Violating social distancing amid the COVID-19 pandemic: Psychological factors to improve compliance

This study uses the theory of planned behavior as a framework to predict intentions of social distancing violation and past non-compliance during the COVID-19 pandemic, controlling for the effects of intolerance of uncertainty and sociodemographic variables. A total of 2,056 Brazilian participants completed measures on attitudes, injunctive and descriptive norms, and perceived behavioral control toward social distancing and answered about their political ideology, income, professional status, gender, and age. Our findings indicate that positive attitudes toward complying with physical distancing, strong descriptive norms using ingroup members as referents, and weaker perceived behavioral control over breaching social distancing predict stronger intentionsof adhering to it and actual adherence. Besides, individuals who support right-wing parties, earn lower wages, are students, unemployed, young, and male are more prone to stronger intentions of violating this preventive measure. We suggest designing interventions that foster positive attitudes toward social distancing and address the negative consequences that non-compliance can cause to ingroup members to persuade individuals to stay at home. We also discuss the need for support from prominent political figures and provide evidence to the relevance of investing in conditional cash transfer programs to increase adherence to this preventive measure.