Case study: UK Covid mutual aid groups

 

By John Drury & Evangelos Ntontis

In 2020, tens of thousands of people got involved in Covid mutual aid and similar community support groups, with over 4000 new groups being set up in Spring of that year.

Who were they?

Many participants were new to volunteering or community action. Some groups were repurposed pre-existing community groups. Groups tended to be informal, distinct from the existing voluntary sector, and with no formal constitution. Some groups later applied for charitable status to access grants more easily. Local communities with more social capital tended to have more mutual aid groups.

What did Covid mutual aid groups do?

Mutual aid groups’ main activity was shopping to support those self-isolating or shielding. They also engaged in other community support activities, including fundraising, providing information, dog-walking, mental health support, and collecting prescriptions.  Some pointed out that mutual aid groups were crucial in the UK’s pandemic response. In addition, many groups sought to respond to other community needs beyond Covid, including food poverty and supporting refugees.

Understanding how Covid mutual aid groups sustained themselves

The Economic and Social Research Council funded research to examine how Covid mutual aid groups sustained themselves over time. Following the initial upsurge, participation in mutual aid groups dropped, particularly after ‘lockdown’ restrictions eased. For example, activity in Covid mutual aid groups on Facebook dropped by 75% by June from the high point of March 2020. Some volunteers left because they felt let down by local authorities, needed logistical infrastructure, felt overwhelmed, lacked capacity, or lost motivation due to return to ‘normality’. For the groups that continued, there was a need to sustain themselves and maintain volunteers’ engagement over time.

Interviews with organizers and a two-wave survey of volunteers indicated three types of factors that helped sustain groups. First, there was group scaffolding – such as access to funds, space for meetings and storage, computing facilities, and transport.

Second, there were group experiences which arose from participation and motivated further involvement -- including a sense of identity, wellbeing, empowerment, and skills acquisition. Finally, organizers employed various group strategies to enhance a sense of belonging and motivate volunteers – in particular, fostering a culture of care, holding social events, a flexible leadership structure, and regular communication.

Learnings: Implications for community resilience

Central government, local authorities, and local infrastructure organizations/ the formal voluntary sector can all help scaffold the group processes that sustain mutual aid groups.

Group scaffolding can comprise financial/ practical support, connections and links, and guidance / advice.

It is important that no ‘strings’ are attached to this external support, as it is precisely the identity of mutual aid groups as independent and informal that makes them trusted by communities.

Behavioural legacies of ‘freedom’ days

 

July 19^th last year (2021) was characterised as ‘freedom day’ by the UK government and media. On that date, there were three notable changes in policy in relation to the Covid pandemic: nightclubs were allowed to reopen, social distancing rules were dropped, and the wearing of face coverings was no longer required by law.

As with ‘freedom day’ 2020, changes in public behaviour began ahead of the day itself. The media fanfare ahead of the actual announcement operated as a strong signal that measures such as face coverings were less necessary due to a decline in the threat from the virus.

However, the psychology and behaviour were somewhat at odds. In a commentary published a few weeks after ‘freedom day’ 2021, the British Psychological Society COVID-19 Behavioural Science and Disease Prevention Taskforce observed that ‘most adults (92%) said they continued to wear face coverings, while the percentage of adults who said they ‘always’ or ‘often’ maintained physical distancing was 53% (down from 63% just before ‘freedom day’) in the same period. These data and other evidence therefore suggest that, for at least a large proportion of the UK public, there was still a desire to maintain protective behaviours’.

While there was therefore no large sudden drop in protective behaviours immediately after ‘freedom day’ 2021, the Office for National Statistics has charted a steady decline in key protective behaviours – use of face coverings, avoiding crowded places – in the year since then, as well as a very concerning decline in the rate of take-up of vaccinations.

Yet arguably it was the further abandonments of mitigation measures by the government this year that have had a bigger impact than ‘freedom day’ 2021, and certainly seem to be associated with the acceleration in the decline in protective behaviours. In January this year, the prime minister announced the dropping of (relatively limited) requirements to present Covid passes at certain venues and events and the rule to wear face coverings on public transport and in certain indoor locations, as well as the guidance to work remotely. (Indeed, the term ‘freedom day’ was used for January 2022, not just July 2020 and 2021). Then, in February, the legal requirement to self-isolate and the £500 isolation payment for people on low incomes who are required to self-isolate were both dropped. And free Covid testing stopped on 1 April this year.

Today, even as rates of Covid infection are sky-rocketing, only a minority are now adopting protective measures such as face coverings. In-person meetings and events are now the norm, and rates of self-isolation, already low, have dropped still further.

In order to explain these patterns of public behaviour, it’s helpful to look at the same factors that explained adherence in the first place.

