Question: Without fail, every time I go to the grocery store, there are employees wearing masks incorrectly (under the nose or around the neck!) or not wearing them at all. Today, the employee supervising the self checkout approached me wearing the mask over her mouth and under her nose. When I pointed this out, diplomatically I thought, she failed to change her behavior and looked quite vexed with me. My experiences challenging the incorrect wearing of the mask rarely result in behavior change. My conclusion is it’s a failure in training and oversight on the part of grocery store management but I have no data to back this up. How do we get this behavior to change or do we just all order groceries for pick-up or delivery?

Answer: I don’t have an easy solution, but please don’t give up on people yet! Mask wearing is new and we have a long way to go in terms of people adopting the behavior, let alone adopting correct and consistent use. And there’s plenty of blame to go around when it comes to the lack of a national policy, lack of comprehensive public health communication campaigns, and the politicization of mask wearing (among other challenges). Behavior change is hard and interpersonal communication about adopting a given behavior is extra hard. We know that education is important, but not enough — as behavioral scientists recently wrote in Nature on the topic, persuasion, behavior modeling, and more will be critical. Here are a few tips for interpersonal communication, which align with points made in this recent ReWire article and The Atlantic article:

• Communicate risk in simple terms. For example, “Keep you and me safe. Wear a mask over your nose and mouth.” (for another example see, Figure 1)
• Do not shame, guilt, or judge people into compliance. It doesn’t work and can make things worse.
• Be honest. Empathy is powerful. Don’t pretend that wearing a mask is comfortable or that wearing a mask doesn’t have drawbacks — like impeding facial cues for communication.
• Model the behavior. Wear your mask and wear it correctly. (for example, Figure 2)

Figure 1. Messaging from Greyhound

Figure 2. How to Wear a Mask (from Africa CDC)