Why We Comply

The current pandemic has hurt countless lives and livelihoods around the globe. In many ways, however, it’s been an interesting time for (behavioral) science. Firstly, it’s provided ample opportunities and data to study human behavior. Secondly, it’s provided motivations and possibilities for collaboration between different strands of science. Finally, and in my opinion most importantly, it has sped up the process of generating and disseminating new knowledge.

A recently published working paper by Emmeke Kooistra and Benjamin van Rooij is a case in point. In the paper, the authors review 45 studies from the first half of 2020 that investigated compliance behavior, particularly in relation to social distancing. The aim is to identify the breadth of variables that have been researched and how well they did as predictors of compliance behavior.

The following types of variables are identified:

• Demographics: age, gender, etc.
• Psychosocial variables: impulsivity, perceived social norms, etc.
• Institutional variables: belief in conspiracy theories, knowledge about the virus, etc.
• Situational variables: capacity to obey, opportunity to violate the rules, etc.
• Incentives: perceived chance of infection, perceived certainty of punishment, etc.

From the perspective of behavioral science, the paper produced some key takeaways.

Firstly, it highlights the most important variables that can inform behavioral policies. For example, the only Big 5 personality trait that could consistently be linked to compliance is conscientiousness. The importance of one psychosocial variable, impulsivity, and situational factors suggests that behavioral policies should create environments that make it easier for people to obey the rules and harder to flaunt them. As the father of nudging and Nobel prize winning economist Richard Thaler likes to say: “If you want people to do something, make it easy.”

Secondly, the review underscores that behavioral approaches (e.g. nudges) need to be implemented alongside traditional ones, such as educating people about the deadly virus, and potentially targeting different subgroups, such as age groups or genders. In fact, the authors note that gender is the most consistent predictor of compliance, with women more likely to comply than men. The evidence on age effects is more mixed.

Thirdly, the review suggests that people’s fear of the virus is more important than their fear of punishment for non-compliance when it comes to predicting compliance. This means that people’s cost-benefit analyses about the virus will be more influenced by the perceived risks of getting sick than the risk of getting fined if they don’t comply, for example. While this is perhaps not surprising, it doesn’t mean that penalties for non-compliance should be abolished. The threat of sanctions is a crucial part of building and reinforcing expectations or social norms—another key factor identified by the review—even if penalties have limited effectiveness as a “rational” deterrent.

Finally, reviews like this may also inspire numerous new academic studies. Take the dimensions of incentives and institutional variables identified by the authors, which raise some interesting research questions. For example, what effects do different kinds of risk communication and sanctions for non-compliance have on beliefs about the virus and attitudes towards government policy? When might they lead to negative side effects, such as fuel for anti-lockdown attitudes or conspiracy theories? The current crisis will undoubtedly inspire research for years to come—at a quicker pace than ever before.