12-07-2020, 11:16 PM
12-07-2020, 11:35 PM
This is Why People Refuse to Wear Masks
[attachment=8438]
We Can’t Counteract Behaviors Until We Understand Them
It’s frustrating to see people in public without masks. If you’re trying to prevent the spread of the virus by wearing a mask and social distancing, it’s easy to be upset when you see others actively working to not do their own part.
What’s with these people? The science isn’t complicated. How can they ignore it?
It comes down to one of our greatest talents: telling ourselves stories. We’re amazing at telling ourselves stories. It’s how we make sense of the world. It’s why everyone’s always the hero in their own mind. And it helps us rationalize all of the things we want to do in the short-term, while minimizing the impact of all of those inconvenient long-term consequences.
Masks and social distancing are no exception. When people don’t want to wear a mask or abide by social distancing requirements, they tell themselves a story to justify their behavior.
And if we’re going to convince people to change their behaviors, first we need to understand the stories they’re telling themselves.
*I don’t know anyone who’s died from Covid-19.*
“People tend to assess the relative importance of issues by the ease with which they are retrieved from memory,” wrote Daniel Kahneman in Thinking, Fast and Slow. We overly value the experiences that are more vivid in our memory. We remember major events over typical day-to-day activities. And those events that directly involve us have more impact than the ones we read about in the news.
This availability bias is a heuristic — a mental shortcut. It helps us evaluate the importance of something based on the examples that come to mind. One of my favorite examples is how sharks actually save swimmers’ lives. As Freeman Dyson wrote,
“Careful analysis of deaths in the ocean near San Diego shows that on average, the death of each swimmer killed by a shark saves the lives of ten others. Every time a swimmer is killed, the number of deaths by drowning goes down for a few years and then returns to the normal level. The effect occurs because reports of death by shark attack are remembered more vividly than reports of drownings.”
Similarly, if people don’t know anyone who’s died from Covid-19, they don’t personalize the impact. It becomes nothing more than a statistic, with little relevance to them. Without strong examples of the potential danger, it’s easier to downplay the risk.
In order to counteract this story, we need to create stronger relevance for people. Unfortunately, as the virus spreads throughout the country, more begin to see a direct impact to the people they know. As tempting as it can be to say “I told you so,” it’s important to focus on encouraging positive behaviors — wearing masks and practicing social distance, to help them do their part towards a solution.
I’m smarter than the experts.
Some people need to feel that they’re smarter than experts. Their self-image relies on it. And to protect that self-image, they’ll try to discredit any advice that comes from someone of authority.
As Cornell psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger showed, when people are relatively ill-informed on a topic, they have an unrealistic amount of confidence. As Darwin warned over a century ago, “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.”
As messages from medical experts have evolved over the course of the pandemic, it feeds into this bias. People use the changing messages to justify their distrust of experts. Political leaders know this — and they push conflicting information to promote this confusion.
To counter this story, we need to focus on providing the facts and reasons behind expert messaging. People generally understand that with an evolving situation, advice will continue to evolve with it, but they need to see the facts behind the message to give it credibility. People are much more open to instruction when they can understand — and agree with — the reasoning behind it.
Experts also agree that we should look both ways before crossing the street. Yet I’ve never met anyone who says it’s their right to run into the road without checking first for oncoming vehicles.
Covid-19’s not that big of a deal.
One of the best ways to survive a crisis is to embody Kipling’s words and “keep your head when all about you are losing theirs.” Yet everyone responds to change differently. And when some people can’t handle it, they try to ignore it.
The pandemic is traumatizing. It’s easy to become overwhelmed. And when that happens, people will try to downplay the seriousness of the situation. Often called the ostrich effect, this denial lets people avoid dealing with the problem.
We’ve seen this bias play out on a national level. As politicians and the public both tried to avoid the depth of the problem, they failed to take measures that would contain the issue. Their unwillingness to deal with the problem head on made it much more serious — and cost people their lives.
Arguing against this story is difficult — people become angry because you’re threatening their defense mechanism. You’re trying to force them to confront a situation that they’re ill-equipped to handle.
To counter this story, we need to help people see that while the problem is serious, it’s far from hopeless. People become overwhelmed when they see a problem without understanding what they can do to help solve it. So the solution resides in helping them see an achievable solution. We need to replace this unproductive defense mechanism with a more constructive one.
As people recognize the realistic steps they can take to manage it, they’ll be more open to confronting the depth of the issue. And face up to the actions that they can take.
*It doesn’t matter if I wear a mask or not.*
When you invest in public health, nothing happens. The best-case scenario is that viruses don’t spread, people don’t get sick, and people don’t die. The ideal consequence is the absence of a consequence.
