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

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

doi:10.1111/spc3.12596

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

Soc Personal Psychol Compass. 2021 May;15(5):e12596. doi: 10.1111/spc3.12596. Epub 2021 Apr 10.

Authors

Fergus G Neville¹, Anne Templeton², Joanne R Smith³, Winnifred R Louis⁴

Affiliations

¹ School of Management University of St Andrews St Andrews UK.
² School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences University of Edinburgh Edinburgh UK.
³ School of Psychology University of Exeter Exeter UK.
⁴ School of Psychology University of Queensland Brisbane Queensland Australia.

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.