TY - JOUR
T1 - Your health vs. my liberty
T2 - Philosophical beliefs dominated reflection and identifiable victim effects when predicting public health recommendation compliance during the COVID-19 pandemic
AU - Byrd, Nick
AU - Białek, Michał
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2021/7
Y1 - 2021/7
N2 - In response to crises, people sometimes prioritize fewer specific identifiable victims over many unspecified statistical victims. How other factors can explain this bias remains unclear. So two experiments investigated how complying with public health recommendations during the COVID19 pandemic depended on victim portrayal, reflection, and philosophical beliefs (Total N = 998). Only one experiment found that messaging about individual victims increased compliance compared to messaging about statistical victims—i.e., “flatten the curve” graphs—an effect that was undetected after controlling for other factors. However, messaging about flu (vs. COVID19) indirectly reduced compliance by reducing perceived threat of the pandemic. Nevertheless, moral beliefs predicted compliance better than messaging and reflection in both experiments. The second experiment's additional measures revealed that religiosity, political preferences, and beliefs about science also predicted compliance. This suggests that flouting public health recommendations may be less about ineffective messaging or reasoning than philosophical differences.
AB - In response to crises, people sometimes prioritize fewer specific identifiable victims over many unspecified statistical victims. How other factors can explain this bias remains unclear. So two experiments investigated how complying with public health recommendations during the COVID19 pandemic depended on victim portrayal, reflection, and philosophical beliefs (Total N = 998). Only one experiment found that messaging about individual victims increased compliance compared to messaging about statistical victims—i.e., “flatten the curve” graphs—an effect that was undetected after controlling for other factors. However, messaging about flu (vs. COVID19) indirectly reduced compliance by reducing perceived threat of the pandemic. Nevertheless, moral beliefs predicted compliance better than messaging and reflection in both experiments. The second experiment's additional measures revealed that religiosity, political preferences, and beliefs about science also predicted compliance. This suggests that flouting public health recommendations may be less about ineffective messaging or reasoning than philosophical differences.
KW - COVID19
KW - Cognitive psychology
KW - Cognitive reflection test
KW - Effective altruism
KW - Experimental philosophy
KW - Identifiable victim effect
KW - Moral psychology
KW - Numeracy
KW - Political psychology
KW - Public health
KW - Religiosity
KW - Science communication
KW - Social psychology
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85102797664&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85102797664&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104649
DO - 10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104649
M3 - Article
C2 - 33756152
AN - SCOPUS:85102797664
SN - 0010-0277
VL - 212
JO - Cognition
JF - Cognition
M1 - 104649
ER -