We examined how personal values, beliefs and concerns about COVID-19, and socio-demographics, relate to two important COVID-19 preventative behaviors: willingness to get vaccinated for COVID-19 and social distancing, in 1413 Australian adults. As expected, social focus values influenced the extent of compliance with these preventative behaviors, even when controlling for beliefs and concerns about COVID-19 and socio-demographics. We also examined the persuasiveness of four different value-expressive messages promoting social distancing, in a subsample of 737 Australian adults. We found that the message expressing self-transcendence values was ranked most persuasive by 77% of respondents. However, as hypothesized, personal values were related to message persuasiveness. As the importance ascribed to social focus values increased, the likelihood that the self-transcendence message was ranked as most persuasive increased. In contrast, the likelihood that the openness to change message was ranked as most persuasive increased for those who ascribed lesser importance to social focus values. Our findings can help the framing of government messaging around preventative behaviors, including maintaining social distancing in vaccinated populations who may still spread the disease, and preventing COVID-19 spread by or to vaccine refusers.

我们研究了 1413 名澳大利亚成年人的个人价值观、信念和对 COVID-19 的担忧以及社会人口统计学如何与两种重要的 COVID-19 预防行为相关：愿意接种 COVID-19 疫苗和保持社交距离。正如预期的那样，社会焦点价值观影响了对这些预防行为的遵守程度，即使在控制对 COVID-19 和社会人口统计的信念和担忧时也是如此。我们还在 737 名澳大利亚成年人的子样本中检验了促进社交距离的四种不同价值表达信息的说服力。我们发现表达自我超越价值观的信息被 77% 的受访者评为最具说服力。然而，正如假设的那样，个人价值观与信息的说服力有关。随着社会焦点价值的重要性增加，自我超越信息被列为最具说服力的可能性增加了。相比之下，对于那些不太重视社交焦点价值观的人来说，改变信息的开放性被列为最具说服力的可能性增加了。我们的研究结果可以帮助政府围绕预防行为传达信息，包括在可能仍会传播疾病的已接种疫苗的人群中保持社交距离，以及防止 COVID-19 由疫苗拒绝者传播或向其传播。