A guilt-free strategy increases self-reported non-compliance with COVID-19 preventive measures: Experimental evidence from 12 countries

Jean-François Daoust; Éric Bélanger; Ruth Dassonneville; Erick Lachapelle; Richard Nadeau; Michael Becher; Sylvain Brouard; Martial Foucault; Christoph Hönnige; Daniel Stegmueller

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0249914

A guilt-free strategy increases self-reported non-compliance with COVID-19 preventive measures: Experimental evidence from 12 countries

PLoS One. 2021 Apr 21;16(4):e0249914. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0249914. eCollection 2021.

Affiliations

¹ University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
² McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
³ Université de Montréal, Montreal, Canada.
⁴ IAST & IE University, Segovia, Spain.
⁵ Sciences Po-CEVIPOF, Paris, France.
⁶ University of Hanover, Hanover, Germany.
⁷ Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America.

Abstract

Studies of citizens' compliance with COVID-19 preventive measures routinely rely on survey data. While such data are essential, public health restrictions provide clear signals of what is socially desirable in this context, creating a potential source of response bias in self-reported measures of compliance. In this research, we examine whether the results of a guilt-free strategy recently proposed to lessen this constraint are generalizable across twelve countries, and whether the treatment effect varies across subgroups. Our findings show that the guilt-free strategy is a useful tool in every country included, increasing respondents' proclivity to report non-compliance by 9 to 16 percentage points. This effect holds for different subgroups based on gender, age and education. We conclude that the inclusion of this strategy should be the new standard for survey research that aims to provide crucial data on the current pandemic.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adult
COVID-19 / prevention & control
COVID-19 / psychology*
Disease Transmission, Infectious / prevention & control
Female
Guilt
Humans
Male
Middle Aged
Pandemics
Patient Compliance / psychology*
SARS-CoV-2 / isolation & purification
Self Report / statistics & numerical data
Surveys and Questionnaires

Grants and funding

J.-F. Daoust acknowledges the financial support from SSPS Open Access (University of Edinburgh). M. Foucault and S. Brouard acknowledge the financial support from ANR – REPEAT grant (Special COVID-19), CNRS, Fondation de l’innovation politique, as well as regions Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Occitanie. Richard Nadeau and Éric Bélanger acknowledge the financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC/CRSH). M. Becher gratefully acknowledges IAST funding from the ANR under the Investments for the Future ("Investissements d'Avenir'") program, grant ANR-17-EURE-0010. D. Stegmueller acknowledges funding from Duke University and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2017S1A3A2066657). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.