The Roles of Leadership and Social Norms in Health Communication in the Context of COVID-19

The whole world has been struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic for almost three years. Although national and local leaders have often called on the public to comply with preventive measures through health communication, crowds sometimes violate precautions and do not adequately follow these calls. We propose that identity entrepreneurship characteristic of leaders and social norms might play an essential role in effective health communication. In line with this notion, we investigated the effects of the leadership and social norm types on complying with preventive measures, the intention to be vaccinated, and prosocial behavior through a highpowered experiment that focused on the leadership quality (presence/lack of entrepreneurship), descriptive norm (supportive/obstructive), and injunctive norm (supportive/obstructive). We found that when supporting injunctive and descriptive norms are present, people tend to adhere more to preventive measures, get vaccinated, and engage in pro-social behavior. There was also a significant effect of the interaction between descriptive and injunctive norms on compliance with preventive measures. The compliance level was highest when both norm types were supportive, but the compliance level was lowest when both were obstructive. The effect was decreased in the discrepant norms condition, where one type of the norm was supportive and the other obstructive. There is also a significant interaction between leadership and descriptive norm, indicating when there is an entrepreneur leader and supportive descriptive norm, compliance with the preventive measure increases. We discussed the role of leadership and social norms in effective health communication.全球对抗新型冠状病毒肺炎（COVID-19）疫情已近三年。尽管各国及地方官员常通过健康传播（health communication）呼吁民众遵守防疫措施，但人群仍时有违反防疫规定、未能充分响应号召的情况。我们提出，领导者所具备的身份创业特质与社会规范，或许在高效健康传播中发挥核心作用。基于这一理论构想，我们开展了一项高功效实验（high-powered experiment），聚焦领导特质（是否具备创业特质）、描述性规范（descriptive norm，支持型/阻碍型）与指令性规范（injunctive norm，支持型/阻碍型）的类型差异，探究其对民众防疫措施依从性、疫苗接种意愿及亲社会行为的影响。研究结果显示，当同时存在支持型指令性规范与支持型描述性规范时，民众更倾向于遵守防疫措施、完成疫苗接种并参与亲社会行为。描述性规范与指令性规范的交互作用对防疫依从性存在显著影响：两类规范均为支持型时，民众的依从水平最高；而两类规范均为阻碍型时，依从水平最低。在规范不一致（即一类为支持型、另一类为阻碍型）的情境中，该效应会被显著削弱。此外，领导特质与描述性规范间同样存在显著交互作用：当领导者具备创业特质且描述性规范为支持型时，民众的防疫依从性会显著提升。最后，我们针对领导特质与社会规范在高效健康传播中的作用展开了讨论。