Changing collective behaviour and supporting non-pharmaceutical interventions is an important component in mitigating virus transmission during a pandemic. In a large international collaboration (Study 1, N = 49,968 across 67 countries), we investigated self-reported factors associated with public health behaviours (e.g., spatial distancing and stricter hygiene) and endorsed public policy interventions (e.g., closing bars and restaurants) during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic (April-May 2020). Respondents who reported identifying more strongly with their nation consistently reported greater engagement in public health behaviours and support for public health policies. Results were similar for representative and non-representative national samples. Study 2 (N = 42 countries) conceptually replicated the central finding using aggregate indices of national identity (obtained using the World Values Survey) and a measure of actual behaviour change during the pandemic (obtained from Google mobility reports). Higher levels of national identification prior to the pandemic predicted lower mobility during the early stage of the pandemic (r = −0.40). We discuss the potential implications of links between national identity, leadership, and public health for managing COVID-19 and future pandemics.

Over the past decade, governments and organizations around the world have established behavioral insights teams advocating for randomized experiments. However, recent findings by M. N. Meyer et al. , Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 116 , 10723–10728 (2019) and P. R. Heck, C. F. Chabris, D. J. Watts, M. N. Meyer, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 117 , 18948–18950 (2020) suggest that people often rate randomized experiments as less appropriate than the policies they contain even when approving the implementation of either policy untested and when none of the individual policies is clearly superior. The authors warn that this could cause policymakers to avoid running large-scale field experiments or being transparent about running them and might contribute to an adverse heterogeneity bias in terms of who is participating in experiments. In one direct and six conceptual preregistered replications (total N = 5,200) of the previously published larger-effect studies, using the same main dependent variable but with variations in scenario wordings, recruitment platforms, and countries, and the addition of further measures to assess people’s views, we test the generalizability and robustness of these findings. Together, we find that the original results do not appear to generalize. That is, our triangulation reveals insufficient evidence to conclude that people exhibit a common pattern of behavior that would be consistent with relative experiment aversion, thereby supporting recent findings by R. Mislavsky, B. Dietvorst, U. Simonsohn, Mark. Sci. 39 , 1092–1104 (2020). Thus, policymakers may not need to be concerned about employing evidence-based practices more so than about universally implementing policies.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all domains of human life, including the economic and social fabric of societies. One of the central strategies for managing public health throughout the pandemic has been through persuasive messaging and collective behaviour change. To help scholars better understand the social and moral psychology behind public health behaviour, we present a dataset comprising of 51,404 individuals from 69 countries. This dataset was collected for the International Collaboration on Social & Moral Psychology of COVID-19 project (ICSMP COVID-19). This social science survey invited participants around the world to complete a series of moral and psychological measures and public health attitudes about COVID-19 during an early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic (between April and June 2020). The survey included seven broad categories of questions: COVID-19 beliefs and compliance behaviours; identity and social attitudes; ideology; health and well-being; moral beliefs and motivation; personality traits; and demographic variables. We report both raw and cleaned data, along with all survey materials, data visualisations, and psychometric evaluations of key variables.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all domains of human life, including the economic and social fabric of societies. One of the central strategies for managing public health throughout the pandemic has been through persuasive messaging and collective behavior change. To help scholars better understand the social and moral psychology behind public health behavior, we present a dataset comprising of 51,404 individuals from 69 countries. This dataset was collected for the International Collaboration on Social Moral Psychology of COVID-19 project (ICSMP COVID-19). This social science survey invited participants around the world to complete a series of individual differences and public health attitudes about COVID-19 during an early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic (between April and June 2020). The survey included seven broad categories of questions: COVID-19 beliefs and compliance behaviours; identity and social attitudes; ideology; health and well-being; moral beliefs and motivation; personality traits; and demographic variables. We report both raw and cleaned data, along with all survey materials, data visualisations, and psychometric evaluations of key variables.

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