Partisanship unmasked? The role of politics and social norms in COVID-19 mask-wearing behavior
Partisanship unmasked? The role of politics and social norms in COVID-19 mask-wearing behavior
Public health officials have faced resistance in their efforts to promote mask-wearing to counter the spread of COVID-19. One approach to promoting behavior change is to alert people to the fact that a behavior is common (a descriptive norm). However, partisan differences in pandemic mitigation behavior mean that Americans may be especially (in)sensitive to information about behavioral norms depending on the party affiliation of the group in question. In July–August 2020, we tested the effects of providing information to respondents about how many Americans, co-partisans, or out-partisans report wearing masks regularly on both mask-wearing intentions and on the perceived effectiveness of masks. Learning that a majority of Americans report wearing masks regularly increases mask-wearing intentions and perceived effectiveness, though the effects of this information are not distinguishable from other treatments.
377-390
Carey, John
c5dd309e-9fcf-4863-83c5-20a3923cc5dc
Nyhan, Brendan
76e1ec80-0af5-432d-9dd6-f7e8237191e4
Phillips, Joseph B.
44de5ef5-7ffe-438a-b591-b3968850b626
Reifler, Jason
426301a1-f90b-470d-a076-04a9d716c491
Carey, John
c5dd309e-9fcf-4863-83c5-20a3923cc5dc
Nyhan, Brendan
76e1ec80-0af5-432d-9dd6-f7e8237191e4
Phillips, Joseph B.
44de5ef5-7ffe-438a-b591-b3968850b626
Reifler, Jason
426301a1-f90b-470d-a076-04a9d716c491
Carey, John, Nyhan, Brendan, Phillips, Joseph B. and Reifler, Jason
(2022)
Partisanship unmasked? The role of politics and social norms in COVID-19 mask-wearing behavior.
Journal of Experimental Political Science, 10 (3), .
(doi:10.1017/XPS.2022.20).
Abstract
Public health officials have faced resistance in their efforts to promote mask-wearing to counter the spread of COVID-19. One approach to promoting behavior change is to alert people to the fact that a behavior is common (a descriptive norm). However, partisan differences in pandemic mitigation behavior mean that Americans may be especially (in)sensitive to information about behavioral norms depending on the party affiliation of the group in question. In July–August 2020, we tested the effects of providing information to respondents about how many Americans, co-partisans, or out-partisans report wearing masks regularly on both mask-wearing intentions and on the perceived effectiveness of masks. Learning that a majority of Americans report wearing masks regularly increases mask-wearing intentions and perceived effectiveness, though the effects of this information are not distinguishable from other treatments.
Text
partisanship-unmasked-the-role-of-politics-and-social-norms-in-covid-19-mask-wearing-behavior
- Version of Record
More information
e-pub ahead of print date: 20 September 2022
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 501561
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/501561
ISSN: 2052-2630
PURE UUID: 117e2fed-512f-4ed2-aaf7-e21ff1796e90
Catalogue record
Date deposited: 03 Jun 2025 17:05
Last modified: 22 Aug 2025 02:43
Export record
Altmetrics
Contributors
Author:
John Carey
Author:
Brendan Nyhan
Author:
Joseph B. Phillips
Author:
Jason Reifler
Download statistics
Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.
View more statistics