Getting people to take pro-social behaviors with respect to COVID-19 is difficult in an era of virally disseminated nonsense. The virus is invisible, and our mental models of how it can harm us, how our immune systems can fight it, and how vaccinations, masks, and social distancing may help prevent our getting ill are often unsophisticated, and frequently incorrect. At the same time, misinformation about all of these things is abundant, plausible, and erroneous. Getting people to act requires connecting with and building on what they already think, believe, and value, not simply fact-checking with the goal of convincing them that they are wrong. This video is part of Jamming the Curve: COVID-19 Game Jam.
Presenter Bio
Dr. Bill Hallman, Rutgers University
Dr. William Hallman is Professor and Chair of the Department of Human Ecology at Rutgers University. An experimental psychologist who studies how people think about and respond to risk, Dr. Hallman works on controversial issues involving real and perceived threats to human health and to the environment.
