Can We Do Better Next Time? Italians’ Response to the COVID-19 Emergency through a Heuristics and Biases Lens

Authors

Raffaella Misuraca, University of Palermo
Ursina Teuscher, Portland State UniversityFollow
Costanza Scaffidi Abbate, University of Palermo
Francesco Ceresia, University of Palermo
Michelle Roccella, University of Palermo
Lucia Parisi, University of Palermo
Luigi Vetri, OASI, Research Institute-IRCCS
Silvana Miceli, University of Palermo

Published In

Behavioral Sciences

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-7-2022

Subjects

COVID 19 (Disease) -- Italy -- Health care

Abstract

During the outbreak of COVID-19 in Italy, people often failed to adopt behaviors that could have stopped, or at least slowed down, the spread of this deadly disease. We offer cognitive explanations for these decisions, based on some of the most common heuristics and biases that are known to influence human judgment and decision-making, especially under conditions of high uncertainty. Our analysis concludes with the following recommendations: policymakers can and should take advantage of this established science, in order to communicate more effectively and increase the likelihood that people choose responsible actions in a public health crisis.

Rights

Copyright (c) 2022 The Authors

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Locate the Document

ttps://doi.org/10.3390/bs12020039

DOI

10.3390/bs12020039

Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/37115

Citation Details

Misuraca, R.; Teuscher, U.; Scaffidi Abbate, C.; Ceresia, F.; Roccella, M.; Parisi, L.; Vetri, L.; Miceli, S. CanWe Do Better Next Time? Italians’ Response to the COVID-19 Emergency through a Heuristics and Biases Lens. Behav. Sci. 2022, 12, 39. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/bs12020039