Improving Crisis Communication Efficiency Through Nudging: Insights From and Reflections on the COVID-19 Pandemic

Introduction

In an extremely reductionistic way, it can be argued that people perceive situations or events as crises when their expectations are contrasted by reality in a negative way (cf. Gray 1982). The human body reacts to this kind of misfit of expectations and reality – expectations are verbalized based on one’s mental map about the world, which has been rendered ineffective or/and imprecise in such scenarios – by releasing chemical substances that are received as fear or uncertainty by the affected people (cf. O'Phil & Peterson 1990, 19). The qualitative as well as quantitative degree of divergence between assumed reality and actual reality determines, at least in part, the degree of perceived uncertainty and/or fear. Because of the pluralistic array of (pre-)experiences as well as the diverse ideas of and about the world (cf. Berger/Luckmann 1980/1969), people experience crises, disasters, or – in one of the strongest manifestations – trauma at different times as well as in divergent scenarios. In short: Experience as well as mental incorporation thereof into a mental map determine whether and under which circumstances people are surprised, experience crises, face disaster, or are plagued by trauma. Such phenomena are not limited to individuals but can equally befall groups, institutions, states, or the global community as all units and entities are constantly exposed to such events by what Nassim Taleb refers to as “time probability” (2018, 223) – the fact that no matter the amount or degree of preparation or pre-caution, eventually extreme events will hit any given actor. One result of such negative and often disruptive contrast between reality and expectation on a community, state, or global scale is a widespread discussion and analysis in newspapers, the media, or academia. Parallelly to the observation in individual’s way to cope with negative experience, in its most severe manifestation such events can turn into national trauma and haunt generations (see also Peterson 2009); this is especially the case when basic assumptions about the world – i.e. the world is a safe place – are being “shattered” (Janoff-Bulman 1992). Such potentially traumatic events, if not handled correctly by the authorities in power, can also result in tremendous losses regarding the trustworthiness of politics, the state as well as its institutions. Therefore, effective and goal-oriented handling of crisis situations is a crucial component of good governance. The second key characteristic of any given crisis is an acute call to action; whether to save people and/or property, establish a new and hopefully better status quo, or avert further harm. Crises almost always demand an immediate reaction as their destructive potential needs to be mitigate. Without a reaction, crisis scenarios worsen and the number of casualties, damages, and losses increases. However, at all levels – from the individual to the state level – it remains equally true that in situations of crisis, i.e. in times of uncertainty, insecurity and fear, people do not orient their actions to reality, but to what they assume to be reality (cf. Haltermann 2012, 64). Furthermore, it can be assumed that decisions in crisis situations have enormous potential for error due to the associated mental states in such situations: anxiety, stress, time pressure, and the alike. At the same time, individual decisions in crisis situations are of extraordinary relevance, since, in accumulated form, they can either defuse and improve the situation or exacerbate and thus worsen it¹. By taking these aspects – negative externalities which result in potential error as well as the interdependence of the situation and (accumulated) individual decisions – into consideration, effective and targeted communication becomes particularly valuable in times of uncertainty, catastrophe, or crisis.