@article{Daoust_J-2021_64415,
title = {How to survey citizens’ compliance with COVID-19 public health measures: Evidence from three survey experiments},
author = {Daoust, J. and Nadeau, R. and Dassonneville, R. and Lachapelle, E. and Bélanger, É. and Savoie, J. and van der Linden, C.},
month = {nov},
year = {2021},
abstract = {The extent to which citizens comply with newly-enacted public health measures such as social distancing or lockdowns strongly affects the propagation of the virus and the number of deaths from COVID-19. It is however very difficult to identify non-compliance through survey research because claiming to follow the rules is socially desirable. Using three survey experiments, we examine the efficacy of different “face-saving” questions that aim to reduce social desirability in the measurement of compliance with public health measures. Our treatments soften the social norm of compliance by way of a short preamble in combination with a guilty-free answer choice making it easier for respondents to admit non-compliance. We find that self-reported non-compliance increases by up to +11 percentage points when making use of a face-saving question. Considering the current context and the importance of measuring non-compliance, we argue that researchers around the world should adopt our most efficient face-saving question.},
pages = {310-317},
volume = {8},
issue = {3},
journal = {Journal of Experimental Political Science},
publisher = {Cambridge University Press},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1017/XPS.2020.25},
}
