Using social and behavioural science to support COVID-19 pandemic response

Nat Hum Behav. 2020 May;4(5):460-471. doi: 10.1038/s41562-020-0884-z. Epub 2020 Apr 30.

Authors

Jay J Van Bavel¹, Katherine Baicker², Paulo S Boggio³, Valerio Capraro⁴, Aleksandra Cichocka^{5

6}, Mina Cikara⁷, Molly J Crockett⁸, Alia J Crum⁹, Karen M Douglas⁵, James N Druckman¹⁰, John Drury¹¹, Oeindrila Dube², Naomi Ellemers¹², Eli J Finkel¹³, James H Fowler¹⁴, Michele Gelfand¹⁵, Shihui Han¹⁶, S Alexander Haslam¹⁷, Jolanda Jetten¹⁸, Shinobu Kitayama¹⁹, Dean Mobbs²⁰, Lucy E Napper²¹, Dominic J Packer²², Gordon Pennycook²³, Ellen Peters²⁴, Richard E Petty²⁵, David G Rand²⁶, Stephen D Reicher²⁷, Simone Schnall^{28

29}, Azim Shariff³⁰, Linda J Skitka³¹, Sandra Susan Smith³², Cass R Sunstein³³, Nassim Tabri³⁴, Joshua A Tucker³⁵, Sander van der Linden²⁸, Paul van Lange³⁶, Kim A Weeden³⁷, Michael J A Wohl³⁴, Jamil Zaki⁹, Sean R Zion⁹, Robb Willer³⁸

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology & Neural Science, New York University, New York, NY, USA. jay.vanbavel@nyu.edu.
² University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, Chicago, IL, USA.
³ Social and Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Center for Health and Biological Sciences, Mackenzie Presbyterian University, São Paulo, Brazil.
⁴ Department of Economics, Middlesex University London, London, UK.
⁵ School of Psychology, University of Kent, Kent, UK.
⁶ Department of Psychology, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland.
⁷ Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
⁸ Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
⁹ Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
¹⁰ Department of Political Science, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA.
¹¹ Department of Social Psychology, University of Sussex, Sussex, UK.
¹² Faculty of Social Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
¹³ Department of Psychology and the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA.
¹⁴ Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health and Department of Political Science, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA.
¹⁵ Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA.
¹⁶ School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Peking University, Beijing, China.
¹⁷ University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
¹⁸ School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
¹⁹ Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
²⁰ Department of Humanities and Social Sciences and Computation and Neural Systems Program, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA.
²¹ Department of Psychology and Health, Medicine & Society Program, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, USA.
²² Department of Psychology, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, USA.
²³ Hill/Levene Schools of Business, University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.
²⁴ School of Journalism and Communication, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA.
²⁵ Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA.
²⁶ Sloan School and Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, MA, USA.
²⁷ School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St. Andrews, St Andrews, UK.
²⁸ Department of Psychology University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
²⁹ Bennett Institute for Public Policy, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
³⁰ Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
³¹ Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
³² Department of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA.
³³ Harvard Law School, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States.
³⁴ Department of Psychology, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
³⁵ Department of Politics, New York University, New York, NY, USA.
³⁶ Institute for Brain and Behavior Amsterdam, Department of Experimental and Applied Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
³⁷ Department of Sociology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.
³⁸ Department of Sociology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA. willer@stanford.edu.

PMID: 32355299
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-020-0884-z

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic represents a massive global health crisis. Because the crisis requires large-scale behaviour change and places significant psychological burdens on individuals, insights from the social and behavioural sciences can be used to help align human behaviour with the recommendations of epidemiologists and public health experts. Here we discuss evidence from a selection of research topics relevant to pandemics, including work on navigating threats, social and cultural influences on behaviour, science communication, moral decision-making, leadership, and stress and coping. In each section, we note the nature and quality of prior research, including uncertainty and unsettled issues. We identify several insights for effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic and highlight important gaps researchers should move quickly to fill in the coming weeks and months.

Publication types

Review

MeSH terms

Adaptation, Psychological
Betacoronavirus
COVID-19
Communicable Disease Control
Coronavirus Infections / diagnosis
Coronavirus Infections / epidemiology
Coronavirus Infections / prevention & control*
Coronavirus Infections / transmission
Coronavirus*
Decision Making
Epidemiological Monitoring
Global Health
Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice*
Human Activities*
Humans
Leadership
Pandemics / prevention & control*
Pneumonia, Viral / epidemiology
Pneumonia, Viral / prevention & control*
Pneumonia, Viral / transmission
Public Health
Quarantine*
SARS-CoV-2
Social Media
Stress, Psychological

Abstract

Publication types

MeSH terms

Grants and funding