When it became clear that the world was about to change from the global pandemic, the Psychonomic Society went into action. The Governing Board Chair, Jim Pomerantz, contacted me (I think because I am the Editor-in-Chief of a PS journal, Learning & Behavior) to suggest that we might be able to help stem the spread […]
Behavioral Changes
The novel coronavirus spreads through human interactions with people who are infected. Therefore, changing human behavior is a powerful, low cost, immediate intervention to stem the pandemic. The immediacy is critically important as advancements in medical sciences take substantial periods of time before safety and effectiveness can be documented. By contrast, behavioral scientists have amassed […]
We are all bombarded with the message that we should practice social distancing, but each of us has likely seen striking violations of the goal. What can behavioral sciences uniquely contribute? The recommendations detailed in the infographic and video below were made by the Behavioral Science Response to COVID-19 Working Group. The goal of the […]
Jonathon Crystal and I met online to talk about the first set of recommendations – to reduce face touching – made by the Behavioral Science Response to COVID-19 Working Group. Our hands are disease vectors, so by reducing the times we touch our faces, we reduce the chances of transferring the virus from our hands to […]
Human behavior plays a large role in the spread of coronavirus. Behavioral scientists are therefore a unique resource for changing human behavior in ways that can reduce the spread, including social distancing, handwashing, and face touching. Reduce face touching Research has shown that we touch our faces far more often than we may realize, about 23 times […]