“rying to shame people into healthy behavior generally doesn’t work,” Harvard epidemiologist Julia Marcus says, “and actually can make things worse.”ĭrawing on the advice of public health experts and my own expertise in communication across lines of political difference, I offer the following advice for encouraging COVID-19 rebels to mask up: What not to doġ. “People don’t appreciate being told what to do by someone they don’t know,” explains Simon-Thomas, science director of the University of California, Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center.īeing on the receiving end of unsolicited feedback can make people feel more entrenched and righteous about their behavior, especially if the feedback has a shaming quality. Neuroscientist Emiliana Simon-Thomas says that people often lash out vitriolically when they perceive others as being insufficiently self-sacrificing, but she says that doing so triggers resistance. But they are terrible at persuading skeptics to abide by public health precautions.

The vast majority of social media memes I’ve seen are terrific at validating the behavior of people who are already diligently masking and social distancing. As the COVID-19 pandemic rages on, many people have found themselves serving as armchair epidemiologists and pundits, tracking the virus, projecting the future, and browbeating people who refuse to stay home or wear masks. I’m not a public health educator, but I play one on social media.

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