Collective Decision Making and Support for COVID-19 Measures at Campus: Two Studies Examining Community Engagement With Mitigation Policies

Abstract

Although the importance of a collective action approach for pandemic management has been acknowledged during the recent COVID-19 pandemic, actual attempts at involving people in designing a package of mitigation measures were absent. Our research examines the potential of active participation of the student community in collective pandemic decision making in the university setting. We address two questions. First, would a student population be willing and able to contribute to the design of mitigation measures that apply to their own situation? Second, would other students, knowing that student contributions had been part of COVID-19 policies design at campus, be more inclined to endorse these measures? We examine these questions in two studies employing an observational survey design (Study 1 N = 47) and an experimental design (Study 2 N = 215), employing (multilevel) regression models. Our findings reveal that students who were themselves actively involved in the decision-making process were able to compose a package of measures (with actual potential of reducing the risk of virus transmission), which they considered legitimate, feasible, and effective. These positive effects did not generalise to the wider student community as students, after knowing that their fellow students had been involved, did not report more support. We conclude that collective decision making is a promising approach that may inform current debate about collective decision making and future pandemic preparedness. Future research should examine which elements of greater involvement of the target population could increase widescale community support.