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How to Make the Threat Feel Real to Someone in Denial
You don’t need to send them 17 terrifying links every day
I have a confession. This past weekend, I was the guy going to the gym, walking around New York City, shaking hands with new people I met, and slapping high fives with friends. I didn’t stock up on food, buy extra paper towels, or check on my supply of hand soap. I was telling everybody to keep calm, stop panicking, and wait for this whole coronavirus thing to blow over.
Sure, I’d read all the reports and recommendations and had been lectured by more responsible friends on the importance of self-distancing. Maybe I was in denial or couldn’t comprehend the severity of the pandemic or I was rebelling as a coping mechanism. I’m not entirely sure why I did what I did, but whatever the reason, one thing was certain: My actions were selfish and putting my community at risk.
The thing that finally flipped the switch in my brain was a conversation I had with a friend. She’d been trying to get through to me for days, rattling off statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, sending me news reports about what happened in China and Italy, and explaining why we need to flatten the curve. It all made sense to me on an intellectual level, yet her words did little to motivate me to change my ways. But then she said something else.
She told me a story about a hypothetical future and used my grandmother as the main character. In this story, my grandma contracted coronavirus, and her body wasn’t able to fight off the disease. You can guess how it ended. That was enough. At last, I became acutely aware of how my carelessness could impact others and vowed to be more prudent. (Later that day, my grandma happened to call me to make sure I was being cautious. I love her so much.)
Of course, it shouldn’t require a personal tale for us all to follow the necessary steps for preventing Covid-19. But if you know someone who isn’t taking the threat seriously, you can help give them a wake-up call by explaining how their actions affect people beyond themselves — real people, people they know.
Research shows that people may make different choices when realizing their decisions have consequences for others. In one study, for…
