**5.4 Appeal to individuals' self-efficacy**

According to Fishbein and Ajzen [62], effective communication should stress which behaviors have to be changed, further providing the public with clear instruction as to how this change can be obtained [3]. Therefore, message should appeal to individuals' self-efficacy [63, 64]. Self-efficacy is activated if identification with message content is high [43, 44]. Clear communication can boost individual self-efficacy and help mitigate the risks associated with the health threat [61]. If individuals feel empowered, this can then improve the relationship between the public and the government lastingly [10]. *Governments throughout the world familiarized individuals with how they could contribute to preventing the virus from spreading, e.g. through personal hygiene, reducing their social contacts, or self-isolating. Examples of Australian campaign resources are presented in Figure 3.*

#### **Figure 2.**

*Austrian PSAs featuring the baby elephant. (Source: https://www.bmkoes.gv.at/).*

#### **Figure 3.**

*Australian PSAs presenting risk mitigation strategies. (Source: https://www.health.gov.au/resources/).*

### **5.5 Align message content with social norms**

As individual behavior is influenced by social norms, i.e. how people in one's immediate environment react [65], health communication messages should promote these norms [29, 39], which can induce behavioral change. Besides the relevance of collective norms2 [67], norms that require personal investment (e.g., social distancing, personal hygiene) are presumed to predict behavioral intentions even more strongly [68]. *Apart from stressing individual benefits, governments also highlighted how individual actions would contribute to the overall social good (e.g., "Let's be COVIDSAFE together" in Australia or "Because your mask doesn't protect you. It protects me" as part of the Mask Up America Campaign; see Figure 4).*

## **5.6 Use prosocial appeals**

The risks associated with any crisis have been renowned to elicit negative emotions in individuals [69], further influencing their risk perceptions [70–72]. Therefore, the negative emotions associated with the pandemic should be

<sup>2</sup> Collective norms describe "prevailing codes of conduct that either prescribe or proscribe behaviors that members of a group can enact" ([66], p. 29).

#### **Figure 4.**

*Prosocial Appeal as part of #MaskUpAmerica. (Source: https://www.idsociety.org/public-health/covid-19/)*

#### **Figure 5.**

*Austrian PSAs emphasizing prosocial and collective action, such as staying at home if feeling unwell (left) and shopping for at risk groups (right). (Source: https://www.bmkoes.gv.at/).*

counterbalanced with positive emotional appeals [29, 73]. This, for instance, can be achieved through "prosocial motivation" or a collective orientation, in the course of which the positive impact of a certain behavior on the community elicits hope in recipients [74, 75]. Likewise, higher intentions to comply with proposed behaviors can be achieved if prosocial appeals are used [76]. *In addition to the examples mentioned above, also the Austrian and German government emphasized the need for collective action (e.g. Austria's Schau auf Dich, Schauf auf Mich campaign and Germany's #besonderehelden video campaign; see Figure 5).*

## **5.7 Emphasize the necessity of proposed measures**

Besides stressing the necessity for engaging in selected NPIs, messages also must point out why it is essential to do so [3, 77]. This builds upon previous research, which has demonstrated that increased efficacy levels are reliable in predicting individual behavior [78]. One potential way, for instance, could be to increase the perceived

**Figure 6.** *#MaskUpAmerica featuring Everyday Heroes. (Source: https://www.governor.ny.gov/).*

relevance of message content or the similarity to the source, which have proven successful in mitigating negative message consequences [79–81], e.g., the spread of the virus.
