Apollo's Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live

by Nicholas A. Christakis MD PhD

If we really wanted to help our neighbors, we had to stay at home. Contact reduction was in fact not a selfish or even a timid thing to do. But it’s an odd thing to persuade people that sitting on their couch is an act of generosity. Yet people were more often willing to follow rules regarding physical distancing if they understood it was primarily to help others.36 After all, humans are moral actors capable of transcending their own self-interest. One study evaluated how public health messaging could be more successful. What was more effective, telling people, “Follow these steps to avoid getting coronavirus” or telling them, “Follow these steps to avoid spreading coronavirus”? It turns out that the emphasis on the public threat of coronavirus is at least as effective as, and sometimes more so than, the emphasis on the personal threat. This is in keeping with other work that shows that people are motivated to get vaccinated not only out of self-interest but also out of concern for the common good.