Will COVID-19 really change things?
Lately I’ve come across quite a few articles in newspapers and magazines arguing that the current pandemic will radically and permanently change the way we live. Among the predictions: gathering in large crowds at concerts and sporting events will become a thing of the past; we’ll stop shaking hands and eschew physical meetings in favor of digital connection; we will travel much less and substantially reduce our current level of consumerism; education will move online and students will do most of their learning outside of the classroom; we will embrace a more communal attitude and adopt things like universal health care and universal basic income. But despite the immediate upheaval caused by COVID-19, I’m not convinced that much will really change in the months and years ahead. I’ll offer two reasons why, both rooted in human psychology.
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First, there’s what is often called “present bias” (or alternatively, “discounting the future”). There is a general tendency in humans to assume that what we’ve experienced today and in the recent past will be more or less like what we’ll experience in the near future. One effect of this mindset is that people have a hard time grasping the presence of a novel danger unless it’s looming right in front of them. As such, it’s worth noting that—so far—much of the country (particularly its more rural areas) has not seen the heavy health impact from COVID-19 that places like New York City or New Orleans have. In most parts of the country, the suffering people now endure is primarily social and economic due to the quarantines and business closures, and while those quarantines and closures may well be the exact thing keeping most communities from experiencing real medical danger, the very fact that we subsequently can’t see or feel that danger means we tend not to really believe in it, or we minimize its threat.
So in many places, the current lack of a scary medical outcome, paired with the very real and visceral pain of economic suffering and social boredom, will sooner or later precipitate a demand for a return to normality. That demand is already quite loud in several states, and particularly among conservative groups that dislike what they view as government overreach during a time of “crisis.” The problem many cities and states face is a kind of catch-22: the social distancing measures and closing of businesses could indeed be keeping communities from seeing a sharp uptick in COVID-19 deaths, but the very fact that those measures are succeeding means that the perception of danger remains small to most people in those communities, allowing them to worry instead about the social and economic pains they feel acutely due to the shutdowns.
As such, I expect there will be a constant pushing and pulling over the next few months. While those communities that do see a serious outbreak will temporarily be more tolerant of quarantines and social distancing, those communities that see only moderate rates of infection, or those that have “flattened the curve” and start seeing a reduction of infections, will quickly cease to consider the virus the primary danger and will instead view the economic and social costs as most taxing. So to me, the idea of any disruptive restrictions remaining in place long enough for them to become a “new normal” seems unlikely. Instead, we will continue to think of our old ways of living as the standard, with any interruptions due to new outbreaks viewed as necessary but temporary pauses.
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The second factor, and I think the most powerful one, is loss aversion. Both common sense and behavioral economics tell us that we really, really hate giving up things we already possess. Plenty of psychology studies show that we feel far stronger emotions at the idea of losing something (say $100) that we already have, compared to gaining something (again, $100) as a windfall. In fact, some studies even show our aversion to loss to be twice as powerful psychologically as our enjoyment of gain. Heck, loss aversion can even prompt people to take significant risks in order to avoid losing something substantial. (This article’s “Example” paragraph illustrates that nicely, and might help explain the behavior of shutdown protesters.)
But the flip side of that coin is that people will typically accept new impositions in order to keep what they have, so long as the pain of those new impositions does not exceed the pain of losing what they want to keep. Consider the aftermath of 9/11: airport security became even more of a pain, and because some guy tried to light a bomb in his shoe, we now all go shoeless through the checkpoint. We gripe about this, but we do it anyway, because we cherish our long-standing right to fly, and the idea of sacrificing the chance to travel seems more costly than some extra hassle at the airport.
So I think people will willingly accept new security measures in a COVID-19 world, as long as it allows us to keep doing what we’ve been doing. Temperature scans before being allowed into a grocery store or a theatre? Ugh, what a hassle, but yeah we’ll do it. Phone tracking and colored QR codes like China is using to monitor any spread? Three months ago most Americans would have decried this as too Big Brother-ish, but now…maybe not. Times of crisis typically correspond with a willing surrender of personal privacy—look at the Patriot Act and post-9/11 surveillance measures, which we either enthusiastically supported, or begrudged but ultimately accepted.
