Chat about Novel Coronavirus - 2019-nCoV - COVID-19

‘The delay to introducing stricter measures, until the lockdown was finally ordered on 23 March, appears to have been at least partly based on a flawed misreading of the government’s own scientific advice. In early March, Whitty mentioned the idea that the government should wait to impose restrictions because people might tire of them, later saying this was based on both “common sense” and “behavioural science”. “What we are moving now to is a phase when we will be having to ask members of the general public to do different things than they would normally do,” he said. “There is a risk if we go too early people will understandably get fatigued and it will be difficult to sustain this over time.”

Hancock supported that, suggesting it was the result of official advice. “The evidence of past epidemics and past crises of this nature shows that people do tire of these sorts of social distancing measures, so if we start them too early, they lose their effect and actually it is worse,” he said. “The social science and the behavioural science are a very important part of the scientific advice that we rely on.”

Yet this concept of “fatigue” was rejected by the behavioural scientists appointed by the government itself to Sage’s subcommittee, SPI–B. “The word was never used in any of our committee reports,” said Susan Michie, a SPI-B member. “It is just not a concept that exists in behavioural science, and it was unhelpful for it to be used.” Four other members of SPI-B also told the Guardian that the committee never advised that people would tire of restrictive measures.

The publicly available summaries of their conclusions show the group advised that people should be given clear explanations and reasons for social distancing measures, and warn that those measures would affect people unequally, but nowhere do they suggest that people will become “fatigued”. Three behavioural scientists on SPI-B, Stephen Reicher, John Drury and Clifford Stott, even wrote an article for the Psychologist journal, rejecting the notion of “fatigue” and suggesting that delaying stricter social distancing measures on that premise was taking a risk with lives. “Psychological considerations were put at odds with what medical science demanded,” they wrote.

The Guardian understands that Halpern’s Behavioural Insights Team, or “nudge unit”, was also opposed to this view that people would tire of restrictive measures. One senior Whitehall source said Whitty himself was the main advocate of the “fatigue” notion, based partly on his own experience of patients in medical practice who do not see drug prescriptions through to their completion.

A Downing Street spokesperson, responding on behalf of Whitty, emphasised that he was indeed concerned about timing interventions, and their impact on people’s wellbeing if introduced too early, and that Sage had agreed a balance needed to be struck between the impact of measures, and the time the public could feasibly sustain them.’

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/29/revealed-the-inside-story-of-uk-covid-19-coronavirus-crisis?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

So do the Behavioural Science guys think the window for compliance is

• of infinite size
  
• a size so large it doesn’t matter
  
• limited size but bigger than Whitty thinks
  
• Something else
  
  

?

Is the problem that they do not know because it has not been tried and tested in recent times?

We’re going to find out I guess

Er...

No
Then, yes
Maybe

The UK gov has largely followed the advice of behavioural scientists and have been praised internationally for doing so. Seems like this was one area where they didn’t.

I think the common idea that people have a finite capacity for X is reductive, not really the whole story... to put it mildly.

Can everyone please stop taking 'Behavioural Science' seriously?

It's absolute nonsense and not a science in any sense whatsoever.

The only reason why the Tories are trying to use it is because it's been marketed as offering ways of manipulating people without too much public expenditure.

Three behavioural scientists on SPI-B, Stephen Reicher, John Drury and Clifford Stott, even wrote an article for the Psychologist journal, rejecting the notion of “fatigue”

Out of interest does anyone have a link or copy of this? Sounds interesting.

Here

I think the common idea that people have a finite capacity for X is reductive, not really the whole story... to put it mildly.

I think that's at the heart of the concern expressed by behavioural scientists (sorry, Oli). I've just been down a brief rabbit hole, and as far as I can work out, Michie (quoted above) is concerned more with the term, and it being not something used in her field, and an over simplification of a number of complicated factors which are addressed in her field. Some of the concerns can be seen here (in which she's quoted): https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/13/behavioural-scientists-form-new-front-in-battle-against-coronavirus

Additionally, you can see direct criticism of the term from behavioral scientists here: https://behavioralscientist.org/why-a-group-of-behavioural-scientists-penned-an-open-letter-to-the-uk-government-questioning-its-coronavirus-response-covid-19-social-distancing/

What's worth noting, though, is that they also say: "What studies we did find, such as studies on the continuation of protective measures during past epidemics such as H1N1, seemed to indicate that yes, compliance with such behaviours tailed off over the course of an epidemic, but it is unclear that there is more at work here than the fundamental, well-established principle that uptake of protective behaviours is moderated by perceived threat." (which echoes, I think, what Michie says in the Guardian piece).

