In these difficult times where an ugly mix of clarity and confusion is making everyone to obsessively Google 'COVID-2019', 'pandemic', 'washing hands', 'coronavirus' and so on, something triggered my mind.
At the beginning of my training in Transactional Analysis, the...
No self-respecting Hollywood disaster movie would be complete without a scene where crowd members flee in apparent blind panic, and through their over-reaction, lack of judgement and reason become the agents of their own destruction. Nor is the image of panic limited to...
As a nation seemingly poised for the apocalypse, many Britons have spent the last fortnight stockpiling toilet rolls, dried pasta and UHT milk, leading some supermarkets to enforce a style of rationing not too dissimilar to WW2. What we are seeing might be described by some...
In this kind of outbreak, does the psychological get considered as important in amongst all the biological and medical issues?
Human behaviour will be a key factor affecting the speed and spread of the coronavirus, and therefore an understanding of the...
There are a whole range of factors involved in how the situation will unfold. This will range from the individual level (e.g. individuals’ adherence to official guidelines) to the group level (e.g. how small and larger groups will regulate their behaviour and norms to limit...
Professor of Behavioural Science and Security Brooke Rogers OBE (King’s College London) is a social psychologist whose research explores risk communication, along with perceptions of, and responses to, risk and threat. She pointed out that the UK government has had pandemic...
The Onion's timeless masterpiece, 'That's not funny: my brother died that way' is a useful reminder that nothing is funny for everyone, everywhere. This lack of a universal determinant...
In urinals, not all men are as accurate as they could be, which often results in unsightly overflows that are costly to clean up. To overcome this problem, some urinal designers have come up with the clever idea of depicting a fly near the opening. Suddenly, users turn into...
The way we deal with the coronavirus is bound up with the way we think about society and about the individual. And the problem is that we are in danger of getting it wrong on all counts, with the consequence that we will be less effective in containing the virus. There is...
In this evolving online resource, we will link to contributions from those considering the implications of the coronavirus outbreak.
Click on the headlines to read the coverage. We are grateful to all those who have given their time and expertise so freely during a...