Leslie Zane is founder and president of Triggers Growth Strategy and she writes in Scientific American that getting people to comply with social distancing policies is basically an exercise in marketing
Why do some people believe the response to the coronavirus is an overreaction, while others think it doesn’t go far enough? Why do some arm themselves with masks and disposable gloves and hoard toilet paper while others refuse to change their routine? The answer doesn’t lie simply in their sources of information. It involves something deeper: the subconscious, where the vast majority of decisions are made.
As Yale psychology professor John A. Bargh put it, “When we decide how to vote, what to buy, where to go on vacation and myriad other things, unconscious thoughts that we’re not even aware of typically play a big role.” A study led by John-Dylan Haynes of the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin showed that brain activity can reveal a person’s choice long before he or she is even aware of it. Neither rebellious nor compliant behavior is intentional; they are automatic. These two different cohorts are playing out a behavior that’s predetermined in their subconscious, unknown even to themselves.