System 3 Thinking in Pandemic Management
Communities everywhere are struggling with the frustration and fatigue of the COVID-19 pandemic after 18 months and counting. The social contract between government and the governed is fraying. We’re not all in this together. If anything, we’re in it because governments have made mistakes. So, is there another way of thinking that could help us out of this mess?
Communication of government orders in the daily press meetings typically follows two channels or systems of thinking:
System 1 thinking is intuitive, quick, and emotional. Fear grabs our attention. “We’ve got to drive this thing down to prevent our hospitals being overwhelmed”; “I don’t want children dying”; “You must get tested if you have any symptoms”; “You must get vaccinated, or you’ll end up in hospital on a ventilator”; “We all have to play our part if we are to get to COVID-normal”.
System 2 thinking is deliberate, rational, and calculated. It’s all about the numbers. We become fixated on daily case numbers and “bending the curve”. This is the domain of epidemiologists. What does the modelling tell us? Have I been to a tier 1 exposure site? It comes across as rules, orders, and directives. “We’re following the science”; “We’re taking advice”; “This is the best/only way to limit transmission of the virus”; “If you don’t do the right thing, you will be punished”.
As you listen to the government minister or health officer, you will hear both channels being utilised, and often bouncing between the two. By the end of the daily pronouncements, you’re likely to be saturated with fear/anger/despair, and data. Both your system 1 thinking (intuition) and your system 2 thinking (rationality) have been overloaded. You just want to throw the windows open and scream, “I’m mad as hell and I can’t take it anymore!”
The failures of government during the pandemic have been due to seeing these two systems of thinking as binary. Either placate the populace, “it’s not a race (to get vaccinated)”, or defer to the science, “this is what the modelling tells us to do”. You need both systems of thinking to manage the pandemic: Appeal to emotional triggers, and utilise the best available information. That’s necessary, but it’s not sufficient to navigate the doubts, the dilemmas, and the disruptions of this global event. You need a third system of thinking.
System 3 thinking is a way of “balancing” system 1 and system 2 thinking. It’s more considerate, thoughtful, and consequential, taking into account all the likely outcomes in both the short and long-term. In essence, it is the practice of good judgement. System 3 thinking sounds like: “Based on the available evidence, we’re modifying our directives”; “Recognising the impact on families, we’re re-opening schools with precautions”; “We’re learning to work with the virus and accept tolerable risks”.
My research has revealed 6 dimensions of system 3 thinking which can be practised to improve decision-making in a pandemic. Imagine how government policy could benefit from these 6 dimensions:
Focus: Pay attention to the wider impact of virus control measures, not just the public health statistics. We tend to notice what gets measured. If it’s not being measured it doesn’t get noticed. Focus on mental health statistics (youth suicide rates, domestic violence incident rates), on business bankruptcies, on loan defaults, on the long-term consequences of constrained capital investment, on the long-term health effects of deferred treatments and needed surgeries. These things all figure in a balanced cost-benefit analysis reliant on good judgement. Case numbers, and even deaths are not the only costs.
Life Experience: What can be learned from the experience of others, even in neighbouring states? Australia alone has a 180-year-old history of quarantining overseas travellers. If we don’t learn the lessons of history we’re doomed to repeat them. But there is also the notion of common sense based on lived experience. What seems sensible, and what seems unnecessarily autocratic? If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, then it’s probably a duck.
Decisiveness: Decisions need to be made in a pandemic, and quickly. Geometric progression (one person infects two, who each infect two, who each infect another two, etc.) means that the disease can spread rapidly if controls aren’t put in place. That’s fine. But insisting on the same decision when circumstances have changed doesn’t sound like good judgement. The different transmissibility and virulence of the Delta variant is a case in point. What worked for the initial outbreak doesn’t seem to be working for Delta, or for whatever future variants arise. It’s best to make many small decisions and learn from them. That way you can adapt instruments of control to better suit the circumstances.
Emotional Regulation: We need calm and consistent messaging in a crisis which engages our positive emotions and provides good advice on what to do. The algorithms of social media platforms skew the information we receive in favour of our biases and our fears. We only see what confirms our suspicions. Everything starts to look like a conspiracy after a while. And an online pandemic spreads just as fast and dangerously as a real one. Good judgement relies on acknowledging emotional states which arise in yourself and others, while seeking to harness them for good. For example, it’s possible (and healthy) to be rightfully angry.
Compassion: Breaching stay-at-home orders or being isolated in detention evoke deep human archetypes. It can feel like being sent to your room for being naughty. Punishment is a schema associated with rejection by “the tribe”. And yet, it feels unjust and unfair to be punished without having done anything wrong. What’s badly needed now is more empathy and compassion. For example, Malaysia is a country enduring brutal health, social and economic impacts of the Delta strain but without a discernible social welfare system. When families have run out of money or food, they raise a white flag. That’s a sign to their community to provide them with food and assistance. Compassion highlights the best of who we are in a crisis. Compassion benefits both the receiver and the giver. Australia is a country built on the mythology of mateship (compassion) in hard times but there is little evidence of it at the moment.
Tolerance for Divergent Values: We see the same faces fronting the media when an announcement is made about COVID public health measures. But the communities we live in are much more culturally diverse. Where are the Sudanese, or Bangladeshi, or Syrian, or Australian Indigenous community leaders? Are they included in discussions about how to tackle the virus? Good judgement would recommend a far more nuanced approach to public health for different communities. We may have different cultural and spiritual beliefs, but we are united by our common humanity and our compassion. Failure to be more inclusive leads to autocratic imposition of control. As a society we are the poorer for it, and our collective suffering will endure long after we have learned to live with the virus and may come back to bite our politicians.
We now have the collected knowledge of humanity in the palm of our hand, yet the urgent need for wisdom has never been greater. We need to think differently if we are to solve the wicked problems of our era, including a global pandemic.
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