The intelligent lock-down: a mental workout

Within psychology it is assumed that willpower is a muscle. This means that, in addition to a partly hereditary component, one has control over one's own level of perseverance and discipline. At least, that was how I always interpreted this statement. Last week I came across another explanation for the muscle analogy. When you tense a muscle very hard for a long time, you get muscle pain. You will have to give the muscle some rest to recover.

We are now in week 8 of our intelligent lock down and I have to say I'm starting to notice the mental muscle ache. Both within myself and around me. The street scene is busier and people seem to be returning to their normal lives. I personally notice this change in almost everyone in my immediate circle. It almost seems like an unwritten, but joint decision of the population. However, virtually no one, except for a relatively small group of insurgents, is anarchist mindset to detect. No explicit disobedience towards the government. It is probably simply a matter of a limited degree of perseverance. At a certain point this runs out, so people no longer adhere to the rules one hundred percent. They are gradually loosening the reins a bit. But why are these specific rules so difficult to maintain, while there are rules that people have been adhering to in large numbers for years?

During my psychology studies I became acquainted with a whole spectrum biases. These are thinking mistakes that people are prone to making. One relevant to this situation bias is the optimism bias. People estimate the chance of getting the virus themselves to be lower than the chance of others getting it. You've probably heard someone around you use the argument “I'm not that afraid of getting it myself.” This is a common way of thinking, which quickly turns it into a far-fetched show.

Anyone who talks about behavior in psychology cannot ignore the term 'conditioning'. There are two variants within conditioning, classical conditioning and operant conditioning. The second is especially important during the corona crisis. Operant conditioning is the idea that desired behavior can be reinforced by providing rewards. In addition, unwanted behavior can be unlearned by punishment. Translated to the current situation, the desired behavior is natural social distancing. Undesirable behavior, namely keeping insufficient distance or gathering in large groups, is punished by issuing fines. Although there are not the same number of enforcers everywhere and in some places not all violations can actually be fined, the penalties associated with undesirable behavior are clear. I think the problem lies more with rewarding the desired behavior.

When you think logically, there are of course very important rewards for performing the desired behavior. Fewer people are infected and the capacity of hospitals is not exceeded. While this is of course a very important and positive fact, for many people it is also abstract. Seeing the decline in mortality and ICU admission figures, when we don't know anyone in immediate circles who has had more than mild complaints, is again in line with the far-fetched show. The desired behavior requires a lot of adaptability, but the reward is not experienced to the same extent by everyone.

Another problem is the human predisposition to always tip the balance between short-term and long-term thinking in favor of the short term. You don't only see this in the corona crisis. This also emerges in other social issues. Think of the climate problem. People see short-term dangers/punishments, in that case for example giving up eating meat or reducing car use, as outweighing the long-term dangers. To focus this again on the corona crisis: people are looking at the disadvantages they are currently experiencing social distancing and not the fact that this minimizes the death toll.

Knowing all this, it is not surprising that we are having more and more difficulty adhering to the rules. We can be proud of ourselves that we are (have been) doing so well and have helped to reduce the figures enormously. With the announced relaxations at the press conference last Wednesday, we have already taken a step towards our normal life. Let us all flex our willpower muscle towards the end of this adapted society. If you have put less focus on your physical fitness due to the closure of the gyms, you will have to deal with all that mental workout at least a six pack between your ears!