Abstract
An effective response to crises like the COVID-19 pandemic is dependent on the public voluntarily adhering to governmental rules and guidelines. How the guidelines are communicated can significantly affect whether people will experience a sense of self-initiation and volition, protecting compliance from eroding. From the perspective of Self-Determination Theory, a broad theory on human motivation and its interpersonal determinants, effective communication involves the delicate combination of providing rules and structure in a caring and autonomy-supportive way. Research in applied domains from public messaging to education and health has shown that when social agents set limits in more autonomy-supportive, caring, and competence-fostering ways, it predicts autonomous forms of compliance, which in turn predict greater adherence and long-term persistence. Building on SDT, integrated with insights from social identity theory, we derive a practice-focused checklist with key communication guidelines to foster voluntary compliance in national crises such as the prevention of COVID-19 spread.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 305-347 |
Number of pages | 43 |
Journal | EUROPEAN REVIEW OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY |
Volume | 32 |
Issue number | 2 |
Early online date | 2021 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 3 Jul 2021 |
MoE publication type | A1 Journal article-refereed |
Keywords
- Autonomy-support
- crisis response
- interpersonal interaction
- motivational style
- self-determination theory