Many people practiced COVID-19-related safety measures in the first year of the pandemic, but Republicans were less likely to engage in behaviors such as wearing masks or face coverings than Democrats, suggesting radical disparities in health practices split along political fault lines. We developed an “intervention tournament” which aimed to identify the framings that would promote mask wearing among a representative sample of Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. from Oct 14, 2020, to Jan 14, 2021 (N = 4931). Seven different conditions reflecting different moral values and factors specific to COVID-19—including protection from harm (self), protection from harm (community), patriotic duty, purity, reviving the economy, threat, and scientific evidence—were implemented to identify which framings would “win” in terms of promoting mask wearing compared to a baseline condition. We found that Republicans had significantly more negative attitudes toward masks, lower intentions to wear them, and were less likely to sign or share pledges on social media than Democrats, which was partially mediated by Republicans, compared to Democrats, perceiving that the threat of COVID-19 was lower. None of our framing conditions significantly affected Republicans' or Democrats' attitudes, intentions, or behaviors compared to the baseline condition, illustrating the difficulty in overcoming the strength of political polarization during COVID-19.

许多人在大流行的第一年采取了与 COVID-19 相关的安全措施，但与民主党人相比，共和党人不太可能采取戴口罩或面罩等行为，这表明卫生实践中的巨大差异沿着政治断层线分裂。我们开发了一项“干预锦标赛”，旨在确定从 2020 年 10 月 14 日到 2021 年 1 月 14 日（ N = 4931）的美国共和党和民主党代表性样本中提倡戴口罩的框架。七种不同的条件反映了针对 COVID-19 的不同道德价值观和因素，包括保护免受伤害（自我）、保护免受伤害（社区）、爱国义务、纯洁、振兴经济、威胁和科学证据，以识别哪些条件与基准条件相比，框架在促进戴口罩方面将“获胜”。我们发现，与民主党人相比，共和党人对口罩的态度明显更为消极，佩戴口罩的意愿较低，并且不太可能在社交媒体上签署或分享承诺，这在一定程度上是由共和党人调解的，与民主党人相比，他们认为新冠病毒的威胁-19 较低。与基线条件相比，我们的框架条件都没有显着影响共和党或民主党的态度、意图或行为，这说明了克服 COVID-19 期间政治两极分化的难度。