A lot of work done by behavioral scientists to promote more mask wearing during Covid met with little to no success.  The key in our view is getting Covid messaging, and all messaging by extension, beyond the one-size-fits-nobody world.

For starters, it’s no secret that Conservatives and Liberals tend to view the efficacy and necessity of mask wearing very differently.  But, it’s not enough to come up with message ideas and then see if they work better for D’s or R’s on the backend with simple crosstabs.   That’s still a data fishing expedition.

What’s required is designing the messaging with these Identities at the forefront.  We use moral framing in a lot of work to target and tailor different messaging to different audiences.  We know Conservative folks tend to use different moral lenses than Liberals to make choices about right/wrong.   This doesn’t mean Conservatives or Liberals are more right or wrong, merely that they have different perspectives in determining what is right or wrong.

This set of experiments had a control and seven different experimental conditions that added moral messaging designed to work better with Ds or Rs.  For example, Liberals tend to use ‘preventing harm’ as a moral lens to make choices. One message included “because it will keep you safe” (the protect ‘self’ from harm treatment) as part of the pitch for wearing a mask.

On the flip side Conservatives often decide something is the right thing to do if it helps or supports the in-group.  The in-group can be lots of things.  In this case it was framing the in-group as America with the message including “because it’s our patriotic duty to make sacrifices for our great country” as reason to wear a mask.

Lots of tailored, evidence based ideas that started with the premise that we aren’t all the same.  The experiments were well conceived and well executed…

And they bombed.  Nothing worked.   The control condition is the first two columns going left to right.   It’s a straight line reading across the various interventions by Identity.

Lessons to learn?

• Failed outcomes don’t mean failed ideas
• Failed ideas will always result in failed outcomes
• As long as you’ve got ideas supported by theory and rationale and to quote Edison, you haven’t failed, you’ve merely found ways that don’t work
• Behavior change is really hard.  These experiments were done in the Fall of 2020.  By that point pre-existing beliefs were being reinforced by lived experience and all the faulty ways we selectively remember that often reinforce our starting view rather than evolving or changing it.
• Nudges can be a part of a solution but they are never the solution.  There are way too many people making ridiculous claims about the power of nudges as miracles cures for what ails you.  Most of these folks have a thimble full of knowledge they mistake for an ocean.

Kevin