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The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly influenced daily life all over the world. The present study assesses what factors influenced inhabitants of the United Kingdom to comply with lockdown and social distancing measures. It analyses data from an online survey, conducted on April 6-8, 2020, amongst a nationally representative sample of 555 participants who currently reside in the UK. The results show that compliance depended mostly on people’s capacity to comply with the rules, and the normative obligation they feel to obey the law. As such, compliance was not associated with deterrence or obedience out of fear, but rather with people’s practical abilities and intrinsic motivation to comply. The paper discusses policy implications for effective mitigation of the virus.