Corona crisis exposes the stupidity and ignorance of most people.

Why do people not behave as they are advised for their own safety? Are we just ignorant idiots? Or do people just like to rebel? To answer these questions, we talk to Renato Troffa, a professor of social psychology at the University of Cagliari. “This is a complex phenomenon,” he says. Our frame of reference — our social background and environment, for example — has a strong impact on how we perceive a risk: “Do you trust the government? How concerned are friends and relatives? All these things matter.”

Troffa says there are three aspects to risk assessment: How likely something will happen, how much control we have over it, and how serious the consequences could be. Centralized sources of information, for example, news and objective data, but also factors from the immediate environment — such as the behavior of the people with whom we have much to do — are then important for this assessment. “If you are very interested in a topic or know a lot about it, you are more likely to listen to centralized information sources,” Troffa continues. “If not, you tend to behave and react more like the people around you. This is especially true when the information is constantly changing.”

So if your friends think that you can go partying during a global pandemic, the chances are you’ll see it that way too. “Of course, these people are also afraid,” says Troffa. “They don’t want to be judged.” That explains why some people leave even when they think it’s not such a good idea: they don’t want people to make fun of them. We also tend to conform to the community we belong to. Troffa also says that we often trust a person we know and respect more than scientific facts. “Things become even more complicated when there is an unequal balance of power: For example, if all colleagues continue to work in the office, you don’t want to do a home office yourself because you don’t want to harm your career.”

We tend to be prepared to repress a risk if it could upset our habits and daily routines. “If the information is not quite clear, as it has been in recent weeks, then we increasingly convince ourselves that the risk is not so great,” says Troffa. People would then tend to believe that they could live their lives normally. This is especially true when the recommended measures restrict our freedoms — such as the freedom to go to a bar and have a drink with friends. “If we feel restricted, we give higher priority to our freedoms.”

According to Troffa, hamster shopping and Corona parties have something in common: both are irrational reactions. “When I say ‘irrational’ here, I don’t mean judgmental,” he says. Both things would be based on “unfounded optimism”. “The people who rush into the supermarket in panic are conditioned by their frame of reference and believe that their purchases will defuse the situation. The people who party are influenced by a different frame of reference and assume that they don’t have to face their fears and that the problems will simply disappear if they don’t change their behavior”.

Troffa doesn’t believe that irrational behavior decreases when people are confronted with it. Because nobody wants to lose self-esteem and social prestige, you tend to rebel. How should the governments in the countries affected by the coronavirus then proceed? Troffa recommends a more determined approach. One example: working from home is rather unusual in Italy. If the authorities had not only recommended this step but directly ordered it, many people would have found it easier to implement this instruction, according to the professor of social psychology.