Life under lockdown

Has COVID-19 changed the ways we regard restrictions and rule-breaking?

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE HEADLINE POINTS THAT HAVE AFFECTED PUBLIC BEHAVIOUR?

From the beginning there’s been consistent evidence of some of the factors that matter. One of the things is the belief in the extent to which the coronavirus measures are effective. Another one is the extent to which there is a threat. The greater the R number [the R number is how many people one infected person will pass the disease to] then the more adherence there is.

But things like your sense of solidarity are also really important. People are doing it for others, not necessarily for themselves. The sense of fairness or justice. That’s come up with the new tiers, but in fact it’s always been a factor.

And then linking these, is confidence in what the government is doing. There was a very good panel survey carried out by University College London which found that confidence in the government was the major predictor of adherence of many of the behaviours we were asked to engage in.

WHAT ROLE DOES THE SENSE OF PERSONAL REWARD PLAY?

For most people, there’s not a lot in it. It’s a minority of people, 1 in 100, that might suffer fatalities. We are doing it for others. This is a debate to be had about the role of sacrifice.

There was a very good review published by my colleagues Prof Susan Michie and Prof Robert West, which looked at whether there was any evidence for fatigue over time, and they decided that there wasn’t. Look at other kinds of events where people make a sacrifice, like marathon running and religious festivals. These are physical endurance events. And people will do these things for a greater cause.

WHAT SORT OF EFFECT DO YOU THINK A PUNISHMENT, SUCH AS A FINE, HAS ON BEHAVIOUR?

The question of punishment or coercion more generally in public health measures has been looked at in other contexts. I was involved in some research looking at mass decontamination when there’s a chemical incident. That requires a sacrifice in the form of having to take your clothes off and go through a shower in public space. So a behaviour with a high personal cost. And when people were coerced into it, or were attempted to be coerced into it by being shouted at and threatened, then engagement went

“Things like your sense of solidarity are really important. People are doing it for others, not necessarily for themselves”

down. People did engage when there was communication, when there was concern and care about people’s needs. Punishment was therefore counterproductive because it led to people resisting the thing they’re being asked to do. The general point is that punishment or coercion affects the relationship, so the relationship becomes not about public health, but about our rights and that we’re being bullied.

If you look at it in terms of COVID-19, one of the early studies carried out at the London School of Economics found that the threat of punishment was an inferior predictor to people’s adherence to the rules than the law, because the law was being used quite early on. It was in use since March. It was a poor predictor.

If you look at one behaviour, selfisolation, it has very poor levels of adherence at 10 or 20 per cent, those are the kind of figures. 0ow youove got punishments for failing to self-isolate. But if you look at the data on the process, why is it that people are not self-isolating enough, for the full 14 days? There are psychological factors at play, but it’s not wilfulness – it’s things like not knowing the rules, things that your peers are doing. Then you’ve got who they are. There are certain demographics. People who havenot got financial support, or social support. To bring in punishment when you know non-adherence is not wilfulness – that misunderstands what’s going on there.

WHAT ROLE IS THE VACCINE LIKELY TO PLAY WHEN IT BECOMES AVAILABLE?

I used to say when I talked to people about the role of psychology and behaviour in the pandemic that until we’ve got a vaccine, it’s all about behaviour. It’s about distancing, washing hands, and self-isolation.

But actually, when you’ve got a vaccine, it’s still about psychology because people have got to believe in the vaccine. They’ve got to do the behaviour of getting the vaccine. And vaccine hesitancy is a big thing, right? Some of the survey data I’ve been looking at recently shows that vaccine confidence has actually been going down, just at the time when we need it to be going up.

There needs to be a lot of work to reassure people, because vaccine hesitancy is actually a small majority of people. It’s not the committed minority, but a very large number of people who are hesitant. There needs to be information that will make people believe that the vaccine is safe and effective, so these are psychological things.

WHAT SORT OF LONG-TERM IMPACTS COULD THE PANDEMIC HAVE ON OUR PSYCHOLOGY?

My current research is on mutual aid groups [teams of volunteers that were set up to help local people out, during the pandemic]. These groups have been able to meet the needs that the authorities haven’t been able to. As we said, self-isolation has been a problem as people are not isolating enough when they need to isolate. They need financial support. They need social support. And that means someone getting their shopping. It means getting their prescriptions. It means walking their dog. It means giving them emotional support, lots of these things. These mutual aid groups were set up to help provide that.

Now, if you look at the development of these groups, certainly there was a surge in activity in the early months and then they declined. You look at them now, and many of them are still going and some are having conversations about how they take it forward after COVID. Are they still going to be there? They are networks, but they’re also alternative structures. They’re alternative ways of doing things, or even alternative ways of doing politics. And that’s how some people think of them now. Some of them are people who have been involved in groups and volunteering before, but many of them are new people seeing things in a new way. So it’s quite hard work for them and there’s a risk for people involved in those groups of stress and burnout. But it is also quite an exciting prospect for the future.