Descriptive social norms and willingness to volunteer to help society deal with COVID-19: A survey experiment

Abstract

This article examines the impact of descriptive social norms on people's willingness to participate in volunteer activities in Myanmar during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior research suggests that people tend to follow commonly observed behavior in their surroundings. Building on this body of research, a survey experiment was conducted in Myanmar in June 2022 to test whether knowing that many others participate in volunteer activities positively influences one's chances of participation. The results reveal that experimental subjects expressed greater willingness to participate under a hypothetical condition in which the participation rate in the entire country was higher than under a scenario where the national level participation rate was low. Local-level participation in volunteer activities had no greater impact than national-level participation.

Keywords

COVID-19 descriptive social norms survey experiment volunteer

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