Unfortunately, the absence of a consequence isn’t motivating to most people.
The present bias explains our tendency to overvalue immediate, certain rewards at the expense of long-term uncertain results. Our brains have a much easier time processing near-term, certain consequences than future, abstract ones. Which explains why we sit on the couch eating junk food instead of exercising — maybe it will cause us to get fat in the future, but that immediate consequence is just too good to pass up.
People who refuse to wear masks or social distance are prioritizing the convenience of today over the uncertain impact to the future. They see wearing masks as an inconvenience. Getting together with friends is a fun, immediate consequence. Wearing a mask and maintaining social distance asks people to make an immediate sacrifice for a long-term, potential benefit.
In order to counteract this present bias, we need to help people associate masks and social distancing with a tangible benefit. Or failing that, we can make sure that not wearing a mask in public comes with stiffer penalties and stops being a positive consequence. Negative reinforcement’s never ideal, but sometimes it’s the simplest option.
*I’m healthy. I’ll be fine.*
Most of us tend to believe that we’re less vulnerable to dangers than others are. People know the statistics on cancer, but they still smoke, sunbathe, and act without regard to the potential consequences. Similar to Jerry Seinfeld’s bit on how all men think of themselves as low-level superheroes, we all operate with a belief in our own invulnerability.
This optimism bias helps us take risks. It keeps us pushing against difficult odds and persisting in the face of failure. But taken too far, it encourages people to take risks that far outweigh the potential benefits.
Covid-19 doesn’t care whether someone thinks they’re invulnerable, it’s more than happy to bring them crashing down to reality. But instead of fighting this bias head-on, it’s often easier to emphasize the benefits to others. Smokers who struggle to quit on their own are more likely to succeed when they focus on protecting their partners or children from secondhand smoke. And doctors were more likely to sanitize their hands when reminded of the impact to patients than the benefit to their own health.
When we can turn the focus from someone’s own health to that of others, it becomes a moral issue. While people are often happy to downplay the risk to themselves, they’re more likely to take preventative measures when they view their actions as protecting others.
*Create better stories.*
“Once we have made up our minds about an issue, stubborn inconsistency allows us a very appealing luxury: We really don’t have to think hard about the issue anymore,” wrote Robert Cialdini in describing our drive for consistency. This pushes us to seek out information that supports our existing position while disregarding the evidence that contradicts it. As Warren Buffet put it,
“What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact.”
This confirmation bias is why it’s crucial to recognize the reasons that people refuse to wear masks and address them early. The longer people maintain these biases — the longer they continue to rationalize their behavior with these stories — the more difficult it will be to reverse it.
It’s easy to become frustrated when you see someone in public without a mask or groups of people blowing off the social distancing requirements. But villianizing this group doesn’t help. Shouting matches at the grocery store, while entertaining to watch, don’t help move people forward in a positive way.
Shame doesn’t promote introspection. And anger doesn’t make people more open-minded. This only happens when we take the time to recognize the stories people are telling themselves. And start taking steps to replace them with better ones.
hxxps://medium.com/never-fear/this-is-why-people-refuse-to-wear-masks-b94b32705408
[attachment=8438]
We Can’t Counteract Behaviors Until We Understand Them
It’s frustrating to see people in public without masks. If you’re trying to prevent the spread of the virus by wearing a mask and social distancing, it’s easy to be upset when you see others actively working to not do their own part.
What’s with these people? The science isn’t complicated. How can they ignore it?
It comes down to one of our greatest talents: telling ourselves stories. We’re amazing at telling ourselves stories. It’s how we make sense of the world. It’s why everyone’s always the hero in their own mind. And it helps us rationalize all of the things we want to do in the short-term, while minimizing the impact of all of those inconvenient long-term consequences.
Masks and social distancing are no exception. When people don’t want to wear a mask or abide by social distancing requirements, they tell themselves a story to justify their behavior.
And if we’re going to convince people to change their behaviors, first we need to understand the stories they’re telling themselves.
*I don’t know anyone who’s died from Covid-19.*
“People tend to assess the relative importance of issues by the ease with which they are retrieved from memory,” wrote Daniel Kahneman in Thinking, Fast and Slow. We overly value the experiences that are more vivid in our memory. We remember major events over typical day-to-day activities. And those events that directly involve us have more impact than the ones we read about in the news.
This availability bias is a heuristic — a mental shortcut. It helps us evaluate the importance of something based on the examples that come to mind. One of my favorite examples is how sharks actually save swimmers’ lives. As Freeman Dyson wrote,
“Careful analysis of deaths in the ocean near San Diego shows that on average, the death of each swimmer killed by a shark saves the lives of ten others. Every time a swimmer is killed, the number of deaths by drowning goes down for a few years and then returns to the normal level. The effect occurs because reports of death by shark attack are remembered more vividly than reports of drownings.”
