IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v21y2023i1p31-d1306992.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Effect of Nudging on Compliance with Individual Prevention Measures against COVID-19: An Online Experiment on Greek University Students

Author

Listed:
  • Ioannis Emmanouil

    (Department of Business Administration, University of Macedonia, 156 Egnatia St., 54636 Thessaloniki, Greece)

  • Manolis Diamantis

    (School of Social Sciences, Hellenic Open University, 18 Aristotelous St., 26335 Patra, Greece)

  • Dimitris Niakas

    (School of Social Sciences, Hellenic Open University, 18 Aristotelous St., 26335 Patra, Greece
    Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 4 George St., Kanigos Square, 10677 Athens, Greece)

  • Vassilis Aletras

    (Department of Business Administration, University of Macedonia, 156 Egnatia St., 54636 Thessaloniki, Greece
    School of Social Sciences, Hellenic Open University, 18 Aristotelous St., 26335 Patra, Greece)

Abstract

Nudging has often been suggested as a means to promote health care efficiency and effectiveness by influencing behavior without restricting choice; its usefulness, however, has not been adequately assessed. We examined the effect of an altruistically framed awareness message about the novel coronavirus on the intention to comply with individual prevention measures against infection. A total of 425 Greek postgraduate students, which were randomly assigned into a treatment group and a control group, filled out a questionnaire on compliance and future intention to comply with six preventive measures. The results indicate that the altruistic message did not manage to influence the intention to comply. Moreover, compliance was positively associated with risk perception, whereas women showed both higher compliance and risk perception than men. Vulnerability to the novel coronavirus and a positive vaccination status against it were accompanied by a greater perception of risk, while one’s personal history of COVID-19 was associated with a lower intention to comply, lower risk perception, and higher health risk preferences. We conclude that nudging interventions should be evaluated before being adopted in practice, taking into account timing, target groups, and means of communication.

Suggested Citation

  • Ioannis Emmanouil & Manolis Diamantis & Dimitris Niakas & Vassilis Aletras, 2023. "The Effect of Nudging on Compliance with Individual Prevention Measures against COVID-19: An Online Experiment on Greek University Students," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 21(1), pages 1-12, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:21:y:2023:i:1:p:31-:d:1306992
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/21/1/31/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/21/1/31/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Syed Abul Basher & A. K. Enamul Haque, 2021. "Public policy lessons from the Covid-19 outbreak: How to deal with it in the post-pandemic world?," Journal of Social and Economic Development, Springer;Institute for Social and Economic Change, vol. 23(2), pages 234-247, September.
    2. Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher, 2003. "The nature of human altruism," Nature, Nature, vol. 425(6960), pages 785-791, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mengyuan Zhou, 2022. "Does the Source of Inheritance Matter in Bequest Attitudes? Evidence from Japan," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 43(4), pages 867-887, December.
    2. Christine Clavien & Colby J Tanner & Fabrice Clément & Michel Chapuisat, 2012. "Choosy Moral Punishers," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(6), pages 1-6, June.
    3. Topi Miettinen & Sigrid Suetens, 2008. "Communication and Guilt in a Prisoner's Dilemma," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 52(6), pages 945-960, December.
    4. Brañas-Garza, Pablo & Jorrat, Diego & Alfonso-Costillo, Antonio & Espín, Antonio M. & Garcia, Teresa & Kovářík, Jaromír, 2020. "Exposure to the Covid-19 pandemic and generosity," MPRA Paper 103389, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Valencia Caicedo, Felipe & Dohmen, Thomas & Pondorfer, Andreas, 2023. "Religion and cooperation across the globe," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 215(C), pages 479-489.
    6. Tackseung Jun & Rajiv Sethi, 2008. "Neighborhood structure and the evolution of cooperation," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 103-103, February.
    7. Attallah, May & Abildtrup, Jens & Stenger, Anne, 2022. "Non-monetary incentives for sustainable biomass harvest: An experimental approach," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    8. Valeria Maggian & Marie Claire Villeval, 2016. "Social preferences and lying aversion in children," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(3), pages 663-685, September.
    9. Werner Güth & Vittoria Levati & Georg von Wangenheim, 2004. "Relatives Versus Neighbors - An Experiment Studying Spontaneous Social Exchange -," Papers on Strategic Interaction 2004-33, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Strategic Interaction Group.
    10. Fabian Dvorak & Regina Stumpf & Sebastian Fehrler & Urs Fischbacher, 2024. "Generative AI Triggers Welfare-Reducing Decisions in Humans," Papers 2401.12773, arXiv.org.
    11. Bartoš, Vojtěch, 2021. "Seasonal scarcity and sharing norms," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 303-316.
    12. Fehr, Dietmar & Sutter, Matthias, 2019. "Gossip and the efficiency of interactions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 448-460.
    13. M. Christian Lehmann, 2022. "Fairness preferences as a cause of inefficient war," Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy, Society for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics (SABE), vol. 6(1), pages 33-36, December.
    14. Alexander Field, 2008. "Why multilevel selection matters," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 10(3), pages 203-238, December.
    15. Ahmadreza Asgharpourmasouleh & Atiye Sadeghi & Ali Yousofi, 2017. "A Grounded Agent-Based Model of Common Good Production in a Residential Complex: Applying Artificial Experiments," SAGE Open, , vol. 7(4), pages 21582440177, October.
    16. Johannes Schwarze & Rainer Winkelmann, 2005. "What can happiness research tell us about altruism? Evidence from the German Socio-Economic Panel," SOI - Working Papers 0503, Socioeconomic Institute - University of Zurich, revised Sep 2005.
    17. Masuda, Yuta J. & Waterfield, Gina & Castilla, Carolina & Kang, Shiteng & Zhang, Wei, 2022. "Does balancing gender composition lead to more prosocial outcomes? Experimental evidence of equality in public goods and extraction games from rural Kenya," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    18. Li, Yixiao & Jin, Xiaogang & Su, Xianchuang & Kong, Fansheng & Peng, Chengbin, 2010. "Cooperation and charity in spatial public goods game under different strategy update rules," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 389(5), pages 1090-1098.
    19. Tünde Paál & Tamás Bereczkei, 2015. "Punishment as a Means of Competition: Implications for Strong Reciprocity Theory," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(3), pages 1-14, March.
    20. Valentina A. Bali & Lindon J. Robison & Richard Winder, 2020. "What Motivates People to Vote? The Role of Selfishness, Duty, and Social Motives When Voting," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(4), pages 21582440209, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:21:y:2023:i:1:p:31-:d:1306992. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.