And if it does indeed prove that the elderly and immuno-compromised are the ones primarily in danger, could we see new social inequalities emerge? Might we enact restrictions on those vulnerable populations, requiring them to isolate while the rest of us get back to life as usual? That might seem unfair, but remember that despite our nation’s lip-service to freedom and equality, we have gotten pretty comfortable with any number of disparities—we are willing to endure gross levels of income inequality and we’ve long been quite capable of ignoring disparities of opportunity due to race or gender. So who’s to say we might not be willing to sacrifice some of the freedoms of certain minorities in order to avoid painful losses for the majority of us?
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I think a main reason why this pandemic won’t seismically shift our way of life is that COVID-19 isn’t bad enough. If the virus were truly horrific, as in a type that literally decimated our population (1 in 10 die) and was striking down all ages and races, then our existing system would surely crumble and we would enact radical changes to our society. But this virus, while deadly, is only a few times worse than the flu, and while it has disrupted our society and economy, it has not done so much damage that we can’t bring it all back together with some effort.
And ironically, the hyper-individualistic, market-driven culture that has allowed America to get so deep into this mess will probably pull us out. I expect that both individual entrepreneurs and big corporations will quickly develop updated technologies and business models that will allow us to work, shop, and play more safely. Meanwhile Big Pharma is feverishly developing new therapeutic drugs to mitigate the virus’s effects, and labs are developing potential vaccines in record time. People very much want their “old lives” back, and the market is quite good at meeting demand.
Like a low-level earthquake, this virus has shaken us, but not badly enough to make us tumble down and have to rebuild ourselves in a newer and much stronger way; instead, we can endure these tremors, patch up any cracks in the walls, and go on about our business. This is great news for us in the short term. But this crisis is exposing a lot of social and economic habits that we (the U.S. and the world) could stand to improve if we want to survive in the long term. After all, when the next pandemic hits (and it will someday), it could be much worse, and we’ll need to be far better equipped to handle it.
Postscript:
This article provides a fascinating window into the issue I opened with: it collects predictions from a few dozen experts in various fields, regarding how they think the world will change because of COVID-19. But even though this article is barely a month old, quite a few of these “expert” predictions already seem hopelessly naive or utterly defunct. Most of them seem more like wishful thinking than hard-nosed analysis—further proof that subject experts, just like the rest of us, can be blind to the influence of their own biases and personal preferences. More on this later…
Post-postscript:
The really bad news is that if our reaction to this pandemic is any indication, we are totally screwed when it comes to the issue of climate change. As mentioned above, this pandemic has demonstrated that we’re more than willing to discount the future, instead doing whatever it takes to continue our mass-consuming, travel-heavy ways in the present with little regard for consequences down the road. If we have such a hard time believing doctors who tell us “It’s important to quarantine now because the visible effects of this virus don’t show up until two weeks down the road,” then imagine how hard it will continue to be for climate scientists. Their job is to convince us to cut back on fossil fuels and consume/travel less in the hopes that we will halt the effects of climate change some 10, 20, or even 30 years down the road! (Because climate operates on a scale of decades, whatever we do today will not take effect for many years.) It’s easy to see how people might ask, “Why should I make sacrifices now <cue loss aversion> for a future that I might not even be around to see and enjoy <cue present bias>?”
Addendum 04/21/20:
Quite coincidentally, within hours of my publishing this post, one of my former academic team students published this interesting piece, which I think illustrates the power of loss aversion. His article also demonstrates present bias at work, as those who feel genuine economic pain today are far more concerned about that than with potential medical challenges in the future. Good stuff, Travis!
Addendum 05/22/20:
A great piece by Yascha Mounk discussing how little society really changed after the 1918 influenza pandemic (even, in fact, doubling down on traditional social practices). He makes an excellent point about the “predictive fallacy”—just because it would make sense for things to change given our current situation, that doesn’t mean that they will or that doing so would be as easy or as feasible as sticking with what we have.
