Encouraging Social Compliance During COVID-19
Countless generals and management gurus have pontificated about how to organize armies and businesses. Some of them have even suggested ways to instruct their armies, be they corporate or military. These rules have broadly seeped into common practice regarding managing groups of all sizes. Sadly, these rules were not made for lay citizens — organizational structures and power hierarchies differ, and their rules need not apply.
Getting the public to follow instructions is not easy. This is even more apparent during the COVID-19 crisis, be it at home, work, in towns, cities, and/or countries. We need an updated social instruction list for the COVID-19 era, and behavioral science can help us. Here is a checklist for creating improved social instructions:
1. Specific and actionable
Specificity on what behaviors to take up — and why these actions are important — can promote good decision-making. For example, research published by the National Bureau of Economic Research suggests that when specific and personalized price information on the cost of prescriptions were provided to customers, their likelihood of switching plans increased and annual consumer costs decreased.1
Similarly, during the initial days of the COVID-19 crisis, specific and actionable instructions might have reduced the spread of the virus and saved lives — instructing people to wash their hands for two minutes every two hours, or explicitly suggesting handshakes be replaced with fist-bumps, may have been more effective than just suggesting people stop shaking hands.2
References
1. Jeffrey R. Kling, Sendhil Mullainathan, Eldar Shafir, Lee Vermeulen, Marian Wrobel (2011). Comparison Friction: Experimental Evidence from Medicare Drug Plans. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper. No. 17410
2. Multiple authors (2020). Increasing Adherence to Covid-19 Guidelines: Lessons from Existing Evidence. J-PAL Policy Briefs
3. Multiple authors (2020). Increasing Adherence to Covid-19 Guidelines: Lessons from Existing Evidence. J-PAL Policy Briefs
4. Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky (1979). Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica. 47, 263-291.
5. Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky (1981). The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice. Science. Vol. 211, Issue 4481, pp. 453-458
6. Abhijit Ramalingam, Antonio J. Morales, James M. Walker (2017). Varying experimental instructions to improve comprehension: Punishment in public goods games. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics. Volume 73, April 2018, Pages 66-73
7. Darrell L. Butler, Steven K. Jones (1986). Instructions to Human Subjects: Effects of Repetition on Task Errors. Perceptual and Motor Skills. Volume: 63 issue: 2, page(s): 451-454
8. Weizhen Xie, Stephen Campbell, Weiwei Zhang (2020). Working Memory Capacity Predicts Individual Differences in Social Distancing Compliance during the COVID-19 Pandemic in the U.S. PsyArXiv Preprints
9. Marcella Alsan, Owen Garrick, Grant Graziani (2019). Does Diversity Matter for Health? Experimental Evidence from Oakland. American Economic Review. Col 109. No. 12. Pp. 4071-4111
10. Aurélie Ouss, Alexander Peysakhovich (2015). When Punishment Doesn’t Pay: Cold Glow and Decisions to Punish. The Journal of Law & Economics. Vol. 58, No. 3, pp. 625-655
11. Multiple authors (2020). Increasing Adherence to Covid-19 Guidelines: Lessons from Existing Evidence. J-PAL Policy Briefs
12. Anukriti S, Catalina Herrera-Almanza, Mahesh Karra, Praveen Pathak (Forthcoming). Curse of the Mummy-ji: The Influence of Mothers-in-Law on Women in India. American Journal of Agricultural Economics
About the Author
Siddharth Ramalingam
Siddharth’s diverse education and experience feed his interest in the applicability of behavioral science in understanding our world and solving big problems. His work encompasses international development, consulting, finance, and social innovation. Apart from an MPA from Harvard University, he also has graduate degrees in Political Theory, Human Rights Law, Management, and Economics.
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