Allen James, Mahumane Arlete, Riddell James, Rosenblat Tanya, Yang Dean, Yu Hang
International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
Beira Operational Research Center, National Institute of Health, Mozambique.
Econ Dev Cult Change. 2024 Oct;73(1):221-242. doi: 10.1086/727192. Epub 2024 Sep 9.
Can informing people of high community support for social distancing encourage them to do more of it? We randomly assigned a treatment correcting individuals' underestimates of community support for social distancing. In theory, informing people that more neighbors support social distancing than expected encourages and the perceived benefits from social distancing. At the same time, the treatment induces people to revise their beliefs about the infectiousness of COVID-19 upwards; this effect as well as the effect the perceived benefits from social distancing. We estimate impacts on social distancing, measured using a combination of self-reports and reports of others. While experts surveyed in advance expected the treatment to increase social distancing, we find that its average effect is close to zero and significantly lower than expert predictions. However, the treatment's effect is heterogeneous, as predicted by theory: it decreases social distancing where current COVID-19 cases are low (where free-riding dominates), but increases it where cases are high (where the perceived-infectiousness effect dominates). These findings highlight that correcting misperceptions may have heterogeneous effects depending on disease prevalence.
告知人们社区对社交距离有高度支持能否鼓励他们更多地保持社交距离？我们随机分配了一种处理方式，以纠正个人对社区对社交距离支持程度的低估。从理论上讲，告知人们支持社交距离的邻居比预期的更多，会鼓励人们这么做，并增加社交距离带来的感知益处。同时，这种处理方式会促使人们向上修正他们对新冠病毒传染性的看法；这种影响以及社交距离带来的感知益处的影响。我们使用自我报告和他人报告相结合的方式来衡量对社交距离的影响。虽然预先调查的专家预计这种处理方式会增加社交距离，但我们发现其平均效果接近于零，且显著低于专家预测。然而，正如理论所预测的，这种处理方式的效果是异质性的：在当前新冠病例较少的地方（搭便车占主导），它会减少社交距离，但在病例较多的地方（感知传染性效应占主导），它会增加社交距离。这些发现凸显出，纠正错误认知可能会因疾病流行程度而产生异质性影响。