This study also addresses time as a factor which can have negative outcomes (not just in terms of adherence) : https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30460-8/fulltext

That is all to say, I think you're right - the issue is more with an over simplification of the idea, rather than something (i.e., a number of factors) akin to fatigue not existing.

And now having speed-read it, I fail to see how exactly they adress the issue themselves. They group the idea of 'lockdown fatigue' in with a some other notions, which they then sum up as "a psychology which is at odds with the medical advice, which is counterposed to systemic interventions and which both disrespects and dismisses those who are best able to respond to this crisis", making the counterpoint that they'd like "a psychology focussed on how best to implement the medical advice, which advocates for systemic change that makes optimal behaviours possible, and which harnesses the power of the group to face up to COVID-19".

They seem to discard the 'lockdown fatigue' idea based on this, which is an interesting read.

While they make a good point with regards to the then policy decision by the government, one has to wonder whether they really think people will just put up with something like the lockdown indeterminately. It might well not be a good argument for starting a lockdown late, but at the same time I think the phenomenon will prove to be real regardless.

but it is unclear that there is more at work here than the fundamental, well-established principle that uptake of protective behaviours is moderated by perceived threat.

Yeah but isn't that basically all that people mean by that term anyway? I don't think most people suggest there would be much lockdown-breaking if there was a tangible risk of getting it and dying anytime you leave the house, but the reality is that as a more-or-less healthy, moderately young person, your personal risk is really not that incredibly high, so yeah, behaviours will be moderated by perceived threats.

Yeah but isn't that basically all that people mean by that term anyway?

I mean, I didn't write it, so I can't speak for them, but I'd probably agree, yeah.

Can everyone please stop taking 'Behavioural Science' seriously?

It's absolute nonsense and not a science in any sense whatsoever.

Are you sure that you're not thinking of something else?

TLDR is Whitty getting sacked?

Here

Ta!

Hopefully. He is about as useful as a chocolate tea pot.

The word 'science' in the formulation behavioural science is pretty misleading isn't it? What data or analysis did these behavioural 'scientists' predicate their models on? How people would react is a complete unknown.

complete unknown

Nope!

Are you a behavioural scientist? Apologies if so.

But please do tell me the data sets that behavioural scientists are working with. I'm sure there are loads of global pandemics that have happened in modern times that required extensive social distancing measures, which passed me by, but that have been closely studied by behavioural 'scientists' to mine lessons for the current pandemic.

I'm a bit confused by that. Behavioural sciences, Wikipedia informs me, "explore the cognitive processes within organisms and the behavioural interactions between organisms in the natural world" - and examples include "psychology, psychobiology, anthropology, and cognitive science".

Sure, it's not a 'hard science' the way civil engineering is, but it's still science nonetheless. I agree that it would appear to be more difficult to make predictions based on behavioural sciences compared to making predictions about the weather (and that is hard enough), but... that still doesn't mean it's not a science.

No I'm not. My background is in a related field though. The problem is that "behavioural science" means a lot of different things. Some aspects of it are barely sciencey, some are very tightly evidenced, but too controlled to be of real-use application. Somewhere in the middle is some useful stuff.

How good are behavioural science models / approaches at predicting human behaviour at a societal level under unprecedented conditions?

There are uncertainties in epdimiology, particularly in relation to a new virus, but placing greater emphasis on the behavioural science than the epidemiology seems to have been fairly dumb in retrospect (some of us were even saying so at the time).

An error which is even worse if the behavioural scientists weren't actually staying that, but it was just a sort of instinct that Chris Whitty had.

'Johnson says people will apply 'good, solid British common sense' when applying new rules' - good god

One does question the common sense of a nation who were dim enough to elect Boris prime minister, when he himself lacked the common sense not to shake hands with coronavirus patients and ended up in an ICU about three weeks later.

The British people have largely shown fuck all common sense over the past six weeks, including himself, or hasn’t he noticed?

Not sure that I'm not missing one of your jokes here Oliver, but there is plenty of proper science and research into the way people behave.