Research by Bavel et al. (2020), in plain language
What’s this paper about?
This paper looks at things that stop us from acting together against COVID, and what we can do to handle the situation better.
Why did they write this paper?
The COVID-19 pandemic is a crisis we all face. Until a vaccine is available, we need to act together to handle the situation. But, many things make a difference to how we act under the stress of a crisis and how well we act together. In this paper, the researchers wanted to make science-based recommendations for how we can act together against COVID. The researchers wrote this paper in April, within a month of the pandemic being declared.
How did they write this paper?
The researchers looked at existing research on the topics of:
Threat perception, which relates to how we sense and react to danger.
Social context, which relates to how society is set up.
Science communication, which relates to how scientific information is spread.
Individual and collective interests, which relates to how we weigh up our own versus others’ interests.
Leadership, which relates to how leaders help others do the right thing.
Stress and coping, which relates to how we handle hardships.
Based on this evidence, the researchers discuss how we could encourage helpful actions and prevent unhelpful actions in handling COVID.
What did they discuss in this paper?
Threat perception
Sensing danger
When we sense danger, our gut feeling is fear. Fear makes us take necessary actions to handle a situation, but only if we feel capable of taking those actions. Otherwise, fear puts us in fight-or-flight mode. At the same time, we tend to have an ‘optimism bias’, thinking bad things won’t happen to us. This makes us feel better, but it could also make us ignore important warnings. So, public health messages about COVID should be alarming enough to give us the sense of danger we need to take action, without being too alarming to make us paralysed with fear.
Facts versus feelings when considering risks
How careful we are about risks is sometimes driven more by feelings than by facts. That’s because we tend to pay more attention to facts that match how we’re feeling. If we’re scared, we tend to pay more attention to scary facts, which we then use to decide how to handle the situation. The more intense our feelings are, the more likely we are to miss the bigger picture and the specific details about the situation. Facts shown in the news are usually scary (e.g. number of people dead) instead of comforting (e.g. number of people recovered). This could make us more careful, but there isn’t enough research to know whether hearing positive news can still make us careful, without making us scared.
Seeing others as “outsiders”
Fear doesn’t just change the way we act, it changes the way we act towards others. Fear of disease, for example, saw Jews throughout Europe murdered in the days of the bubonic plague. Even now, specific ethnic groups are unfairly attacked and blamed, like Asians being bashed in White countries, and some governments calling COVID the ‘Chinese virus’. In saying that, a pandemic is a chance to get over our differences. Having to cooperate to fight the spread of disease gives us a sense of togetherness. It can show us a common good and help us stop seeing others as “outsiders”. This works best when everyone is treated as equal.
Going into panic mode
The idea of going into panic mode in a disaster and doing things only for our own survival isn’t entirely true. Even though we do things for our own survival, like panic buying, we also do extraordinary things for others, like volunteering to help those in need. Whether we act with or against each other, again, comes down to a sense of togetherness. The experience of being in a disaster together, as well as messages that use ‘we’ and ‘us’, are things that build a sense of togetherness. In contrast, seeing others doing things for their own survival takes away from the sense of togetherness. That’s why seeing news images of empty shelves indicating that others are doing things for their own survival makes us want to do the same. In this way, news that tells us not to panic by showing us images of others panicking is the very thing that makes us panic.
Social context
Doing what’s “normal”
How we act depends on our idea of what’s “normal”. That is, what we see others doing, and what we think others see as right and wrong. But, our idea of normal can be untrue. We might think that people are doing the right thing less often than what they actually are, and the wrong thing more often than what they actually are. Public health messages have an important role to play in shaping our idea of normal. If most people are doing the right thing (e.g. washing hands), messages that say so can reassure us that it’s the right thing to do and motivate us to keep doing it. On the flipside, if most people are doing the wrong thing (e.g. gathering in large groups), messages that say so would make those who are doing the right thing doubt themselves, unless the messages specifically say what the right thing to do is.
