Should Health Communication During the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic Emphasize Self- or Other-Focused Impacts of Mitigation Behaviors? Insights from Two Message Matching Studies

Mask-wearing, social distancing, and vaccination remain effective ways to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Yet, many hesitate to enact some or all these preventive behaviors. We created three persuasive messages—framed to promote benefits to either 1) oneself, 2) close-others, or 3) distant-others—to determine whether the effectiveness of these messages varied based on personality differences (specifically independent/interdependent self-construal and chronic construal level). In two online experiments (N = 862), we measured individual differences and showed participants one of the three messages. Consistent interactions between interdependent self-construal and message conditions showed that those high in interdependent self-construal responded most positively to the self-focused messages promoting mask-wearing, social distancing, and COVID-19 vaccination. Those low in interdependent self-construal responded most negatively to the self-focused messages. Although no interaction effect was observed for independent self-construal, and inconsistent evidence emerged for construal level, other-focused messages performed either better or equally well to the self-focused messages for most participants and may thus be promising for future public health communication efforts.