With the spread of COVID-19, more countries now recommend their citizens to wear facemasks in public. The uptake of facemasks, however, remains far from universal in countries where this practice lacks cultural roots. In this paper, we aim to identify the barriers to mask-wearing in Spain, a country with no mask-wearing culture. We conduct one of the first nationally representative surveys (n = 4,000) about this unprecedented public health emergency and identify the profile of citizens who are more resistant to face-masking: young, educated, unconcerned with being infected, and with an introverted personality. Our results further indicate a positive correlation between a social norm of mask-wearing and mask uptake and demonstrate that uptake of facemasks is especially high among the elderly living in localities where mask-wearing behavior is popular. These results are robust when controlling for respondents’ demographics, time spent at home, and occupation fixed effects. Our findings can be useful for policymakers to devise effective programs for improving public compliance.

No abstract

As the COVID-19 spreads worldwide, countries increasingly recommend wearing facemasks in public. However, its uptake remains far from universal in countries where this practice lacks cultural roots. In this paper, we identify the barriers to mask-wearing in Spain, a country with no mask-wearing culture. We conduct one of the first nationally representative surveys (n = 4,000) about the COVID-19, and uncover the associations of mask-wearing behavior with: a) demographics; b) disease-related anxiety and risk perceptions; c) personality traits; d) social acceptability of mask-wearing. Our results can serve policymakers to design programs for improving compliance. Governments should target efforts to the introverted and the highly educated, as well as advertising mask-wearing as an injunctive norm to encourage their citizens, particularly the elderly, to wear facemasks.

No abstract

During the outbreak of an epidemic, the success in risk communications to make the public comply with disease preventive measures depends on the public’s trust in the government. In this study, we aim to understand how media audiences update their trust in the government during the COVID-19 outbreak depending on the information they received. We conducted an online survey experiment in February 2020 in Hong Kong (n = 1,016) in which respondents were randomly provided with a government press release and an endorsement either from an official or a non-official source. This study shows that the information from a non-official source enhances the credibility of official government messages. Our findings imply that dictators can actually “borrow credibility” from their citizen journalists and even nondemocratic leaders can make themselves more trustworthy to potential dissenters through citizen journalism. Allowing information flow from non-official sources can be a practical measure for governments to address the problem of a credibility deficit during a pandemic.