And What We Can Do Differently

Elizabeth Edwards

Eight months after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, the United States has reached an apex in our polarized debate over mask-wearing.

While other nations have faced similar debates, nowhere else has the virus produced as much consternation and chaos. How did we get here? Our current mask debate has become highly politicized, but it didn’t start that way. What do we need to do to avoid similar scenarios as therapies and vaccines are introduced and distributed throughout the country?

Cognitive psychologist and neuroscience researcher Dr. Brendan Murray, Chief Science Officer at DIRT, echoes the sentiment of White House Coronavirus Task Force member Dr. Deborah Birx when he says that individual and collective behavior is what it will ultimately take to defeat this pandemic.

“A good place to start is by gaining a deeper understanding of why people act the way they do during times of immense stress and uncertainty,” explains Murray. “Behavioral science can help inform our country of the next steps we need to enact real, meaningful change in our country’s overall response to the coronavirus.”

An article from the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) forum in October explained, “Sociologists and psychologists are as important in this crisis as virologists and epidemiologists” because of how critical contouring communication to encourage positive behavior change is to help more of us get out of this alive.

But the recommended solution only amplifies a problem that is largely to blame for the mask mess in the first place.

Psychologists, sociologists, behavioral scientists, and neuroscientists are sitting on treasure-troves of insights about how to communicate to increase positive engagement and encourage behavior change.

But not only is much of their work siloed, it is disconnected from the education, practice, and profession of communication.

The science of human understanding has not been connected to the practice of human engagement. That is not right, and that is one of the main culprits behind the mask debate.

In contrast, Behavioral Communication is an emerging field that applies behavioral science and neuroscience insights about what occurs consciously and non-consciously in the mind’s processing of words and information to engineer communication that encourages positive engagement. From a Behavioral Communication perspective, it is simple to see how a climate of disagreement and division became our pandemic norm and which mass communication techniques stand a chance of having a positive influence moving forward.

Where Things Started Going Wrong

On March 8, three days before the worldwide outbreak was declared a pandemic, noted epidemiologist Dr. Anthony Fauci was interviewed on CBS’s 60 Minutes, where he gave his assessment at that time: “There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask.”

Every scientist, epidemiologist, and physician will agree that science is not linear. As an understanding of novel viruses expands, so too may recommendations. But Dr. Fauci’s statement was interpreted by many as a final decision that would not change or evolve.

A hero of science communicators like myself, Dr. Fauci became a victim of behavioral miscommunication in that 60 Minutes interview. Despite his brilliant scientific knowledge, he spoke with little awareness of the behavioral ripple-effect his words would have as our minds spun into states of heightened stress. And ever since, comments made with the best of intentions have instead been adapted into a tool to divide.

When new information came to light and masks were later recommended for public use, people pointed to the 60 Minutes interview and called foul.

Despite Dr. Fauci knowing in early March that we were only just beginning to study this beast of a bug, so naturally, recommendations may evolve; he didn’t know how critical it was to directly say that rather than answer the question at hand about the moment at hand.

Scientifically speaking, he did not “prime” us to prepare for change around mask recommendations. He knew adaptation and change in public health policies and practices could follow as we learn more (a pandemic had not even been declared at this point), but he didn’t know the importance of repeating that like a drumbeat to an audience in crisis and on the fast track to overwhelm.

Because even brilliant minds like Dr. Fauci are not taught how to communicate in a crisis based on human behavior science, he never saw the confusion coming (and in some sectors, revolt) from not preparing the public to expect to evolve how we fight the virus over time.

From a behavioral engagement perspective, this was the tipping point near-guaranteeing struggle for U.S. mask messaging because of how the mind makes decisions and assesses new information when under stress.

Crisis Communication & The Human Mind

We like to think we are highly rational, intellectual beings. But research has proven that 95% of decisions are made by our non-conscious mind, separate from rational thought and conscious awareness.

Your non-conscious mind is firmly holding your decision-making controls. Not only are most of us oblivious to that fact, so are those holding the microphones. So is the communication industry that supports them.

And the tricky, even sometimes dangerous thing, is that our two minds sometimes show strikingly different preferences. The list of things that appeal to the conscious mind but can send the non-conscious mind into a full, new idea lockdown is not short.

While the best-intended leaders and professionals create and deliver communication that should be effective according to traditional communication instruction methods, communication not designed to follow the contours of non-conscious preferences often inadvertently triggers adverse reactions and rejection.

Picture it this way: we dutifully create communication from our conscious mind to connect with other conscious minds, while a silent non-conscious army fights our words, messages, and best-laid plans with swords. The non-conscious drives us, and, almost always, it calls the shots.

If we want to create communication that encourages positive engagement and consideration of behavior change, we must simultaneously appeal to the conscious and non-conscious mind.

