Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
J Prim Prev. 2021 Jun;42(3):309-318. doi: 10.1007/s10935-021-00633-4. Epub 2021 May 1.
To combat the rampant spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that is responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has provided Americans with empirically supported preventive behavioral guidelines (e.g., wearing a face mask). However, there is a need to develop behavioral strategies that can effectively increase adherence to these guidelines, especially for young adults, who report particularly poor adherence. Across several domains of prevention science, norms-based interventions have successfully motivated constructive health behavior by correcting normative misperceptions, but these strategies are only relevant when these misperceptions are widespread. We examined the accuracy of young adults' perceptions of peers' adherence to CDC-recommended behavioral guidelines (i.e., perceived social norms) to assess the rationale for employing norm-correcting strategies. Young adult college students (N = 539; M = 19.5 years) self-reported their level of adherence to a list of preventive behavioral guidelines and estimated the norms regarding the extent to which other young adults adhered to these guidelines. We measured adherence and perceived norms for each guideline in terms of adherence frequency, ranging from 0 to 100% of the time. We found that young adults, on average, underestimated the extent to which other young adults adhere to each of the recommended preventive behaviors. That is, young adults tended to think that other young adults are failing to adhere to CDC guidelines, whereas our self-reported data showed adherence frequency may be quite high. Moreover, we found positive associations between self-reported adherence and perceptions of others' adherence-that is, those who underestimated others' adherence also self-reported lower adherence to guidelines. Findings from this study establish proof-of-concept for the development of norms-based strategies designed to improve young adults' adherence to preventive behavioral guidelines that are both specific to the COVID-19 pandemic and that prepare for future contagious outbreaks.
为了应对导致 COVID-19 大流行的 SARS-CoV-2 病毒的猖獗传播，疾病控制与预防中心（CDC）为美国人提供了经验支持的预防性行为准则（例如，戴口罩）。然而，需要开发能够有效提高这些准则的遵守率的行为策略，特别是对于年轻人，他们报告的遵守率特别差。在预防科学的多个领域中，基于规范的干预措施通过纠正规范的误解成功地激发了建设性的健康行为，但这些策略只有在这些误解广泛存在时才相关。我们检查了年轻人对同龄人遵守 CDC 推荐的行为准则（即感知的社会规范）的看法的准确性，以评估采用规范纠正策略的合理性。年轻的大学生（N=539；M=19.5 岁）自我报告了他们对一系列预防性行为准则的遵守程度，并估计了其他年轻人对这些准则的遵守程度的规范。我们以遵守频率（0 到 100%的时间）来衡量每个准则的遵守程度和感知规范。我们发现，年轻人平均低估了其他年轻人遵守每个推荐预防行为的程度。也就是说，年轻人倾向于认为其他年轻人没有遵守 CDC 准则，而我们的自我报告数据显示，遵守频率可能相当高。此外，我们发现自我报告的遵守程度与对他人遵守程度的感知之间存在正相关关系，即那些低估他人遵守程度的人也自我报告了较低的准则遵守程度。这项研究的结果为制定基于规范的策略提供了概念验证，这些策略旨在提高年轻人对特定于 COVID-19 大流行的预防性行为准则的遵守率，并为未来的传染病爆发做好准备。
