TDL Brief: Post-COVID Innovation
With crises and change, our behavioral patterns evolve. Grabbing a mask as we walk out the door is now instinctual. Zoom meetings have become cemented into many of our daily routines. The COVID-era ushers in a unique set of needs posed by our major changes in lifestyle, and brings to light prominent cracks within existing systems. By taking a closer look at how our human tendencies intersect with the current behavioral trends, we can use behavioral science insights to point us in the direction of effective innovations.
1. Using change to bolster climate action
By: American Psychological Association, “Could COVID-19 change our environmental behaviors?” (July 2020)
Changing our habits and behaviors can be incredibly difficult. Yet, in cases of significant change, we are often forced out of our cemented ways, finding ourselves more likely to adopt new behaviors. We saw this in quarantine, as people learned to bake sourdough bread at a skyrocketing rate around the world. However, if we can work climate-conscious actions into our altered lifestyles, it could have a major impact.
Amidst COVID-19, the shift in collective behavior away from long-distance travel has had the unintended consequence of decreasing our carbon emissions by a projected 8%, but these strides are not expected to last. Environmental psychologists are hoping to find ways to seize our departure from routine to steer us towards more long-term sustainable behaviors.
There are definite parallels between the logic we use to rationalize staying isolated in COVID and reducing our carbon footprints. For example in both scenarios, we ourselves might not always be in imminent danger, but by acting consciously we are protecting those vulnerable and working towards a bigger picture decrease in harm. Scientists are working to find ways to use these parallels to get people to think and act green.
Often, scientists and activists are urged to use individual human stories to prove their point with the hope that evoking an emotional response will impact their audience’s actions. This may be true in many cases, but our ability to intake the science behind COVID has given environmentalists new ideas on how to communicate information on climate change. On a group level, we saw the unending statistics, absorbed terms like “flattening the curve” and the science behind “social distancing”, and ultimately changed our behaviors. Although we have a lot on our plate right now, it is important to think of ways we can use what we have learned about collective action and crisis communication to work towards a greener future.
References
- A Brief History of Workplace Design and Where it Might be Headed Next. (2020, May 29). ArchDaily. https://www.archdaily.com/940538/a-brief-history-of-workplace-design-and-where-it-might-be-headed-next
- Could COVID-19 change our environmental behaviors? (n.d.). Https://Www.Apa.Org. Retrieved December 23, 2020, from https://www.apa.org/monitor/2020/07/environmental-behaviors
- Hayden Bosworth. (2020). Telehealth & Behavioral Science during COVID-19 (Caitlynn Sullivan & Allison Lewinski, Interviewers) [Outlook – Society of Behavioral Medecine]. https://www.sbm.org/publications/outlook/issues/summer-2020/telehealth–behavioral-science-during-covid-19-an-interview-with-dr-hayden-bosworth/full-article?utm_source=SBM+Outlook&utm_medium=html+email&utm_term=Summer+2020&utm_campaign=SBM+Outlook+Summer+2020
- Russell, J. S. (2020, September 11). Building Public Places for a Covid World. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/11/arts/design/architecture-urban-planning-coronavirus.html
About the Authors
Dan Pilat
Dan is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. Dan has a background in organizational decision making, with a BComm in Decision & Information Systems from McGill University. He has worked on enterprise-level behavioral architecture at TD Securities and BMO Capital Markets, where he advised management on the implementation of systems processing billions of dollars per week. Driven by an appetite for the latest in technology, Dan created a course on business intelligence and lectured at McGill University, and has applied behavioral science to topics such as augmented and virtual reality.
Dr. Sekoul Krastev
Sekoul is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. A decision scientist with a PhD in Decision Neuroscience from McGill University, Sekoul's work has been featured in peer-reviewed journals and has been presented at conferences around the world. Sekoul previously advised management on innovation and engagement strategy at The Boston Consulting Group as well as on online media strategy at Google. He has a deep interest in the applications of behavioral science to new technology and has published on these topics in places such as the Huffington Post and Strategy & Business.
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