Structured reflection increases intentions to reduce other people's health risks during COVID-19

Jairo Ramos; Marrissa D Grant; Stephan Dickert; Kimin Eom; Alex Flores; Gabriela M Jiga-Boy; Tehila Kogut; Marcus Mayorga; Eric J Pedersen; Beatriz Pereira; Enrico Rubaltelli; David K Sherman; Paul Slovic; Daniel Västfjäll; Leaf Van Boven

doi:10.1093/pnasnexus/pgac218

Structured reflection increases intentions to reduce other people's health risks during COVID-19

PNAS Nexus. 2022 Oct 3;1(5):pgac218. doi: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgac218. eCollection 2022 Nov.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.
² School of Business and Management, Queen Mary University of London, London E1 4N, UK.
³ Department of Psychology, University of Klagenfurt, 9020 Klagenfurt, Austria.
⁴ School of Social Sciences, Singapore Management University, 81 Victoria St, Singapore 188065.
⁵ School of Psychology, Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea SA2 8PP, UK.
⁶ Department of Education, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 653, Beer-Sheva 8410501, Israel.
⁷ Decision Research; University of Oregon, 1585 E, 13th Ave, Eugene, OR 97403, USA.
⁸ Department of Marketing, Ivy College of Business, Iowa State University, Gerdin Business Bldg, 2167 Union Dr, Ames, IA 50011, USA.
⁹ Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, University of Padua, Via 8 Febbraio, 2-35122 Padova, Italy.
¹⁰ Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9660, USA.
¹¹ Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning, Division of Psychology, Linköping University, SE-581 83 Linköping, Sweden.

Abstract

People believe they should consider how their behavior might negatively impact other people, Yet their behavior often increases others' health risks. This creates challenges for managing public health crises like the COVID-19 pandemic. We examined a procedure wherein people reflect on their personal criteria regarding how their behavior impacts others' health risks. We expected structured reflection to increase people's intentions and decisions to reduce others' health risks. Structured reflection increases attention to others' health risks and the correspondence between people's personal criteria and behavioral intentions. In four experiments during COVID-19, people (N = 12,995) reported their personal criteria about how much specific attributes, including the impact on others' health risks, should influence their behavior. Compared with control conditions, people who engaged in structured reflection reported greater intentions to reduce business capacity (experiment 1) and avoid large social gatherings (experiments 2 and 3). They also donated more to provide vaccines to refugees (experiment 4). These effects emerged across seven countries that varied in collectivism and COVID-19 case rates (experiments 1 and 2). Structured reflection was distinct from instructions to carefully deliberate (experiment 3). Structured reflection increased the correlation between personal criteria and behavioral intentions (experiments 1 and 3). And structured reflection increased donations more among people who scored lower in cognitive reflection compared with those who scored higher in cognitive reflection (experiment 4). These findings suggest that structured reflection can effectively increase behaviors to reduce public health risks.

Keywords: COVID-19; boost; decision making; nudge; structured reflection.