ArticleScientific reports2021
Don't get it or don't spread it: comparing self-interested versus prosocial motivations for COVID-19 prevention behaviors.
Article in Scientific reports, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 163 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
163 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Pooled it
- Assessment of COVID-19 Messaging Strategies to Increase Testing for Students With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.The Journal of school health · 2024Trial
- "Let's get back to normal": emotions mediate the effects of persuasive messages on willingness to vaccinate for COVID-19.Frontiers in public health · 2024Trial
- Trial
- Economic risk framing increases intention to vaccinate among Republican COVID-19 vaccine refusers.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2023Trial
- Trial
- Impact of community masking on COVID-19: A cluster-randomized trial in Bangladesh.Science (New York, N.Y.) · 2022Trial
- Trial
- Trial
- Nudges for COVID-19 voluntary vaccination: How to explain peer information?Social science & medicine (1982) · 2022Trial
- Hesitancy Toward a COVID-19 Vaccine.EcoHealth · 2021Trial
- Trial
- Trial
- "Do Health Messages Come from Mars or Venus?" The Effectiveness of Health Communication Depends on Gender Stereotypes in Messages.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Framing vaccination as a collective responsibility increases intentions to vaccinate.Scandinavian journal of public health · 2026Article
- Side messages, side effects: Justifying infection prevention but fuelling social polarisation.SSM - population health · 2026Article
- The Role of Fear, Hope, Message Fatigue, and Message Shocking Value in Promoting the Public's Understanding and Support Toward COVID-19 Wastewater Monitoring: Experimental Study.JMIR formative research · 2026Article
- Adolescent wellbeing after COVID-related school-closings.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Threat, efficacy, and the ambivalent role of COVID-19 news: an EPPM analysis of health discrimination and preventive behaviors.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Motivational effectiveness of prosocial public health messaging to reduce respiratory infection risk: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Communications medicine · 2025Article
103 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
COVID-19 prevention behaviors may be seen as self-interested or prosocial. Using American samples from MTurk and Prolific (total n = 6850), we investigated which framing is more effective-and motivation is stronger-for fostering prevention behavior intentions. We evaluated messaging that emphasized personal, public, or personal and public benefits of prevention. In initial studies (conducted March 14-16, 2020), the Public treatment was more effective than the Personal treatment, and no less effective than the Personal + Public treatment. In additional studies (conducted April 17-30, 2020), all three treatments were similarly effective. Across all these studies, the perceived public threat of coronavirus was also more strongly associated with prevention intentions than the perceived personal threat. Furthermore, people who behaved prosocially in incentivized economic games years before the pandemic had greater prevention intentions. Finally, in a field experiment (conducted December 21-23, 2020), we used our three messaging strategies to motivate contact-tracing app signups (n = 152,556 newsletter subscribers). The design of this experiment prevents strong causal inference; however, the results provide suggestive evidence that the Personal + Public treatment may have been more effective than the Personal or Public treatment. Together, our results highlight the importance of prosocial motives for COVID-19 prevention.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.