COVID-19 : Why People are not Heeding to Advice to Stay at Home, despite various voices across the country ?
Binit Kumar
AGM Marketing - Oral Care | Dabur I Ex P&G | Evidence Based Marketeer I BW 40 under 40
The answer to this lies in Behavioral Economics and a Cognitive bias : "Optimism Bias". We overestimate our likelihood of experiencing good events and underestimate our likelihood of experiencing bad events. People are unrealistically optimistic even when the stakes are high.
Why do we underestimate our likelihood of getting infected ?
While deciding about the likelihood, we using our rules of thumb – Anchoring and Stereotyping. We think the virus has symptoms as similar to flu and we are very much used to handle the same. It is impacting countries more where there is better air quality and is fatal for old people. We don't get Viral Fever/Flu in summers and the same will go and would not impact us.
Can we do something about it ?
The answer could be through 2 biases : “Availability Bias & Social Proof”
Availability Bias : How much people should worry about epidemic will depend on the likelihood of how readily these examples/experiences come to the mind ? Since most of the young generation in India have not experienced any epidemic so there is no readily available memory.
Solution : A good way to increase people fear of a bad outcome is to remind them of a related event in which things have gone wrong. People have to come forward to create short films on past epidemic and make it viral for people to create these memories.
Social Proof : It is a natural human tendency to imitate the behavior of people around us. There could be a positive or negative social proof to reinforce or detest a behavior. Pointing out many people stayed at home and created an enjoyable experience for themselves will make more people to do the same. A short video of “How I Made the most of my 21 days ?” by celebs, sportsperson and common man would help in driving the most socially acceptable behavior.
Most importantly, the way I try to tame my monkey mind or handle my irrationality is by being aware of the cognitive biases. I would urge all to be aware of these cognitive biases which will help us make better decision for us and our families.
Business Leader with 12+ years of Experience in Sales, Marketing and General Management
4 年Training the monkey mind!! :) i was recommended a book on this recently by Shivcharan Pulugurtha
FMCG, GT|Modern Trade|E-Com|B2B|Key Accounts and Institutional Sales specialist with a passion for driving revenue growth and customer satisfaction
4 年Well said ....
Dreams, Growth, Happiness Enabler and Deputy General Manager at Dhathri Ayurveda
4 年Very true. People assume that it is similar to the 7 day flu. It is much worse llnd severe. This may be termed as anecdotal, but I am acquainted with a person in France who has come down with it and is on day 17. The symptoms are very similar to pneumonia and having lost the sense of taste. People are severely underestimating this.