"The Psychologyof Pandemics"

Read the Extract from Psychology of Pandemics  

 I've spent years studying the psychology of pandemics. This is what you need to know about COVID-19.

In early 2019, I made a number of predictions about the next pandemic, and almost all of them have come true.

Read the interview with Steven Taylor in The Independent  

A recent paper by an interdisciplinary, international group including psychologists, on how the behavioural sciences and the media can be utilised to help manage the outbreak can be found here  

Abstract: 

“The COVID-19 pandemic represents a massive, global health crisis. Because the crisis requires large-scale behavior change and poses significant psychological burdens on individuals, insights from the social and behavioural sciences are critical for optimizing pandemic response. Here we review relevant research from a diversity of research areas relevant to different dimensions of pandemic response. We review foundational work on navigating threats, social and cultural factors, science communication, moral decision-making, leadership, and stress and coping that is relevant to pandemics. In each section, we outline implications for solving public health issues related to COVID-19. This interdisciplinary review points to several ways in which research can be immediately applied to optimize response to this pandemic, but also points to several important gaps that researchers should move quickly to fill in the coming weeks and months.”

In the UK the Behavioural Insight team has played an important role in policy making over the past few years. It has some examples of the application of psychological principles to the COVID-19 outbreak:

Bright posters and infographics are effective in handwashing campaigns  

900 million children and young people are learning from home. What works best?   [ LINK NOT PROVIDED ] 

Covid-19: ¿Cómo promover los comportamientos adecuados para reducir la velocidad de contagio?   

Covid-19: The role of corporations in spreading or containing the pandemic 

Handwashing can stop a virus. So why don’t we do it? — BIT speaks to Behavioral Scientist 
 

The behaviours central to Covid-19 – in graphics 