Thread by @dontwantadothis

A new psych 🧵 on covid beliefs & messaging:

Tonight's 60 Minutes segment included a pretty big pitch to workplace facilities: upgrade your IAQ to encourage bldg rental; wkrs want to spend wk hrs breathing cleaner air & will be at work + if you improve IAQ to keep them healthy.

2/ This was an appeal to capitalist agendas: for employers to get wkrs back to the office to benefit nearby retail; for bldg owners to rent properties, etc. That the show put so much emphasis on work settings suggests things aren't as "back to normal" as policy makers would have

3/ us believe.

But it also hints at something interesting about how people think. Looking around at unmasked holiday revelers, you might assume that almost everyone believes pandemic threats have completely passed.

4/ And in fact, when they're unmasked and holiday reveling, most people *do* think that. But the hints of ongoing avoidance of employment settings suggest that folks may not think it *all the time.*

5/ The fact is, people's attitudes and beliefs can be (and often are) situationally and socially "activated." Our beliefs, just like our behavior, can therefore be very inconsistent, depending on what a given situation prompts us to think about and value in the moment.

6/ One thing the 60 Minutes workplace emphasis may suggest is that, although people believe the pandemic is over when they're thinking about their OWN possible transmission of virus to others (& so, about their responsibility to mask) -

7/ especially for activities they want to do, like socializing -

they may not view transmission risks as quite so passé when thinking about how others are putting *them* at risk - especially when an activity is something they might feel pretty meh about

8/ (like going to the office vs. working from home).

In the former situation (say, deciding to mask at a party), there are negative social consequences to believing covid risks still exist. In the latter situation (choosing to go to work vs. working from home, for those who

9/ can choose), there are some nice fringe benefits to believing covid risks persist (like, justifying working in your pjs & with your cat). Those general costs and benefits can influence what people think about health threats & risk behavior, in one situation vs. another.

10/ That 60 Minutes spent so much time discussing work environments (versus, say, school or health care settings) makes me suspect that people still believe covid presents risks to them *when the perceived benefits of believing that outweighs the costs of doing so*,

11/ & that these intermittent risk beliefs (about work spaces, specifically) are still exacting an economic toll.

& if activists can activate these situationally dependent beliefs and attitudes,

12/ we can leverage them to persuade people that airborne virus mitigation should remain a societal priority, & that mitigation is needed in non-work environments that share features with workplaces (like public transport, schools, and hospitals), where others could infect them.