Communication exists at its core to create a connection. By not teaching communicators how to connect based on the non-conscious mind’s fingerprints, we leave them to wander a minefield without a map. Then we wonder why their words blew up in their face when it “made so much sense?!” to everyone’s cognitive, critical thinking mind.

The Non-Conscious Blockades to Mask Messaging

The mask debate did not begin because of politics. It started primarily because of how the mind responds to changing information in a state of extreme stress. When examined from this Behavioral Communication perspective, three distinct phenomena were, and continue to be, active in the minds of many U.S. citizens:

1. Cognitive Overload

Our minds can only handle so much information before we start tuning out. “Cognitive load” describes the amount of information our working memory can process at once. In contrast, cognitive overload happens when our working memory reaches its limits. When in a state of cognitive overload, we no longer engage with information the same way. As more of our thinking and decision-making is delegated to the non-conscious mind, our decision making is increasingly bias-driven rather than knowledge-driven.

When the pandemic was taking force, our knowledge about it was universally limited. As such, we paid close attention to guidelines and information on keeping ourselves and our neighbors safe. Imagine what it was like in the early weeks of March 2020…

We were told to stay home, and we did.

We were told to isolate ourselves from families and friends, and we did.

We were told to wash our hands, and we collectively celebrated our new and improved hand-washing skills.

However, as the months wear on, we’ve been overwhelmed by the volume and emotional strain of evolving COVID-19 communication. Our minds keep inching closer to exhaustion. Without the expectation that recommendations might change, many are closing down to new information.

2. Decision Fatigue

Fast forward a few months into our new pandemic lives, and damn, are we getting tired. The news is exhausting. The stress is overwhelming. Job losses are crippling. Even a simple trip to the grocery store has become an exercise in calculated caution. Many of us have made more life-changing decisions in the past months than we make in our entire lives. And making those decisions comes at a cost.

Decision fatigue is a psychological response in which the quality of our decisions deteriorates after a prolonged period of decision making. Making a lot of decisions wears us out, and the subsequent decisions we then make are not as sound as earlier decisions. This is why in America’s pandemic response, people can wash their hands like surgeons but balk at the concept of wearing a mask.

3. Backfire Effect

As we learned more about the airborne transmission of COVID-19, and as PPE was no longer in such limited supply for our healthcare heroes, those in front of the microphone tried to do the near-impossible: convince the public to ignore previous messaging.

May 2020, and Americans are in a near collective state of cognitive overload and decision fatigue. Only then did those behind the microphone make one of the biggest behavior change requests of all. Yet this time, to further complicate matters, the request is in direct opposition to previous asks and decisions we made before overload and fatigue had such a tight grip on our minds. The perfect recipe for triggering the Backfire Effect was in place.

What is the Backfire Effect? When presented with new information, we tend to think that we assess it fairly, weigh and measure its accuracy, and then decide if we agree or not. But in truth, when presented with new information that challenges pre-existing beliefs, due to factors such as confirmation bias, the communication often “backfires” and drives us deeper into the thoughts we already held.

Changing Behavior with Communication

America’s COVID-19 communication response has, in large part, followed the path of guaranteed failure by ignoring the importance of our shared but silent psychological communication responses. But is it too late to spur positive change and get us universally masking up and taking other precautions in larger numbers?

For some, it is too late. Those who have been vocal about not wearing a mask continue to reinforce their scientifically unsupported decision with confirmation bias and selective perception, making the ruts in which they roll deeper every day.

But suppose future communication is created with consideration paid to its behavioral impact. In that case, we are better equipped to avoid triggering unhealthy non-conscious responses and more likely to nudge positive change, even in the most established mindsets.

The key to understanding how behavioral communication can trigger positive behavior change lies in developing a deeper understanding of how the non-conscious mind is holding the controls and responds to communication and engagement.

The noisier our world gets, the more we rely on our non-conscious mind to help us navigate the day, the ads, the emails, the white noise, and everything in between. We can’t keep up with the flow of new information and decisions required of us, so our automatic responses increasingly take over. When we see and hear others we respect and admire, reinforcing our non-conscious thinking, we are further magnetically attracted to these core, automated responses. The ruts we are making grow deeper, and our behavior becomes even more entrenched.

For example, if a pastor isn’t wearing a mask during worship, parishioners will be non-consciously influenced to forgo wearing one as well. If your boss doesn’t advocate wearing masks, you might also feel comfortable going mask-less (assuming you respect your boss). The behavior we witness in those we admire is social proof that profoundly influences our decisions.

Engineering Consideration in a Pandemic, or Otherwise

What proven behavioral communication practices can help us as a society, or any business struggling with pandemic policy, to move forward? How can we engage the mind to be more considerate of new ideas and behaviors, especially when struggling under a pandemic load of stress?

