April 7-9, 2022 • Hyatt Regency • Lexington, KY
Communication Strategies to Promote Comprehensive Well-being
Communication Strategies to Promote Comprehensive Well-being
Abstract: Integrating Norm Activation Model with Ethics Position Theory: Individuals’ Moral Decision Making on Wearing Masks in Pandemic
Wearing face masks in U.S. is a huge source of controversy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some people regard wearing face masks as an act of altruism whereas other people think that it is a threat to individual freedom. Indeed, how people view wearing face masks is strongly connected to how they judge the ethical rightness or wrongness about this behavior. The present study investigates how individuals make a moral decision on wearing face masks using two ethics related theories, Normative Activation Model (NAM) and Ethics Position Theory (EPT). To be specific, this study examines how individuals’ awareness of consequence affects their behavioral intention to wear face masks in pandemic through two serial mediators (i.e., ascribe responsibility, and personal norm), which is proposed in NAM. Additionally, this study tested whether a serial multiple mediation of ascribe responsibility and personal norm is moderated by individuals’ ethical ideologies (i.e., Idealism, and relativism), which is proposed in EPT. This study utilized Qualtrics to conduct an online survey among adults living in the U.S. Participants (N = 823) were recruited through Prime Panels in September 2020. After deleting 47 respondents out of the initial sample based on attention check questions, a total of 776 subjects were used for the final analysis. To determine a serial multiple mediation of ascribe responsibility and personal norm in the relationship between awareness of consequence and behavioral intention, this study employed the bootstrapping procedure (10,000 samples, model 6, Hayes 2013) after controlling for the effects of political ideology. Subsequently, we tested whether the serial multiple mediation is moderated by idealism and relativism respectively using a series of bootstrapping procedure (10,000 samples, model 87, Hayes 2013) after controlling for the effects of political ideology. The results of a serial multiple mediation showed that individuals’ awareness of consequence increased behavioral intention to wear face masks through greater personal norm. Also, the results revealed that individuals’ awareness of consequence increased behavioral intention through greater ascribe responsibility and in turn greater personal norm. These findings show that ascribe responsibility and personal norm play as a significant serial mediator in the relationship between awareness of consequence and behavioral intention in the health context. Next, the results of a moderated serial multiple mediation identified that relativism weakened the indirect effect of awareness of consequence on behavioral intention via personal norm. Also, the results showed that relativism weakened the indirect effect of awareness of consequence on behavioral intention via a serial mediator, ascribe responsibility and personal norm. These findings provide the evidence that the effects of norm activation (awareness of consequence > ascribe responsibility > personal norm > behavioral intention) are contingent on the level of relativism that an individual has. Overall, the findings of this study suggest a meaningful notion that individuals’ ethical values and perceptions are a strong predictor of his/her intention to follow public health recommendation in pandemic. Also, the present study advances the theoretical knowledge of NAM by integrating with EPT in the context of pandemic responses.