Motivation, intention and action: wearing masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19

Governments around the world are seeking to slow the spread of COVID-19 by implementing measures that encourage, or mandate, changes in people’s behaviour. These changes include the wearing of face masks, social distancing, and testing and self-isolating when unwell. The success of these measures depends on (1) the willingness of individuals to change their behaviour and (2) their commitment and capacity to translate that intention into actions. Consequently, understanding and predicting the willingness of individuals to change their behaviour, and their enthusiasm to act on that willingness, is critical in assessing the likely effectiveness of these measures in slowing the spread of the virus.

In this paper we analyse responses to two separate regional surveys about people’s intentions and behaviour with respect to preventing the spread of COVID-19 in New Zealand. While motivations and intentions were largely similar across the regions, there was marked difference in action across the regions, specifically with respect to the frequency of wearing face masks. Our analysis suggests that the translation of intention (preventing the spread of COVID-19) into action (as measured by self-reported frequency of face mask use) was strongly associated with perceptions of the risk of infection (as measured by regional case numbers).

The results highlight the importance to policy design of distinguishing the factors that might influence the formation of behavioural intentions from those that might influence the implementation of those intentions.