Covid on the brain - why some take greater risks

We know the novel coronavirus can be fatal, that it’s passed via respiratory droplets, that masks and social distancing help stop its spread.

According to scientists, risk assessment involves two basic types of thinking: intuitive and deliberative. The intuitive kind is “thinking without thinking”, explains Ralf Schmälzle, a biological psychologist at Michigan State University, and “is rooted in the evolutionary need to survive”. “Knowledge alone is not enough to motivate,” explains Schmälzle. So, even though we hear that hundreds of thousands have died of Covid-19, that risk may feel distant if we don’t know anyone who has had it. Our unwillingness to change our minds based on information alone can lead in the opposite direction, too: many humans remain fearful of flying, even though statistically it’s incredibly safe.

By contrast, those who said they didn’t think the virus was much of a threat did not show the same brain activity. The results, Schmälzle says, “provided a glimpse into the neural underpinnings of something that we already knew, namely that risk is inherently subjective.”“The communities we are a part of play a huge role in how we interpret information.

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