Enforcement can undermine voluntary motivation to comply with anti-Covid-19 policies A study by the University of Konstanz shows that voluntary motivation to comply with anti-Covid-19 policies is relatively high in Germany, but can be undermined by enforcement - The consequence of this finding differs depending on the policy. Policies to contain the Covid-19 pandemic require widespread cooperation in order to be successful. Is the German population more likely to follow these measures when they are voluntary or when they are enforced? Dr Katrin Schmelz, a behavioral economist and psychologist at the University of Konstanz and the Thurgau Institute of Economics, investigated this question. To do so, she relied on a large-scale, representative survey program conducted as part of the Cluster of Excellence "The Politics of Inequality" at the University of Konstanz at the end of the first lockdown in Germany (spring of 2020). The results are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), online on December 21, 2020.