How COVID Is Changing the Study of Human Behaviour

May 18, 2021

(Nature) – For social scientists, the COVID-19 pandemic has presented a unique opportunity — a natural experiment that “cuts across all cultures and socio-economic groups”, says Andreas Olsson, a psychologist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. Everyone is facing similar threats to their health and livelihoods, “so we can see how people respond differently to this depending on culture, social groups and individual differences”, he says. Researchers have been able to compare people’s behaviours before and after large policy changes, for example, or to study the flow of information and misinformation more easily. (Read Full Article)