The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has required billions of people to massively, and suddenly change their behavior. In an effort to contain the pandemic, governments all over the world have had to implement drastic measures that require people to maintain social (and physical) distance from others. Although this approach has been quite successful, until there is an effective vaccine, maintaining social distancing seems to be the next big challenge.

Fortunately, the pandemic has expressed itself as an ideal opportunity to study behavior and compliance in the field. To do so, this project brings together perspectives from behavioral, communication, and computer science. Through a unique combination of survey research, video surveillance, and media analysis, we gather real-time data to track citizens’ compliance with COVID-19 mitigation measures – and link this to (individual-level) attitudes and preferences, and to trends in social media discussion. This allows us to get the best understanding of variation in compliance behavior as it occurs, and to identify what is driving this. By doing so, we aim to aid public policy and fill the gap in knowledge on how to maintain compliance with mitigation measures for as long as is needed to control the virus.

This project is a collaboration between the Center of Law and Behavior (University of Amsterdam, Faculty of Law), the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NCSR), and the Department of Communication Science (University of Amsterdam, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences). It is supported by the Dutch Research Council (NWO).