Nudging epidemic policy compliance: experimental insights into message framing

作者：Biao Xu, Patiman Yidilisi, Hu-Tao Xi, Shuyan Gu · 发表于：Frontiers in Public Health · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.3389/fpubh.2025.1587987 · 被引用次数：2 · 研究领域：Behavioral Health and Interventions、Vaccine Coverage and Hesitancy、Misinformation and Its Impacts

Objective: Achieving widespread voluntary public compliance is critical for effective epidemic management. This study investigates how different message-framing strategies influence individuals' willingness to comply with public health measures during a simulated epidemic scenario. Methods: = 391) were randomly assigned to one of these conditions or a no-framing control group. Compliance willingness was assessed through self-reported intentions to adhere to recommended preventive behaviors. Results: Framed messages significantly increased compliance intentions compared to the control condition. Among framing strategies, the loss-social frame (emphasizing negative societal consequences of noncompliance) demonstrated the strongest effect, followed by gain-private, gain-social, and loss-private frames. Pairwise comparisons revealed important interactions: gain-framing was more effective within private motivational contexts, whereas loss-framing was particularly compelling within social contexts. Critically, loss-social messages were significantly superior to loss-private ones, while gain-social and gain-private messages performed similarly. Conclusion: Strategic message framing effectively enhances public compliance during epidemic crises, with loss-social framing emerging as the most potent approach. These findings offer critical insights for policymakers and health communicators, recommending targeted use of loss-social messaging to optimize public adherence to epidemic preven...