It also makes a difference when our idea of normal is based on others who are similar to us. If the news shows what’s normal in the community we’re a part of, we’re more likely to take it on board. In the same way, our friendship groups shape our idea of normal. The flow on effect from friends of friends of friends means that the right or wrong thing done by those who have many friends, or those who are looked up to in their friendship groups, make a big difference. Likewise, news that sends a message about a “new normal” (e.g. most people in your community believe everyone should wear a mask) can also nudge us to do the right thing.
Those who are privileged and those who aren’t
Differences in society leave some people not only at higher risk of getting sick, but less able to do things to not get sick. For example, people who are homeless cannot ‘stay home; people who don’t’ have access to running water cannot ‘wash their hands’, people who are in jail cannot ‘social distance’; people with certain jobs, often lower-paid jobs like retail, cannot ‘work from home’. We’re advised to ‘seek medical treatment for symptoms’, but people who don’t have health insurance or paid sick leave might not do this. What’s more, being poor and disadvantaged is linked to being sick with diabetes, heart problems, and lung disease, which are some of the conditions that make being sick with COVID more deadly.
These issues overlap with racial issues because people in minority groups, like black people, are in much higher numbers among the homeless, jailed, low-paid, and sick. Being treated unfairly for so long can make people in minority groups not trust the system and ignore health advice. Because of this, it’s important for people in minority groups to be given information that’s specifically suited to them, and from organisations within their own community that they trust. That’s why the government needs to work closely with communities to make sure important information is properly passed on and taken on board.
Culture
A sense of being an individual versus being together with others depends a lot on culture. In Western Europe and North America, individualism is strong. In comparison, most other cultures have a stronger sense of being together with others, like others in the country, tribe, or family. This explains some of the differences in how different parts of the world take action against COVID. In Asia, there’s a strong sense of duty to others. This probably makes people stick to doing the right thing even if it’s against their own wishes, and be more open to group-based ideas like herd immunity. In Western Europe and North America, things like kissing, hugging, and arguing are normal acts of self-expression, but are actions that increase the spread of COVID. For these reasons, the spread of COVID might be worse in cultures with a strong sense of individualism.
How we act together also depends on how “strict” our culture is. Meaning, how strict the culture is about doing what’s normal and punishing what’s not. Places like Singapore, Japan, and China tend to be stricter than places like the US, Italy, and Brazil. This can be traced back to having to act together against natural disasters and invasions in the past. In the same way, COVID could make cultures become more strict moving forward, but cultures that value freedom over safety might struggle more. It would be important to find a balance between the two, because while some strictness is important, freedom can also give rise to creative ideas for handling the situation. All this shows that different cultures might need slightly different approaches to handling COVID.
Opposite political views
Opposite political views is something that stops a country from acting together. It can come from having different opinions on certain issues, and from not trusting others who have different opinions. The latter is more of an issue because it can make people not trust the system, turn things into a political battle instead of looking at the actual plan of action, and believe things that aren’t true. In a pandemic, opposite political views can cause different pockets of people to arrive at different ideas about how serious the situation is and how to handle it. People who have extreme opinions might actually get different news because the sources they’ve chosen to follow are ones that hold the same extreme opinions, therefore placing them in an echo chamber. Or, they might talk about the news with others who have the same extreme opinions and only discuss those without considering anything different. Conversations that happen in person are good for exposing people to different opinions, but, since everyone’s in iso because of COVID, are less likely during a pandemic.
Still, some things can help us see eye to eye. For starters, COVID itself gives us not just a shared situation to face but a shared future ahead. Politicians can use this to build our sense of togetherness. Also, opposite views tend to come from having the wrong idea about others, so stopping the spread of fake news is important, because fake news deliberately makes people think in extreme ways and believe things that aren’t true. Finally, seeing politicians from different parties agree on how to act together against COVID can help people get over their extreme opinions and one-sided thinking.
(continued in part 2)
Where can I learn more?
This blog post is based on the following paper:
Bavel, J. J. V., Baicker, K., Boggio, P. S., Capraro, V., Cichocka, A., Cikara, M., . . . Willer, R. (2020). Using social and behavioural science to support COVID-19 pandemic response. Nat Hum Behav, 4(5), 460-471. doi:10.1038/s41562-020-0884-z
You can read the original paper here: