This working paper suggests that perceived social norms has a large effect on individuals’ willingness to perform different preventive behaviors.

In a large national survey of nearly 4,000 people, researchers determined that horizontal communication between friends and family is likely more effective in getting people to engage in COVID-19 preventive behaviors than from top-down communication from authority figures, opinion leaders, and mainstream media. Increasing people’s perceived norms likely leads to not only adopting preventive behaviors but also performing them more regularly. It is important to increase people’s perceptions of both the frequency of preventive behaviors enacted by close social network members and approval of those behaviors by the same group.