NDLI: Better than my neighbor? Testing for overconfidence in COVID-19 preventive behaviors in Latin America

Content Provider	Springer Nature : BioMed Central
Author	Boruchowicz, Cynthia Lopez Boo, Florencia
Abstract	Background Procrastination and lack of attention may often hinder the implementation of preemptive actions necessary to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 like washing hands, covering nose and mouth with a mask, and keeping social distance. It is in such “easy” tasks that people (mistakenly) believe that they are better than others. In this paper we test for overconfidence bias in COVID-19 preventive behaviors in Latin America. Methods Using a phone survey in nationally representative samples from 10 Latin American countries where randomly, half of the sample in each country was asked about self-reported compliance to COVID-19 guidelines, and half about preventive behavior of fellow citizens compared to them; we tested: if the proportion of individuals claiming that others comply with a certain measure “Always more frequent than me” is higher than those stating that they “Never” or “Sometimes” comply with the same measure (i.e. people believe they are better at doing something than what they actually are). Results Over 90% of Latin-Americans claim to always wear a mask and sanitize their hands and more than 80% state to always keep social distance. We also find evidence of overconfidence in every behavior – except for keeping distance in public transportation. Moreover, the magnitude of such overconfidence is higher for behaviors such as wearing masks in public or washing hands than for those regarding keeping the 2-m distance. Conclusions To our knowledge, this is the first study to measure overconfidence in COVID-19 preventive behaviors in Latin America. Results show that more effort is needed to encourage people to comply with the regulation when it does not only depend on them: a better organization of closed stores and public transportation are, for instance, crucial to allow social distancing. It also suggests that a reinforcement of basic measures is essential, as individuals report to be performing them more frequently than when they have to think about such behaviors compared to others.
Related Links	https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/counter/pdf/10.1186/s12889-022-13311-9.pdf
Ending Page	13
Page Count	13
Starting Page	1
File Format	HTM / HTML
ISSN	14712458
DOI	10.1186/s12889-022-13311-9
Journal	BMC Public Health
Issue Number	1
Volume Number	22
Language	English
Publisher	BioMed Central
Publisher Date	2022-05-18
Access Restriction	Open
Subject Keyword	Public Health Medicine Epidemiology Biostatistics Vaccine Environmental Health overconfidence Latin America COVID-19 preventive behaviors Medicine/Public Health
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
Journal Impact Factor	3.5/2023
5-Year Journal Impact Factor	3.9/2023

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