Coronavirus: 3 concepts you haven’t heard of
“Everyone, indeed, seeks his own interest, but does not do so in accordance with the dictates of sound reason, for most men’s ideas of desirability and usefulness are guided by their fleshly instincts and emotions, which take no thought beyond the present and the immediate object.”
Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, Chapter V
Certainly in moments of uncertainty, humans rely more on their instinct than on sound reason. I try to describe here 3 concepts in the light of the COVID-19 crisis.
- Availability Heuristic
How much faster would the European countries have taken appropriate measures if they had been affected by the SARS virus in 2003 ?
By contrast, how fast did countries that were affected by the SARS virus in 2003 such as Hong Kong, Singapore and Canada react ?
Kahneman and Tversky (1973) define the availability heuristic by “the process of judging frequency by the ease with which instances come to mind”
If we have fresh memories of an event we will be more concerned by the likelihood of this event and subsequent effects than if we don’t. This phenomenon leads to under or over evaluate the occurence of events.
We tend to act based on what happened to us in the past and what we remember. The easier we can remember an epidemic, the higher we will evaluate the probability of occurence of an epidemic.
European countries reacted (too) late to the outbreak of COVID-19. Other countries such as Honk Kong, Canada, Singapore, who were confronted with SARS in 2003, reacted much faster. The availability heuristic is one of the reasons why.
More on the availability heuristic and how it can undermine social distancing.
2. Psychological Reactance
Lockdownparties have happened everywhere in Europe amongst the youth before the lockdowns were imposed. In the US, springbreakers refuse to adopt social distancing measures.
Brehm (1966) defines Psychological Reactance as : “if individuals feel that any of their free behaviors is threatened with elimination, the motivational state of psychological reactance is activated”. Individuals are consequently motivated by “the restoration of the threatened or eliminated behavior”.
For example:
- Mom: “… and don’t forget your jacket it’s going to rain” (in Belgium this is very frequent)
- Son: Suddenly walks away from the coat hanger and leaves with only a T-shirt on
When we are summoned to behave in a particular way, we might have the tendency to adopt the opposite behavior. In the context of a sanitary crisis, phsychological reactance is one of the causes why some countries struggle to “flatten the curve”.
3. Cognitive Dissonance
In the early outbreak of COVID-19 in Europe, we noticed 2 different policies adopted by governments. The narrative underlying these policies is the following: The first one is to “go to war against the virus” and fight back by any means, even if it has serious impacts for economy and individual freedom (=Lockdown approach). The second one is to acknowledge that the virus will infect most of the population and consequently prepare people and institutions for the storm (=Herd immunity approach).
Now, Festinger (1957) argues that human beings strive for internal psychological consistency to function mentally in the real world.
Basically, this means that individuals are seeking for coherence. Our brain is a powerful mechanism. It has the ability to make up a story out of events in order for us to interpret the events as logical, and coherent with our set of values & norms.
When we are dealing with a situation where our brain cannot make a coherent story of the events he is perceiving, we are experiencing cognitive dissonance.
In this case, as N. Chater nicely put in his article in the Guardian, “most of us can support a heroic vision of collectively battling an epidemic”. (=lockdown approach)
The storm narrative is a harder sell: “it requires society accepting that a huge burden of illness and death is inevitable; and, for that matter, the personal realisation that we will likely get sick”. (=herd immunity approach)
Most of us buy the first narrative much more easily than the second one because the second narrative puts our brain in cognitive dissonance. We are reluctant to accept that we won’t do something against a virus that will probably cause the death of hundred thousands of people. Moreover, the strictness of the lockdowns imposed by the governments creates a feeling of relief and the idea that everything is under control.
At a moment where governments don’t know which approach is best, the impact of the underlying narrative plays a crucial role in the population acceptance and implementation of the policy.
Conclusion
In times where we as a society are focused on the rate of deaths, we can’t ignore the impact of individual behavior on the spread of the virus. From stockpiling toilet paper, to ignoring expert warnings, we don’t act as “rational choice theory” would predict.
I believe that we need to rethink the models that govern our daily behavior in order to increase our chances to solve our world’s biggest challenges. This starts with understanding psychological insights of human behavior coupled with a culture of scientific experiments.
Further readings:
Analytic-Thinking Predicts Hoax Beliefs and Helping Behaviors in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic
Five kinds of regulations that we believe are hindering us in what amounts to a war of survival
