Humans are complicated?do we need behavioral science to get through this?

Published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour last week—a lightning-fast turnaround for academia—the resulting paper highlights research that addresses behavioral questions that have come up in the pandemic, from understanding cultural differences to minimizing scientific misinformation.Different sections, each written by researchers with expertise in that particular field, summarize research on topics from social inequality to science communication and fake news. Responding to the crisis requires people to change their behavior, the paper’s authors argue, so we need to draw on behavioral research to “help align human behavior with the recommendations of epidemiologists and public health experts.”But while Willer, van Bavel, and their colleagues were putting together their paper, another team of researchers put together their own, entirely opposite, call to arms: a plea, in the face of an avalanche of behavioral science research on COVID-19, for psychology researchers to have some humility. We can’t extricate people and our complicated human behavior and society from the pandemic: they are one and the same.In their paper, Van Bavel, Willer and their group of behavioral research proponents point to studies from fields like public health, sociology and psychology. “There are probably individuals who grow from stress, but it’s not the norm.” It’s an irresponsible thing to claim, she argues: “It could make people feel bad if they think most people grow from trauma and stress, and if they don’t—which is much, much more typical—that could add to their depression and anxiety.”Sander van der Linden, a psychologist at Cambridge University and one of van Bavel’s co-authors, argues that the paper was cautious in its claims, taking care to phrase things using words that convey uncertainty, avoid direct prescriptions for policy, and point out where more research is needed.