Daily Times

The world is under the attack of coronavirus and there is hardly any country, which is safe from it. Medical experts and researchers are searching for a vaccine to cure this pandemic and save millions of people. Nobody exactly knows when the world will be free from it and what will be the exact forecast of the demise of this epidemic. Sooner or later, this coronavirus will end leaving behind many stories and myths but one more thing may end with the end of this bugaboo i.e. a possible end of behavioural studies as a separate field from social sciences. Theories of behavioural studies will be integrated into the conventional theories and dynamics of theories will be changed. The world is facing a crunch, which may be the largest of the history where millions of the people are locked down and people around the world have found something that may not be rational and irrational behaviour set of the people baptised the pandemic. In these conditions of uncertainty, human choices systematically departed from those anticipated by standard theories and their judgments have taken experimental shortcuts that have systematically departed from rudimentary ideologies of likelihood. For instance, it would not be wrong to ascribe the spread of coronavirus to some behavioural biases (both psychological and cognitive) that differentiate the individuals from rational players proposed in conventional theories.

Countries have poorly calibrated in estimating probabilities – The danger of what they deemed imminent proved far below 100 per cent that was going to occur and overrated what they were not. Some of the developed countries showed superfluous faith in their instinctive thinking, findings and cognitive capabilities. Most in the west acted nonchalantly. In the US, flights remained in operation except from China till mid of March. Institutions continued their operations even some renowned universities like Stanford and Chicago waited to close their campuses till mid of March until it became a global risk and officially declared a pandemic. Same is the story of Italy, Spain and Great Britain etc. All exhibited overconfidence bias underestimated the risk and the virus exposed to be hazardous to health.

“This above all to thy self be true, and it must follow, as the day the night,” (Polonius to Laertes, in Shakespeare’s Hamlet). People often experience mental distress during the assimilation of new information, which is proved to be contradictory with prior understandings. This is a psychological phenomenon and a state of disparity that happens when inconsistent understandings intersect and are broadly known as “cognitive dissonance.”

Countries have caught in herds of behaviours to avoid the mental pain associated with admitting the delayed decisions. Thereby, announcing and comparing the numbers of deaths and corona affected people of different countries on TV channels to content them that they are not the only victims who have suffered from this pandemic and thus exhibiting cognitive dissonance bias.

Some advanced countries had a self-belief in their health services and thought that the situation would remain under control. Hence, they fell prey to the illusion of control bias and believed that they can control but in fact, they couldn’t and finally invited a massive number of pandemic patients, which jeopardised their forecasts. “I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me,” (Abraham Lincoln). On the other hand, some countries also exhibited self-attribution bias. “Heads I win, tails it’s chance,” (Ellen Langer). For example, the Chinese ascribe their success to their foresight whereas Americans are blaming their failure on outside influences by calling it sometimes a China Virus and by blaming WHO, which shows an irrational denial of responsibility for failure.

Uncertainty or ambiguity is often disliked by the people more than they avert risk and generally, there is a shillyshally response of people in conditions of ambiguity, thus it’s a psychological inclination referred to as “ambiguity aversion.”

In situations of ambiguity when feeling skilful, dexterous or knowledgeable in a specific field, people usually rely on their decree (even though it is ambiguous) and vice versa otherwise. In the present situation, most of the affected countries are relying on unambiguous accidental happenings and therefore the effects of ambiguity aversion are conditional on the idiosyncratic competence level. In this context, the world has heeded the announcements of one of the heads of state regarding chloroquine etc hence susceptible to ambiguity aversion bias.

In these conditions of uncertainty, human choices systematically departed from those anticipated by standard theories and their judgments have taken experimental shortcuts

In this pandemic, people seemed to be notorious by exhibiting a lack of self-control. Self-control bias is a propensity of human behaviour that has urged them to socialise today at the expense of spreading pandemic tomorrow. Attitude towards handshaking, hugging and avoidance of social distancing have proved to be the biggest factors for the expansion of this problematic realm. “Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control – these three alone lead to power,” (Alfred, Lord Tennyson).

There is still a large number of people especially in underdeveloped Muslim countries who have been wearing “rose-coloured glasses” and are viewing the ecosphere with undue optimism. Many exaggeratedly optimistic people believe that this pandemic will not occur to them and only afflict “others.”

Most of their activities (e.g. offering prayers in mosques, pillion riding, visiting relatives etc) depend on spontaneous optimism rather than on rational expectation, whether moral or hedonistic or economic. This optimism bias can cause people to potentially carry COVID-19 and can push them in real danger and more likely to experience the atrocity of corona.

Governments of different countries, including Pakistan, are warning the people and telling them about the severity of the problem. Different steps are being taken in the form of lockdown, relief campaigns and media along with other mediums are being used to inform people and to create awareness about this pandemic. Now, the people must take responsibility for being rational. Therefore, just by assuming that people are rational is not a solution to the problem; if the world has to overcome this pandemic then rationality has to be practised by controlling different behavioural biases.

The writer teaches Economics and Finance at National University of Modern Languages (NUML), Islamabad