Similarly, if people don’t know anyone who’s died from Covid-19, they don’t personalize the impact. It becomes nothing more than a statistic, with little relevance to them. Without strong examples of the potential danger, it’s easier to downplay the risk.
In order to counteract this story, we need to create stronger relevance for people. Unfortunately, as the virus spreads throughout the country, more begin to see a direct impact to the people they know. As tempting as it can be to say “I told you so,” it’s important to focus on encouraging positive behaviors — wearing masks and practicing social distance, to help them do their part towards a solution.
I’m smarter than the experts.
Some people need to feel that they’re smarter than experts. Their self-image relies on it. And to protect that self-image, they’ll try to discredit any advice that comes from someone of authority.
As Cornell psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger showed, when people are relatively ill-informed on a topic, they have an unrealistic amount of confidence. As Darwin warned over a century ago, “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.”
As messages from medical experts have evolved over the course of the pandemic, it feeds into this bias. People use the changing messages to justify their distrust of experts. Political leaders know this — and they push conflicting information to promote this confusion.
To counter this story, we need to focus on providing the facts and reasons behind expert messaging. People generally understand that with an evolving situation, advice will continue to evolve with it, but they need to see the facts behind the message to give it credibility. People are much more open to instruction when they can understand — and agree with — the reasoning behind it.
Experts also agree that we should look both ways before crossing the street. Yet I’ve never met anyone who says it’s their right to run into the road without checking first for oncoming vehicles.
Covid-19’s not that big of a deal.
One of the best ways to survive a crisis is to embody Kipling’s words and “keep your head when all about you are losing theirs.” Yet everyone responds to change differently. And when some people can’t handle it, they try to ignore it.
The pandemic is traumatizing. It’s easy to become overwhelmed. And when that happens, people will try to downplay the seriousness of the situation. Often called the ostrich effect, this denial lets people avoid dealing with the problem.
We’ve seen this bias play out on a national level. As politicians and the public both tried to avoid the depth of the problem, they failed to take measures that would contain the issue. Their unwillingness to deal with the problem head on made it much more serious — and cost people their lives.
Arguing against this story is difficult — people become angry because you’re threatening their defense mechanism. You’re trying to force them to confront a situation that they’re ill-equipped to handle.
To counter this story, we need to help people see that while the problem is serious, it’s far from hopeless. People become overwhelmed when they see a problem without understanding what they can do to help solve it. So the solution resides in helping them see an achievable solution. We need to replace this unproductive defense mechanism with a more constructive one.
As people recognize the realistic steps they can take to manage it, they’ll be more open to confronting the depth of the issue. And face up to the actions that they can take.
*It doesn’t matter if I wear a mask or not.*
When you invest in public health, nothing happens. The best-case scenario is that viruses don’t spread, people don’t get sick, and people don’t die. The ideal consequence is the absence of a consequence.
Unfortunately, the absence of a consequence isn’t motivating to most people.
The present bias explains our tendency to overvalue immediate, certain rewards at the expense of long-term uncertain results. Our brains have a much easier time processing near-term, certain consequences than future, abstract ones. Which explains why we sit on the couch eating junk food instead of exercising — maybe it will cause us to get fat in the future, but that immediate consequence is just too good to pass up.
People who refuse to wear masks or social distance are prioritizing the convenience of today over the uncertain impact to the future. They see wearing masks as an inconvenience. Getting together with friends is a fun, immediate consequence. Wearing a mask and maintaining social distance asks people to make an immediate sacrifice for a long-term, potential benefit.
In order to counteract this present bias, we need to help people associate masks and social distancing with a tangible benefit. Or failing that, we can make sure that not wearing a mask in public comes with stiffer penalties and stops being a positive consequence. Negative reinforcement’s never ideal, but sometimes it’s the simplest option.
*I’m healthy. I’ll be fine.*
Most of us tend to believe that we’re less vulnerable to dangers than others are. People know the statistics on cancer, but they still smoke, sunbathe, and act without regard to the potential consequences. Similar to Jerry Seinfeld’s bit on how all men think of themselves as low-level superheroes, we all operate with a belief in our own invulnerability.
This optimism bias helps us take risks. It keeps us pushing against difficult odds and persisting in the face of failure. But taken too far, it encourages people to take risks that far outweigh the potential benefits.
Covid-19 doesn’t care whether someone thinks they’re invulnerable, it’s more than happy to bring them crashing down to reality. But instead of fighting this bias head-on, it’s often easier to emphasize the benefits to others. Smokers who struggle to quit on their own are more likely to succeed when they focus on protecting their partners or children from secondhand smoke. And doctors were more likely to sanitize their hands when reminded of the impact to patients than the benefit to their own health.
