Social norms, social identities and the COVID‐19 pandemic: Theory and recommendations

Abstract

Sustained mass behaviour change is needed to tackle the COVID‐19 pandemic, but many of the required changes run contrary to existing social norms (e.g., physical closeness with in‐group members). This paper explains how social norms and social identities are critical to explaining and changing public behaviour. Recommendations are presented for how to harness these social processes to maximise adherence to COVID‐19 public health guidance. Specifically, we recommend that public health messages clearly define who the target group is, are framed as identity‐affirming rather than identity‐contradictory, include complementary injunctive and descriptive social norm information, are delivered by in‐group members and that support is provided to enable the public to perform the requested behaviours.

Can culture beat Covid-19? Evidence that exposure to facemasks with cultural symbols increases solidarity

“…In other words, exposure to a shared social identity prime increased actual helping behaviour (Levine et al, 2005), consistent with group-relevant norms (Derbaix & Decrop, 2011). In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, the activation of a targeted social identity (e.g., national identity) can potentially shape the perceptions of people who subscribe to this identity ("As a Scottish national, I protect my fellow citizens") and related behaviours such as mask-wearing (Neville et al, 2021;Scottish Government, 2020). Thus, facemasks that activate a social identity that relates to solidarity (i.e., cultural facemasks) can be a social resource via triggering the provision of social support (Haslam et al, 2022).…”

“…For example, the delivery of public health messages using figures that wear a cultural facemask could potentially increase facemask use among targeted social groups (Elcheroth & Drury, 2020). In addition, the use of cultural facemasks can potentially serve to inspire solidarity and positive intergroup relations in settings of potential social conflict such as protests (Nassauer, 2019) and sport events (Newson, 2017), for example, via the activation of a superordinate (e.g., national) social identity (Levine et al, 2005;Neville et al, 2021). Finally, our findings suggest that the use of cultural facemasks can increase positive interpersonal perceptions towards staff in hospitals and health clinics (where death awareness is arguably high), thereby potentially serving to prevent abuse towards medical staff in the Covid-19 pandemic (Mahase, 2021).…”

“…Accordingly, research and theory concerning the psychological effects of facemask exposure (Biermann et al, 2021;Cartaud et al, 2020;Fitousi et al, 2021;Grundmann et al, 2021;Kastendieck et al, 2021;Klucarova, 2021;Parada-Fernández et al, 2022;Rosa et al, 2020;Wu, Liang, et al, 2021) and the associations attached to facemasks in general (Cheng et al, 2020;Huang et al, 2021;Ji, 2020;Timpka & Nyce, 2021) and to specific types (e.g., surgical) of facemasks (Goh et al, 2020;Klucarova, 2021;Mokdad, 2021;Perach, 2020;Tateo, 2020) are emerging. In this paper, we propose that exposure to facemasks with a cultural symbol that relates to solidarity can activate cultural values such as mutual trust and thereby increase interpersonal perceptions compatible with these values (Neville et al, 2021;Vail et al, 2012). In other words, in the Covid-19 pandemic, facemask selection can potentially promote solidarity by affecting people's malleable interpersonal perceptions (Cheng et al, 2020;Elcheroth & Drury, 2020).…”

Challenges to Learners in Interpreting Self as Other, Post COVID-19

“…The limitations introduced by COVID-19 have brought various ways in which the body has been augmented and, as such, a distance has developed between the self and what is perceived. Some of these body augmentations have been in direct contrast to what the norm previously considered important for ingroup membership [83]. Thus, the norms of the ingroup have changed [84].…”

Do disasters trigger protests? A conceptual view and review of the connection between disasters, injustice, and protests – the case of COVID-19

“…In crowd events such as protests and rallies a shared social identity often emerges (e.g., Reicher, 1984). The social identity, shared with other protest participants, provides us with definitions of possible and appropriate conduct, and enables people to act collectively in normative ways according to ingroup norms (see Drury and Reicher, 2000;Neville et al, 2021). When a social identity is salient, people will view themselves as a member of that group identity and act according to the identity norms and values.…”