Trial reportPloS one2021
Promoting social distancing in a pandemic: Beyond good intentions.
Trial report in PloS one, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers.
What it found
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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
22 citing papers in PubMed, 49 citations in OpenAlex.
- Trial
- Trial
- Public announcements and mask use during COVID-19 bridging regression and machine learning.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Framing vaccination as a collective responsibility increases intentions to vaccinate.Scandinavian journal of public health · 2026Article
- Motivational effectiveness of prosocial public health messaging to reduce respiratory infection risk: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Communications medicine · 2025Article
- Gender and age differences in hand disinfection behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic: field data from Swiss retail stores.BMJ open · 2025Observational
- Article
- The Effect of Nudging on Compliance with Individual Prevention Measures against COVID-19: An Online Experiment on Greek University Students.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- The politicized pandemic: Ideological polarization and the behavioral response to COVID-19.European economic review · 2023Article
- Article
- Article
- Information and behavioral responses during a pandemic: Evidence from delays in Covid-19 death reports.Journal of development economics · 2022Article
- Adhering to COVID-19 health guidelines: A behavioral-failure perspective.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- A message of the majority with scientific evidence encourages young people to show their prosocial nature in COVID-19 vaccination.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Texts don't nudge: An adaptive trial to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in India.Journal of development economics · 2021Article
- Don't get it or don't spread it: comparing self-interested versus prosocial motivations for COVID-19 prevention behaviors.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- No evidence that collective-good appeals best promote COVID-related health behaviors.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021Article
- Prosociality predicts health behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic.Journal of public economics · 2021Article
- Effective but fragile? Responses to repeated nudge-based messages for preventing the spread of COVID-19 infection.Japanese economic review (Oxford, England) · 2021Article
- Message Framing Effects on Individuals' Social Distancing and Helping Behavior During the COVID-19 Pandemic.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Do reminders to promote social distancing achieve the desired effects on behavior? Much of the existing literature analyses impacts on people's intentions to comply. We run a randomised controlled trial in Denmark to test different versions of a reminder to stay home at the beginning of the crisis. Using a two-stage design, we follow up with recipients and analyse their subsequent self-reported behaviour. We find that the reminder increases ex-ante intentions to comply when it emphasises the consequences of non-compliance for the subjects themselves and their families, while it has no effect when the emphasis is on other people or the country as a whole. We also find, however, that impacts on intentions do not translate into equivalent impacts on actions. Only people in poor health react to the reminder by staying home significantly more. Our results shed light on important gaps between people's intentions and their actions in responding to the recommendations of health authorities.
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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.