Nudging for Lockdown: Behavioural Insights from An Online Experiment

Abstract

We test the effectiveness of a social comparison nudge to enhance lockdown compliance during the Covid-19 pandemic, using a representative sample of the metropolitan French adult population (N=1154). Respondents were randomly assigned to a favourable/unfavourable informational feedback (daily road traffic mobility patterns) on peers’ lockdown compliance. Our dependent variable was the intention to comply with a possible future lockdown. We controlled for risk, time, and social preferences and tested the effectiveness of the nudge. We unexpectedly found that the social comparison nudge was not effective among the whole population, but was effective only when the nudge’s recipient and the reference population shared the same geographical location. Exploratory results on this subsample (N=52) suggest that this effectiveness could be driven by non-cooperative individuals.

Keywords: COVID-19; Lockdown compliance; Social Comparison Nudge; Risk preferences; Time preferences; Social preferences