Stack, Break & Withdrawal !?!

We all have witnessed how the pandemic Covid-19 has changed the ways of the world. The prevailing circumstances mandated people to iterate, experiment, adopt & master behaviour(s) which were never followed earlier. 

If we look at physiological behaviour development through Pavlov’s classical conditioning or psycho-social behaviour which roots in beliefs & experience, it takes a while to adopt new behaviour & considerable time to habituate, stabilise & sustain. At such massive scale of population & such compressed time frame we may have not explored the fallibility to comply for some.

 Humans at a time can process 5+/-2 instructions. The hand hygiene, social distancing, protective coverage (mask etc), self curfew, remote working, self health monitoring, other sanitation drives, the frequency & scale has been overwhelming. The bombarding nudges from the govt/ institution (health workers, media etc) have been instrumental in acceptance and initial modelling along with the widespread fear of contagion & absence of vaccine. 

A large workforce started remote working, (behavior) which was more of a trust issue (belief) than an infrastructure issue.

 This era of digital has set high expectations of immediate results/ immediate long term decisions from scientists, policy makers, health workers. Instant Gratification experience shaped this behavior with no regard to procedural timelines and unanticipated side impacts.

 While people learnt, modified the new behavior, ambiguity & uncertainty pushed stress levels, continuous adaptation, constant self vigilance led to cognitive fatigue. Spatial challenges, familial issues, domestic violence, substance abuse too spiked as a result.

 Adding to this, when institution focus shifted to worries of economy, earning, resources etc; withdrawing its watchdog role, comparative framing of economy versus perceived risk presented as conflicting communication. Comparison is a lose-lose proposition. Fear of job loss and social stigma added, there is only a finite human focus for ‘x’ number of problems at a time to address it & hence it may not allow pandemic learnt behavior to settle, frequent violations (undisclosed travel, exposure) might make it difficult for others to follow.

 A classic example: during 3rd phase of lockdown liquor shops were opened to operate, spreading communication around availability, online services-home delivery reinforced its significance (belief) to consumer who had managed 45 days of abstinence (learnt behavior). Simply because it was framed as revenue source for govt.

 Many cultures started respecting & appreciating sanitization & community health workers during this crisis.While preventive sanitation behavior are neither a policy or judiciary issue, one can neither incentivize compliance nor penalise violation. For cohesive cultures of large gatherings, eat together, play together; learning limited proximity has not been easy. However, communities can step up, communicate social norms- accepted behavior, model it, nudge, politely remind. A belief that hygiene norms are for greater good can empower people to own the new norms when period of change is indefinite.Call out a deviance but deflate conflict, (oppression of deviant) if you’re not aware of their incapacity to do norms right away.

 The moment invites for decluttering the number messages, sharing of testimonials rather than data numbers to talk about impact, alleviate fear rather than just simply saying “live with it”.

Views expressed above are written in my personal capacity as disciple of Applied Behaviour Science