Can We Communicate Autonomy Support and a Mandate? How Motivating Messages Relate to Motivation for Staying at Home across Time during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

A multi-wave study across two months tested changes in motivation for staying at home at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak in the UK and US in 683 living-alone older adults (mean age = 53 years), those that might experience greater psychological costs of being isolated for long periods of time. The study was focused on changes in two types of motivation: autonomous motivation- finding importance in the task of staying at home, and controlled motivation- staying at home because of felt pressure or choicelessness, as autonomous motivation predicts effective behavior change better than controlled motivation, especially long-term. Predictions grounded in self-determination theory (SDT) tested whether three motivating aspects of messages to stay at home from governmental and public health agencies, physicians, the news, and family and friends predicted changes in these motivations across time. Perceiving messages to stay at home as controlling predicted increases in controlled motivation and decreases in autonomous motivation over two months. Conversely, perceiving messages to stay at home as autonomy supportive predicted increases in autonomous motivation over two months. Results for mandated orders to stay at home were intriguing: they related to increases in both controlled and autonomous motivations over time. Exploratory analyses revealed that increases in autonomous motivation over time predicted actual time spent at home reported at Wave 2, whereas increases in controlled motivation did not relate. Discussion focuses on contributions to theory and public health messaging about behavioral change.