Sustained mass behaviour change is needed to tackle the COVID‐19 pandemic, but many of the required changes run contrary to existing social norms (e.g., physical closeness with in‐group members). This paper explains how social norms and social identities are critical to explaining and changing public behaviour. Recommendations are presented for how to harness these social processes to maximise adherence to COVID‐19 public health guidance. Specifically, we recommend that public health messages clearly define who the target group is, are framed as identity‐affirming rather than identity‐contradictory, include complementary injunctive and descriptive social norm information, are delivered by in‐group members and that support is provided to enable the public to perform the requested behaviours.

中文翻译：

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社会规范、社会身份和 COVID-19 大流行：理论和建议

应对 COVID-19 大流行需要持续的大规模行为改变，但许多所需的改变与现有的社会规范背道而驰（例如，与群体内成员的身体亲密程度）。本文解释了社会规范和社会身份对于解释和改变公共行为的重要性。针对如何利用这些社会进程来最大限度地遵守 COVID-19 公共卫生指南提出了建议。具体来说，我们建议公共卫生信息明确界定目标群体是谁，被框定为身份肯定而非身份矛盾，包括补充性禁令和描述性社会规范信息，由群体内成员传递，并为以下群体提供支持：使公众能够执行所要求的行为。