Public communication proposal based on the analysis of the motivation for the adoption of prevention behaviors in the context of COVID-19.

  • Barbosa de la Torre, Sergio (PI)
  • Ordóñez, Camilo (CoI)
  • León Anhuamán, Laura Andrea (CoI)
  • Huerfia Coronado, Andrés David (Student)
  • van Bavel, Jay (PI)

Project: Research Project

Project Details

Description

The Covid-19 pandemic has generated many challenges for humanity. Responding to these challenges requires changes and adaptations not only in scientific, economic and public health developments, but also for each person to adopt caring behaviors in their daily lives to promote the well-being of themselves and others. In response to this pandemic, health authorities recommend behaviors such as frequent hand washing, voluntary home confinement, and, when it is necessary to go out in public, keeping a safe distance from other people and always wearing a mask, among others. While it seems clear that the adoption of such behaviors has a positive impact on pandemic containment, and the need and usefulness of adopting them has been widely reported, this has not necessarily implied that people in general adopt and persist with them over time, which has direct public health and economic consequences.
Using the media to deliver messages to the public is an effective strategy to encourage the adoption of new behaviors. According to Bicchieri (2017), if messages are designed appropriately, they can achieve changes in agents' beliefs, which in turn can motivate them to act in different ways than usual. The influence of such messages is based on their ability to create referents for social discussion, to present other possibilities for action accompanied by reasons for adopting them, to make comparisons between one's own actions and those of others, or to inform members of a social group about what others do and how they think. For example, Ferrara, Chong, and Duryea (2012) discuss suggest that depicting families of different sizes in soap operas seems to have an effect on the number of children that families who watch these soap operas have. DellaVigna and Kaplan (2007) show how the editorial line of newscasts has an effect on citizens' electoral decisions. Schultz, Nolan, Cialdini, Goldstein, and Griskevicius (2007) present evidence that informing citizens about the energy consumption of their fellow citizens, together with normative messages about what is appropriate consumption, causes everyone's consumption to be regulated.
However, it does not seem that just any communication can be effective in motivating changes in people's behavior. The mere fact of asking a group of citizens to follow a particular behavior pattern does not imply that the vast majority of them will do so, regardless of the causal or social reasons that may be related to adopting that pattern. In order to design effective messages to promote the adoption of behaviors, it is necessary to understand how those behaviors are embedded in the cognitive network of representations and motivations of citizens. For example, Moscovici and Marková, (2001) analyze how an English campaign

Layman's description

La aparición y expansión del Covid-19 fue sorpresiva para muchas autoridades a nivel mundial. Esperando el incierto desarrollo de una vacuna u otros tratamientos farmacológicos, solamente prácticas sencillas como lavarse las manos y mantenerse a una distancia prudente de otras personas permiten evitar la continua propagación del virus. Así, una vez el virus se ha difundido en una población, el control de su propagación queda principalmente en manos de los ciudadanos y sus acciones individuales. En consecuencia, los gobiernos locales y nacionales deben promover estas prácticas a través de diferentes estrategias de comunicación efectivas, de amplia difusión y adaptadas al contexto y necesidades de diferentes grupos sociales. Además, estas estrategias no pueden limitar libertades individuales por lo que se deben apoyar fuertemente en la co-regulación del comportamiento entre ciudadanos y no en políticas policivas. Así, variables como el control social, las normas percibidas, el riesgo percibido de la pandemia, consideraciones sobre la libertad individual y los deberes hacia los demás podrían determinar en gran medida porqué nos comportamos como nos comportamos, qué tanto somos conscientes de las consecuencias que pueden tener diversos comportamientos para nosotros y los demás.
En este sentido, se hace necesaria la caracterización de las motivaciones al comportamiento de la población colombiana, como un vital insumo para construir intervenciones dirigidas a promover dichas conductas de prevención en el contexto de la pandemia por Covid-19.
Short titleComunicación basada en la evidencia.
AcronymECO
StatusFinished
Effective start/end date9/1/203/31/21

UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This project contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being

Main Funding Source

  • National

Location

  • Bogotá D.C.

Fingerprint

Explore the research topics touched on by this project. These labels are generated based on the underlying awards/grants. Together they form a unique fingerprint.