Social norms, social identities and the COVID-19 pandemic: theory and recommendations

Fergus G. Neville; Anne Templeton; Joanne Smith; Winnifred Louis

doi:10.1111/spc3.12596

Social norms, social identities and the COVID-19 pandemic: theory and recommendations

Fergus G. Neville, Anne Templeton, Joanne Smith, Winnifred Louis

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Sustained mass behaviour change is needed to tackle the COVID‐19 pandemic, but many of the required changes run contrary to existing social norms (e.g., physical closeness with in‐group members). This paper explains how social norms and social identities are critical to explaining and changing public behaviour. Recommendations are presented for how to harness these social processes to maximise adherence to COVID‐19 public health guidance. Specifically, we recommend that public health messages clearly define who the target group is, are framed as identity‐affirming rather than identity‐contradictory, include complementary injunctive and descriptive social norm information, are delivered by in‐group members and that support is provided to enable the public to perform the requested behaviours.

Original language	English
Article number	e12596
Number of pages	12
Journal	Social and Personality Psychology Compass
Volume	15
Issue number	5
Early online date	10 Apr 2021
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12596
Publication status	Published - May 2021

Keywords

Social norms
Social identities
Behaviour change
Leadership
COVID-19
Pandemic
Coronavirus

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1111/spc3.12596Licence: CC BY

Neville_2021_SPPC_Socialnorms_CC
Copyright © 2021 The Authors. Social and Personality Psychology Compass published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Final published version, 206 KBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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abstract = "Sustained mass behaviour change is needed to tackle the COVID‐19 pandemic, but many of the required changes run contrary to existing social norms (e.g., physical closeness with in‐group members). This paper explains how social norms and social identities are critical to explaining and changing public behaviour. Recommendations are presented for how to harness these social processes to maximise adherence to COVID‐19 public health guidance. Specifically, we recommend that public health messages clearly define who the target group is, are framed as identity‐affirming rather than identity‐contradictory, include complementary injunctive and descriptive social norm information, are delivered by in‐group members and that support is provided to enable the public to perform the requested behaviours.",

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KW - Social identities

KW - Behaviour change

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Social norms, social identities and the COVID-19 pandemic: theory and recommendations

Abstract

Keywords

UN SDGs

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