Some common thinking traps make it a challenge to keep up social distancing, but they can be overcome. Here's how.
Staying compliant with stay-at-home rules is hard. So is staying at home of your own accord if your local area starts to ease restrictions prematurely. Some experts have been surprised at how compliant the public has been overall with stay-at-home orders.
But although many people have been compliant, common faulty thinking errors risk undermining people's continued compliance. When you're aware of these errors, you can stay vigilant and help others do the same.1."I broke the rules and saw my friends or family last week and I'm fine, everything must be ok." A common thinking error is that people overgeneralize from just one incident. If people broke stay-at-home rules to see their families over Easter, and they didn't get sick, then many people are likely now feeling an overly2."My neighbors look like they're getting back to normal, everything must be fine." Three houses on my street have had parties since last week. Cars seem to be coming and going from people's driveways more often. Peer and other social pressures play a role in whether people continue to stay at home. Once people observe a few people start to break stay-at-home rules, it starts to quickly become more socially acceptable. Especially during a time of anxiety, people are watching other people for cues, so any signs of other people easing up aren't likely to go unnoticed.Another common thinking error is for us to make a judgment of safety based on a factor that's quite irrelevant. Sure, flu-like illnesses are more prevalent in fall and winter—but warmer weather and signs of spring in no way make it safe to resume normal activities if other data aren't pointing to that. Even very subtle signs that everything is back to normal may give people a false sense of safety. For instance, a new product I've been excited to try arrived at my local Whole Foods; I noticed that even that lulled me a little into thinking,"Things are more normal than I thought they were."to what other people are doing, we also pay particular attention to what socially influential people are doing, whether this is celebrities or"cool" people within our own social groups. To me at least, staying-at-home and wearing a mask in public has felt socially desirable—sort of like how, under normal circumstances, it's good to be seen using your own bags at the supermarket. And there have even been plenty of photos of celebrities in social distancing mode to back up the notion that no one is immune.socially desirable to be taking risks rather than avoiding them, particularly within certain subgroups—like if it's becomes seen as"not macho" or"not tough" to be maintaining social distancing and limiting non-essential activities. We're very vulnerable to this thinking shift because typically being seen to be worried about something is viewed as less socially desirable than being viewed as confident and not worried.
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