So I stumbled upon this video some time ago and saved it for later. I saw the title and thought that wil give it a listen, because it's always a good idea to learn another method of how to "motivate yourself to change your behavior".
And the beginning of the talk was ok, though nothing I didn't know before. And also had to ignore the usual "how to motivate someone to quit smoking" speech.
But then it got "interesting". Suddenly "how to change your behavior" became "how to make you compliant".
And it was the damnest and weirdest thing. Not sure it was intentional on researcher's part (her name is Tali Sharot, probably an Israeli, and she also studied in Tel Aviv University), but the talk morphed into all kind of examples how utilizing three "simple principles" could motivate someone to "comply" with the needed behavior. She also mentioned an example with a screenshot how British government motivates people to pay their taxes.
The three principles:
1. Social incentives
2. Immediate reward
3. Progress monitoring
The talk is from 2014, but it immediately made me think about Covid and the "carrot and the stick" approach, while the carrot is for those that comply, and the stick is for those that don't.
Then I searched her name in relation to coronavirus management, and yep, she and others are quoted extensively on the matter in various articles that discuss increasing and maintaining awareness and "good behavior".
Like this one, for example:
B1 means endeavouring together with our clients to be the first in our field, to work as a united team and to be leaders in whatever we do.
www.ey.com
There are many others, where they talk about "positive bias", where people tend to ignore or minimize the danger of Covid because they think that something like this happens only to "other people".
Or they talk about the importance of emphasizing that "we are in this together", "
we are saving lives by staying home", etc.
Don't want to make the post too long, but the point is that it is possible to clearly see that Covid-related social programming might very well not be so accidental or "fortuitous", but is based on a "new behavioral paradigm" of making people comply by making them feel good about themselves, that they are "saving granma's life" or clapping for doctors at 15 pm every day.
And those that don't comply can experience the full brunt of the autocratic system and also the disdain and the "righteous anger" of those that do.
Yeah, I know that what I said is pretty obvious and clear, I just found it very curious.
