As the world continues to reel under the coronavirus pandemic, UK-based University of St Andrews psychology professor Stephen Reicher said that 80 per cent compliance to COVID-19 guidelines can flatten the curve.
“Epidemiologists can give advise on the desired behavioural precautions to stay away from infection however we need social psychologists to advise how to bring compliance to these behavioural changes in the society. An interdisciplinary approach is demand of the hour,” he said during a webinar organised lately by Indian Institute of Management Indore on “Changing Social Dynamics After COVID-19”.
Apart from Reicher, University of Allahabad retired professors RC Tripathi and Janak Pandey along with IIM Indore faculty Shruti Tewari participated in the webinar.
This panel deliberated on key insights from social psychology to deal with social crisis created by COVID-19.
The panellists believed that from lockdown 4 to unlock 1, we are heading towards unprecedented social and behavioural changes, such as limiting our social interactions with others, dividing people in terms of red, orange and green zones and inescapable fight of corona warriors and those belonging to lower strata of the society.
Social distancing, quarantine, and containment zones have become the ‘new normal’. This pandemic has challenged our social existence to the core. Social psychologists can play a crucial role in understanding and analyzing the challenges of changing social dynamics due to Covid-19.
All the experts observed that the common fate of disaster leads to a sense of we-ness which in turn leads to empathy, cooperation, and better health.
Pandey drew parallels between the suffering of migrant laborours’ and Bidesia culture of colonial era.
