/ Research
Acceptance of corona warning apps - altruistic or egocentric motivations?
In the publication accepted by Humanities & Social Sciences Communications, co-author Dominik Meier, a doctoral student at the CEPS, shows the psychological reasons why many people were/are unwilling to install and use digital corona warning apps during the corona pandemic. Understanding the low use rate is key for policymakers who support DCTAs as a way to avoid harsh nationwide lockdowns. In a preregistered study in are presentative German-speaking Swiss sample (N= 757), the roles of individual risk perceptions, risk preferences, social preferences, and social values in the acceptance of and compliance with DCTA were compared. The results show a high compliance with the measures recommended by DCTAs but a comparatively low acceptance of DCTAs. Risk preferences and perceptions, but not social preferences, influenced accepting DCTAs; a high health-risk perception and a low data-security-risk perception increased acceptance.
The publication is open access and can be downloaded here free of charge.