Fear, Sex, and Pandemic - Part One | Global Health

Fear, Sex, and Pandemic - Part One

Published July 04, 2009 @ 10:28AM PT

July 2009, mid pandemic, waiting to see if the novel H1N1 virus will mutate to become even more dangerous than the killer it is. You wouldn't be able to tell by looking at the actions and attitudes of the general public though.

After an initial period of hyper awareness, the world's population calmed down to a point where we see none of the changes needed in behaviors and policies to reduce the impact of a mutation.

There is a direct connection between the initial over reaction, and the current under reaction. Too many individuals feel as if they were duped, having once vested emotions, they don't plan on being duped again. That initial response, however, as counter productive as it was, it was entirely predictable and will happen again the next time unless Pandemic risk communicators change the way they talk about pandemics. Pandemic risk Communicators don't seem to get human nature.

Psychology, meets cognitive neuroscience, meets biology. Risk communicators work to influence human behavior through information and education. The only way to do this is through understanding what it is that makes us tick. In the past few years, great strides have been made in explaining the source of some consistent human behaviors. The NYT's Nicholas Kristof has an editorial summarizing the tendency of our brains to irrationally prioritize threats, For the most part, we stop everything to focus on a threat that feels like it may be imminent, but we are heavily inclined to ignore thoughts of risk, this despite the fact that most risks are easily avoiding when objectively analyzed.

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