Collectivism fosters preventive behaviors to contain the spread of COVID-19: Implications for social marketing in public health

Apart from personal- and societal-level factors, we propose that collectivism also plays a role in the spread of COVID-19. Results from six studies using both secondary datasets and laboratory experiments conducted in two different countries demonstrate that collectivism is: (a) negatively associated with the spread of COVID-19 and (b) positively associated with the self-importance/expectation to engage in widely publicized behaviors to prevent the spread of the disease, as well as with greater likelihood to vaccinate against COVID-19. Finally, the higher likelihood of people high (vs. low) in collectivism to engage in preventive behaviors is driven by their belief that others consider it important to engage in such behaviors. The effects were robust and emerged by measuring collectivism both at the country level and at the individual level. We conclude by proposing features of public health campaigns likely to elicit compliance behavior to control the spread of COVID-19.