As the world begins to open back up in fits and starts, we are, more than ever, longing for certainty. But certainty is likely a long way off. In the meantime, we should turn to practical wisdom to guide us.
Developing countries have faced hard challenges in confronting coronavirus. Lacking trust in government could help explain why.
In addition to creating a COVID-19 vaccine, we need a major push to understand how people will react to it. Here are the questions we need to ask now to get ahead of the potential behavioral challenges.
We are reluctant to tell people how to live their lives, except insofar as individual decisions affect the lives of others. We can learn a valuable lesson for the present moment from the examples of smoking and drunk driving.
We typically try to avoid boredom. But in trying to outrun boredom, we risk failing to heed its call.
If things return to the way they were, we will have failed.
The Research Lead is a monthly digest connecting you to noteworthy academic and applied research from around the behavioral sciences. Here are our picks for May 2020.
How can we generate long-term behavior change when compliance isn’t exciting anymore? (Hint: don’t build “Piano Stairs.”)
In order for governments to promote public health effectively, they must ensure their citizens abide by public health orders, without turning their open societies into police states.
Our field wasn’t ready for a pandemic. We must learn its lessons before the next emergency.