When we can turn the focus from someone’s own health to that of others, it becomes a moral issue. While people are often happy to downplay the risk to themselves, they’re more likely to take preventative measures when they view their actions as protecting others.
*Create better stories.*
“Once we have made up our minds about an issue, stubborn inconsistency allows us a very appealing luxury: We really don’t have to think hard about the issue anymore,” wrote Robert Cialdini in describing our drive for consistency. This pushes us to seek out information that supports our existing position while disregarding the evidence that contradicts it. As Warren Buffet put it,
“What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact.”
This confirmation bias is why it’s crucial to recognize the reasons that people refuse to wear masks and address them early. The longer people maintain these biases — the longer they continue to rationalize their behavior with these stories — the more difficult it will be to reverse it.
It’s easy to become frustrated when you see someone in public without a mask or groups of people blowing off the social distancing requirements. But villianizing this group doesn’t help. Shouting matches at the grocery store, while entertaining to watch, don’t help move people forward in a positive way.
Shame doesn’t promote introspection. And anger doesn’t make people more open-minded. This only happens when we take the time to recognize the stories people are telling themselves. And start taking steps to replace them with better ones.
hxxps://medium.com/never-fear/this-is-why-people-refuse-to-wear-masks-b94b32705408
02-24-2021, 01:57 AM
03-11-2021, 01:52 AM
03-11-2021, 04:16 AM
it's ironic you shared this.. I was just thinking about how we take so much for granted so much even our human interactions.... just imagine if when we were down...we couldn't even sigh...the sigh of negative feeling, boredom or loneliness...regardless of which ever...is so powerful....we are told to take deep breaths when we need to calm down... and its seems the body knows to do it automatically in some cases.... so many signs yet we still deny...the exist -- I leave that part for the other thread ... I was about to go into the existence of God...
03-13-2021, 09:24 PM
03-13-2021, 11:05 PM
Love this, I will have to tell myself that everyday. Thanks for Sharing.
03-14-2021, 02:36 AM
Wonderfully stated... will also keep it in mind.
"Life doesn’t make any sense without interdependence. We need each other, and the sooner we learn that, the better for us all."
Erik Erikson
"Life doesn’t make any sense without interdependence. We need each other, and the sooner we learn that, the better for us all."
Erik Erikson
03-14-2021, 05:17 PM
[attachment=8814]
HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ALL WHOM CELEBRATE IT TODAY. IRELAND, FOR ONE. Pray for your children. For the Blessings of the Bible to be on them...
The History of 'APRONS'
I don't think most kids today know what an apron is. The principle use of Mom's or Grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath because she only had a few. It was also because it was easier to wash aprons than dresses and aprons used less material. But along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven.
It was wonderful for drying children's tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears.
From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven.
When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids..
And when the weather was cold, she wrapped it around her arms.
Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove.
Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron.
From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls.
In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees.
When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds.
When dinner was ready, she walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and the men folk knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner.
It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that 'old-time apron' that served so many purposes.
Send this to those who would know (and love) the story about aprons.
REMEMBER:
Mom's and Grandma's used to set hot baked apple pies on the window sill to cool. Her granddaughters set theirs on the window sill to thaw.
They would go crazy now trying to figure out how many germs were on that apron.
I don't think I ever caught anything from an apron - but love
Author - Unknown
HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ALL WHOM CELEBRATE IT TODAY. IRELAND, FOR ONE. Pray for your children. For the Blessings of the Bible to be on them...
The History of 'APRONS'
I don't think most kids today know what an apron is. The principle use of Mom's or Grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath because she only had a few. It was also because it was easier to wash aprons than dresses and aprons used less material. But along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven.
It was wonderful for drying children's tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears.
From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven.
When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids..
And when the weather was cold, she wrapped it around her arms.
Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove.
Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron.
From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls.
In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees.
When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds.
When dinner was ready, she walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and the men folk knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner.
It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that 'old-time apron' that served so many purposes.
Send this to those who would know (and love) the story about aprons.
REMEMBER:
Mom's and Grandma's used to set hot baked apple pies on the window sill to cool. Her granddaughters set theirs on the window sill to thaw.
They would go crazy now trying to figure out how many germs were on that apron.
I don't think I ever caught anything from an apron - but love
Author - Unknown
03-14-2021, 06:08 PM
Absolutely BEAUTIFUL!!!
So many memories .... Thank you for sharing this ...
![[Image: E0HN7sf.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/E0HN7sf.gif)
Ice
So many memories .... Thank you for sharing this ...
Ice