Compliance Without Fear: Individual-Level Predictors of Protective Behavior During the First Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic requires rapid public compliance with advice from health authorities. Here, we ask who was most likely to do so during the first wave of the pandemic. We conducted cross-sectional and panel surveys in eight Western democracies between March 19 and May 16 asking 26,508 citizens about their protective behavior relating to COVID-19. Consistent with prior research on epidemics, we find that perceptions of threat are crucial and culturally uniform determinants of protective behavior. On this basis, authorities could potentially foster further compliance by appealing to fear of COVID-19, but there may be normative and practical limits to such a strategy. Instead, we find that another major source of compliance is feelings of knowledge-based efficacy. Using individual-level panel data, we find evidence that knowledge efficacy amendable to change and exerts an effect on protective behavior. Importantly, the effects of such feelings are especially strong among those who do not feel threatened, creating a path to compliance without fear. In contrast, two other major candidates for facilitating compliance from the social sciences, interpersonal trust and institutional trust, have surprisingly little motivational power. To address future waves of the pandemic, health authorities should thus focus on facilitating efficacy in the public.