Keele Research Repository

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This is the first (published) empirical research study to longitudinally investigate the moralisation of covid-related behaviours through the course of the pandemic and its relationship to utilitarian principles. The study tested individuals prior to the pandemic and then again at two timepoints during the pandemic. The work contributes to our understanding of whether moralisation shapes norms around certain behaviours and we find evidence that the moralisation of covid-related behaviours positively predicts compliance to government guidelines and recommended behaviours. This has important implications for public messaging campaigns and attempts to change behaviour. From a theoretical perspective, we investigate the extent to which existing measures of utilitarianism predict real-world behaviour. This has contributed to existing knowledge regarding the external validity of these measures. This research was pre-registered, and all materials, analyses scripts and datasets are available on the OSF. A preprint of this research was shared prior to publication.