Can hearing that others follow health advice encourage people who distrust science to do the same?

Details

During public health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the researchers identified a critical need for interventions emphasizing group unification. Such interventions could encourage personal and collective adherence to health advice, strengthen national solidarity, and reduce conspiracy beliefs, particularly among people skeptical of or distrustful toward science.

The researchers conducted three experimental studies with a total of 1,604 participants in Ireland and Kosovo. Experiments 1 and 3 took place online, while Experiment 2 took place in a real-world setting. They assessed participants’ trust in science—meaning their trust in science and scientists—and exposed them to one of three conditions concerning COVID-19 health advice. In the compliance condition, participants received information that most members of their ingroup followed the advice. In the non-compliance condition, the information said most ingroup members did not follow it. The control condition provided no health-advice information.

Overall, the compliance condition, compared with the non-compliance or control conditions, led participants with low trust in science, relative to those with high trust, to report stronger intentions to follow health advice, expect ingroup members to do the same, feel greater national solidarity, and reduce their conspiracy beliefs. Participants’ feelings of national solidarity explained the observed effects.

The researchers concluded that compliance with health advice during a health crisis can both enhance national solidarity and promote adherence to health behaviors while reducing conspiracy beliefs, especially among those initially skeptical of science. The reported adherence finding concerned intentions to follow advice, rather than observed adherence behavior.