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“Keep your distance for me”: A field experiment on empathy prompts to promote distancing during the COVID ‐19 pandemic
Author(s) -
Ridder Denise,
Aarts Henk,
Benjamins Jeroen,
Glebbeek MarieLouise,
Leplaa Hidde,
Leseman Paul,
Potgieter Renske,
Tummers Lars,
ZondervanZwijnenburg Mariëlle
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of community and applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.042
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1099-1298
pISSN - 1052-9284
DOI - 10.1002/casp.2593
Subject(s) - social distance , empathy , pandemic , context (archaeology) , psychology , social psychology , globe , field (mathematics) , psychological intervention , covid-19 , distancing , intervention (counseling) , public relations , political science , medicine , mathematics , disease , pathology , neuroscience , psychiatry , infectious disease (medical specialty) , pure mathematics , paleontology , biology
The outbreak of COVID‐19 has turned out to be a major challenge to societies all over the globe. Curbing the pandemic requires rapid and extensive behavioural change to limit social interaction, including physical distancing. In this study, we tested the notion that inducing empathy for people vulnerable to the virus may result in actual distancing behaviour beyond the mere motivation to do so. In a large field experiment with a sequential case–control design, we found that (a) empathy prompts may increase distancing as assessed by camera recordings and (b) effectiveness of prompts depends on the dynamics of the pandemic and associated public health policies. In sum, the present study demonstrates the potential of empathy‐generating interventions to promote pro‐social behaviour and emphasizes the necessity of field experiments to assess the role of context before advising policy makers to implement measures derived from behavioural science. Please refer to Supplementary Material to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement