Combating COVID-19 with Charisma: Evidence on Governor Speeches and Physical Distancing in the United States
We show that governor charisma can affect individual behavior to help mitigate COVID-related outcomes. We provide evidence in the field using deep neural ratings of charisma of governor speeches over time to explain physical distancing based on anonymized data from smart phones. We also show in an incentivized laboratory experiment that individuals who are conservative are more responsive to charismatic appeals of a governor, which drives their beliefs on whether their co-citizens will physically distance; these beliefs in turn appear to affect their behavior too. Interestingly, liberals are unaffected by charisma, as a result of their preference to physically distance regardless. These findings are important because they show that a learnable skill—or at least one that can be honed—can give leaders an additional weapon to complement policy interventions for pandemics, especially with certain populations who may need a “nudge,” and hence save lives.