  Now that various countries are or will soon be moving towards relaxing
shelter-in-place rules, it is important that people use a face covering, to
avoid an exponential resurgence of the spreading of the coronavirus disease
(COVID-19). Here we report a pre-registered online experiment (N=2,459) using a
heterogenous, although not representative, sample of people living in the USA,
where we test the relative effect of messages highlighting that the coronavirus
is a threat to "you" vs "your family" vs "your community" vs "your country" on
self-reported intentions to wear a face covering. Results show that focusing on
"your community" promotes intentions to wear a face covering relative to the
baseline; the trend is the same when comparing "your community" to the other
conditions, but not significant. We also conducted pre-registered analyses of
gender differences on intentions to wear a face covering. We find that men less
than women intend to wear a face covering, but this difference almost
disappears in counties where wearing a face covering is mandatory. We also find
that men less than women believe that they will be seriously affected by the
coronavirus, and this partly mediates gender differences in intentions to wear
a face covering (this is particularly ironic because official statistics
actually show that men are affected by the COVID-19 more seriously than women).
Finally, we also find gender differences in self-reported negative emotions
felt when wearing a face covering. Men more than women agree that wearing a
face covering is shameful, not cool, a sign of weakness, and a stigma; and
these gender differences also mediate gender differences in intentions to wear
a face covering.