1. Minimize Cognitive Load

As discussed earlier, the amount of information we can take in and process (our “cognitive load”) can quickly become overwhelmed during a prolonged emergency or time of crisis. To combat this and prevent overload, communicators should engage a specific approach that simplifies all messaging, avoids over-explanation, and provides direct, easy-to-follow steps each citizen should take.

Use basic language without superlatives, only providing the most critical information. Resist the urge to over-communicate why masks may or may not be useful. The updated KISS acronym applies: Keep It Seriously Simple.

Targeting the message to the audience is also a fundamental way of managing cognitive load. Younger people may need more information on avoiding crowds than older Americans who are more prone to staying home. Senior citizens may need more direct warnings about existing conditions that might impact their ability to fight the virus.

2. Storytell Carefully

In a crisis, communication techniques such as storytelling — that work marvelously to influence behaviors in non-crisis situations — can instead trigger more confusion and division. People don’t need personal anecdotes or interesting stories to drive the messages. Emergencies call for clear, concise information organized in the most important order. If the house is on fire, don’t tell people how far away the fire department is — point them to the exit.

Storytelling is also often leveraged to engage important emotional responses from an audience successfully, but the act of touching emotion when your audience is in an extreme state of anxiety may be more likely to trigger an anxiety avalanche than have a positive effect.

3. Prepare People For Change

In any newly developing crisis, we don’t know what we don’t know. As a situation unfolds, we learn new things, which is why nearly all early-stage crisis communication is done so with an awareness that the situation is not fully formed.

When a leader doesn’t know what they don’t know, meaning their position may evolve, rule number one is to establish that as a norm and prepares people for change.

In the first days of the pandemic, as with many crises, there are many unknowns, so consistent and repetitive use of the phrase “from the information we currently have on the virus” helps prime the audience’s minds to expect and accept new information. Priming people for change limits backlash. When you expect things to change, it doesn’t freak you out as much as it does when you’re not expecting it.

Remember all the outrage about Dr. Fauci’s 60 Minutes interview and his subsequent change of heart on mask-wearing? He didn’t change his mind, he continued down the scientific path of discovery as he knew he would be all along, and updated the American people accordingly. Keeping key information top of mind that this was an ongoing, changing situation would have a limited backlash against new recommendations such as the wearing of masks.

4. Use Images And Graphics

The non-conscious mind likes images, graphics, and simplistic forms of data visualization. It is more compelling, and some research indicates even more believable, to visualize a rapid increase in coronavirus infections with an animated graph than with simple numbers. The mind is much more attracted to visuals than wordy explanations.

Communicators attempting to create positive connections and nudge behavior change should utilize as many low-load images, graphics, videos, and charts to help clarify the benefits of masks and other precautions. Design images and graphics with sensitivity to the points they non-consciously communicate, such as the color red in signage more closely connecting to the non-conscious triggers of STOP and DANGER than a color that encourages calm consideration.

5. Test What Works

We are in the perfect position for this step since we’ve essentially spent 2020 conducting a test on what not to do. Moving forward, incorporating personal, political, and socioeconomic biases and non-conscious communication measures into how we design, test, and deliver messages as we navigate the remainder of the pandemic offers us one of the smoothest paths forward, with the least lives lost. Is mask wearing a different experience for a mom of four going grocery shopping vs. a lawyer visiting the gym? And if so, does our messaging for each audience need to be different? And what messages unite them enough to be connective at a mass communication scale?

We know that biases are deeply influential in human thought processes and beliefs. If we continue to engage others without considering our shared non-conscious biases, our communication is more likely to trigger rejection than connection. The pen is mightier than the sword, indeed. For the pen can restore, rebuild, and create.

Our future health and safety lie not in what we can accomplish with legal or brute force coercion but with our minds’ successful engagement.

What would happen if we consciously worked to create communication that limits knee-jerk responses? If we lean on the science of communication to light our way forward, it may contribute as much to saving lives as the vaccine on which we wait.

Elizabeth Edwards is a futurist communicator, writer, and strategist on a mission to improve the quality of communication with science. Founder of Engagement Science Lab and Volume PR, she is an award-winning communication industry expert, frequent keynote speaker, and architect of the Neuropsychological Engagement (NPE) method of communication. Her “Modern-Day Communicator’s Manifesto” presents the problem before the practice and profession of communication today as the sciences shift our understanding of human connection and comprehension: https://bit.ly/NPEmanifesto. If you’re feeling inspired, moved to comment, or want to stay connected, Elizabeth welcomes a chance to respectfully connect. You can find details on how to reach her at https://www.EngagementScienceLab.com.

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