"Compliant Supporters," "Anxious Skeptics," and "Defiant Deniers": A Latent Profile Analysis of People's Responses to COVID-19 Communications

Unraveling the Dark Side of Social Norms-Toward a Research Agenda on the Challenges of Social Norms in Health Communication

Social norms are a promising means in health crisis communication because they can guide collective action to reduce risk. However, recent research on the COVID-19 pandemic suggests that social norms may have not fully supported strategic goals and even contributed to phenomena that hindered risk reduction, calling into question the potential of social norms campaigns. This became most evident during the COVID-19 pandemic in the emergence of alternative norms of measure opposition, stigmatization of norm-deviant individuals, and the issue of free-riding. The article analyzes these phenomena from a social identity and communication perspective and outlines areas for further inquiry in health and crisis communication. The goal is to pave the way for a research agenda dedicated to the dark side of social norms to unlock the full potential of social norms in times of (health) crisis.

Pandemic Palliatives and COVID-19 Coping: Toward the Development of a "Coping with Crisis Communications" (COCCO) Scale

The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the critical role of coping strategies during global crises and demonstrated how official communications shape public responses. This study evaluates the psychometric validity of a novel pentadic "Coping with Crisis Communication" (COCCO) Scale, which categorizes coping behaviors into five behavioral responses: moving-with, moving-against, moving-outward, moving-away, and moving-inward. A national representative survey of 742 Swiss residents, conducted in February 2022, measured these coping responses to official COVID-19 communications from the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) and traditional Swiss news media (TNM). Items were developed to assess how participants engaged with, opposed, reached outward for support, distanced from, or internalized the messages. Confirmatory factor analyses tested multiple models (5-, 6-, 7-, and 8-factor structures) based on both the initial pentadic theory and data-driven refinements. While the original 5-factor model showed insufficient fit, a 7-factor model (moving-with, moving-toward, moving-against, moving-outward, moving-away, negative-moving-inward, positive-moving-inward) provided a satisfactory factor solution. This model exhibited measurement invariance across the three language versions of the scale (French, Italian, German) and across the two communication contexts (FOPH, TNM). The COCCO scale offers an effective, movement-based assessment of coping strategies in response to crisis communications, serving as a valuable tool for understanding public behavior during global crises.