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

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Neville_2021_SPPC_Socialnorms_CC.pdf (205.7Kb)
Date
05/2021
Author
Neville, Fergus G.
Templeton, Anne
Smith, Joanne
Louis, Winnifred
Keywords
Social norms
Social identities
Behaviour change
Leadership
COVID-19
Pandemic
Coronavirus
BF Psychology
RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine
Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management
Business, Management and Accounting (miscellaneous)
Applied Psychology
Social Psychology
T-NDAS
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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.
Citation
Neville , F G , Templeton , A , Smith , J & Louis , W 2021 , ' Social norms, social identities and the COVID-19 pandemic : theory and recommendations ' , Social and Personality Psychology Compass , vol. 15 , no. 5 , e12596 . https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12596
Publication
Social and Personality Psychology Compass
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12596
ISSN
1751-9004
Type
Journal article
Rights
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.
Description
Funding information: Economic and Social Research Council grant awarded to FGN: ES/V005383/1.
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  • University of St Andrews Research
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/23012

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