Fostering compliance with physical distancing by interactive feedback in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic: A web-based randomized controlled trial

To slow down the spread of COVID-19, the observance of basic hygiene measures, and physical distancing is recommended. Initial findings suggest that physical distancing in particular can prevent the spread of COVID-19. To investigate how information to prevent the spread of infectious diseases should be presented to increase willingness to comply with preventive measures. In a preregistered online experiment, 817 subjects were presented with either interactively controllable graphics on the spread of COVID-19 and information that enable them to recognize how much the spread of COVID-19 is reduced by physical distancing (experimental group) or text-based information about quantitative evidence (control group). It was hypothesized that participants receiving interactive information on the prevention of COVID-19 infections show a significantly higher willingness to comply with future containment measures than participants reading the text-based information. Explorative analyses were conducted to examine whether other factors influence compliance. As predicted, we found a small effect (d = 0.22, 95% CI: 0.11; 0.23, p