Covid-19 will break our resistance to change

Will the threat of death through coronavirus change our behaviour?

Governments all over the world want to change our habits to stop the spread of coronavirus. Social distancing, wearing masks and washing hands all demand a change in our behaviour.

Psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, teachers, religious and political leaders and parents have been at the forefront trying to change us. Lately, scholars from other fields have joined the study of human behaviour. We have behavioural finance, economics and operations, among others.

The study of human behaviour enjoyed its golden age around at the turn of the 19th Century. Remember Ivan Pavlov, BF Skinner, Sigmund Freud, Jean Piaget, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Charles Wright Mills and Daniel Bell. Locally, add the Leakeys. Studying our behaviour is going through a revival.

The change in the environment driven by technology, globalisation and attenuated role of religion may have questioned our traditional beliefs and paradigms on behaviour. 

Even the high priests of social science, economists, have not been left behind; they are revising their key belief that we are rational, shaking the foundation of their discipline.

Enough digression; will covid-19 change our behaviour? My humble answer is, maybe.

Since 2010, we have been consuming an unbalanced diet of freedom, fully backed by the constitution. Did you hear that quarantined Kenyans want to sue the government? Within 24 hours of isolating Nairobi, exceptions were being worked out.

How can we change behaviour of a country already addicted to freedom? With time, we have come to believe you can get away with anything in Kenya, even quarantine after jetting in from abroad (majuu).

One question we shall keep asking is why quarantining arrivals from abroad did not start earlier, say January. My guess is they had to be welcomed, and chauffeured around - visiting majuu is still a sign of prestige, 134 years since the plane was invented.

Our strong traditions are a hindrance to change in our behaviour. Despite our dalliance with new religions and modernism since 1895, when Kenya became a British protectorate, we are all cultural watermelons. Outside we are modern - driving modern cars, wearing modern attires, holding modern jobs. Inside, we are traditional, believing in our customs, from witchcraft to taboos and othersupernatural things.

In times of crisis, our subterranean selves emerge; our fight against Covid-19 and HIV/Aids brought out these traditions. Ceremonies like marriages and burials also bring out our traditional side.

Religion stands in our way to behavioural change. We still see it as a solution to most of our problems. How do you make behavioural changes in a highly religious nation? But the way churches and mosques have followed government directives after Covid-19 suggest religion is waning as a force against behavioural change.

Learned helplessness plays a role in our resistance to change. We have been through other diseases and disasters in the past and not much help came from the government. We therefore feel any help being offered is not in good faith. We still don’t trust the governments we queue to vote for.

Economic incentives

Economic reality makes change in behaviour very hard. Covid-19 means we get new sources of income. And that is where governments should use the carrot; stay at home, we give you food or basic income. If there are no economic incentives, people have no reason to change. Visit Eastlands or other low-income areas and life goes on as if Covid-19 does not exist.

Clearly for us to change our behaviour, we have to use the carrot or stick. The relentless match of freedom in the last two decades means the stick will not work. The first night of curfew made that clear. That is the dilemma the government is facing. Kanu tried the stick, they are out of power.

The Ministry of Health stated recently that coronavirus is not a death sentence and we have seen recoveries. The stick is that you could be among the five per cent who may not recover. The trouble your family will go through in taking care of you should make you follow directives and change your behaviour.

To institute behavioural change amid the coronavirus pandemic, we need more carrots than sticks. Carrots include good publicity. Are we showing Kenyans that the measures we have instituted are working, from curfew to isolation? Can we demonstrate they have worked elsewhere? Would paying for those quarantined encourage more “suspects” to come out?

Has anyone shouted loudly that everyone in Wuhan, China wore a face mask as the pandemic raged?  Research shows that masks can reduce Covid-19 infection growth rate by 10 per cent, very significant because the growth is exponential.

The other carrot is to project the aftermath of Covid-19. Can we project a bright future showing people how many lives and jobs we can save if they cooperated by changing their behaviour. Do you recall Jubilee promising that if they won they would use the Sh6 billion budget meant for repeat polls to fund youth enterprises? Can we give similar promises for subduing Covid-19?

We can recruit change resistors to alter behaviour. Can we mobilise sheikhs, imams, pastors, community and opinion leaders in changing our behaviour? We also need to learn from women; how did they get their interests included in the new constitution?  NGOs do lots of advocacy work that would be handy in changing our behaviour.

The media and our peers are great catalysts of  behavioural change. We follow musicians and film stars like gods, it is time they reciprocated by helping change our behaviour using their soft power.

In other countries such as China, a tradition of strong governments makes behavioural change easier. Their model might not work here. Do you recall the cultural revolution in China? Wars have also changed our behaviour.

Have you heard our leaders declaring war on Covid-19? How did the Second World War or Mau Mau change people’s behaviour?

More practically, “policy tools, including legislation, sanctions, regulations, taxes and subsidies, the provision of public services and information are used to modify behaviour in the public interest,” says Lynelle Briggs, Australian Public Service Commissioner in 2018.

Have we effectively used these tools to change Kenyan behaviour?
 

The writer is an associate professor at the University of Nairobi