI: | 10.1007/s12144-021-02148-x |