First, there is perception of risk. There has been a step-change in the public’s perceptions of the risks associated with Covid in the past six months or so. This partly reflects a recognition that the vaccines have made the threat of serious illness and death less likely for the vast majority. But it is also a function of the way we think about illness – that in some way it’s now ‘ok’ or more acceptable or accepted to be ill with Covid. Of course, if you are very ill or unable to access a service because of illness in the workforce, then you can see that it isn’t actually sustainable to accept these levels of illness. This is where the government’s messaging comes in. They and their supporters have repeatedly told us that the pandemic is over. (Many were surprised then at yet another Omicron wave this summer.) In line with this, they have dismantled much of the machinery set up to help in the pandemic response (including the advisory groups and some of the surveillance). Like the government’s attempts almost to enforce pre-pandemic norms (such as coming into the office), these actions have further significantly impacted public perceptions of risk. In addition, perceptions of risk have also been altered in terms of scope: there has been an unfortunate reframing of risk to focus on ‘me’ the individual (mostly not going to die) rather than ‘us’ the community (which includes large variations in levels of vulnerability). These altered perceptions of risk have consequences for people’s willingness to take up the offers of vaccine, as well as for behaviours such as mask-wearing. It is no coincidence that the vaccine programme has stalled in the past six months, with a significant minority still not vaccinated.

Second, there are social norms. To see other people abandoning masks and embracing crowded places operates as a form of evidence that in-person interaction is safer now -- particularly when the other people involved are our reference groups. The survey data suggests that most people see mitigation measures as important, but think that other people don’t feel the same way. These perceived norms drive behaviour more than own attitudes do.

Third, there is the role of support (or lack of it). Now, almost all support for protective behaviours has been dropped. The ending of financial support for self-isolation and the abolition of free testing for most people not only make it harder for many people to do these things, but also again send a very strong signal that risk is reduced.

There has been a struggle over the meaning of ‘living with the virus’. The prevailing definition, in which we put up with repeated and sometimes long-term illness, is in large part of function of so-called ‘freedom day’ 2021 and, more so, the other government announcements to drop mitigations, which communicated that the public could and should behave as though the virus doesn’t actually exist.

Three forms of Covid leadership

If the Covid pandemic has made one thing is clear, it is that we are interdependent in terms of risk and safety. So a collective response is required. From distancing, through ventilation, to vaccination programmes, decisions needed to be taken at the level of the whole community, society, and indeed the world. We need a coordinated response that prioritizes and supports the most urgent actions. Leadership is therefore essential. Three forms of leadership have been particularly evident over the course of the pandemic: identity leadership, coercive leadership, and laissez faire leadership. Only one of these is actually effective in enabling the collective response we need.

 

Identity leadership

This is true leadership, in that it leads to active engagement by ‘followers’. It attempts to create unity and a shared perspective on the problem and the solution, and to support effective action by the public. 

Assumptions of this approach: The public have the intention and capacity to do the right thing, if properly informed and supported. Understanding the public as part of the solution, not the problem. Treating the public as a resource and a partner.

Practices: Bring the public with you through engagement, promoting mitigations on the basis of shared identity and values. Embodying those values. Giving clear direction based on ‘who we are’ (shared interests, needs, and values). Regulations and rules (e.g., mask mandates) as a way of promoting norms and shared definitions of seriousness. Explaining the rationale behind measures. Working with community support groups, including mutual aid groups, by listening to them and supporting them materially. 

Examples: Haslam et al. offer several examples including Bonnie Henry, who focused on her connections with her fellow British Columbians get them to listen to and embrace the demanding course of action that she was proposing. But perhaps the most cited example is that of New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Adern’s use of identity rhetoric to mobilize her citizens.

Pros and Cons: May require considerable time and effort. Finding the leaders who have the required skills, background and motivation. But over two decades of research on the social psychology of leadership suggests that this approach will get the most active engagement and results.

 

Coercive leadership

The ‘command and control’ approach to managing emergencies has a long history. It occurs where the authorities have given up with, or don’t try, the more painstaking practices of engagement -- which include listening as well as talking. It represents a failure of leadership.

Assumptions of this approach: The public are a problem: they are wilfully obstructive or stupid or passive and ignorant.

Practices: As the public are assumed to be obstructive or stupid, forms of threat and punishment are foregrounded, including fines and imprisonment; and the mechanisms for such coercion are strengthened, such as surveillance and policing.

Examples: £10K fines for failing to self-isolate. Compulsory vaccination.

Pros and Cons: These approaches produce backfire effects among sections of the public, whereby the public health measures are perceived as impositions and become a site of struggle and resistance. Coercion creates long-term damage to the relationship with the authorities. It may lead to compliance in some people in the short-term, but in the longer term these people will be less likely to listen and engage with public health messages and policies.

 

Laissez faire leadership

This approach is the abdication of leadership. Under the guise of relying on public ‘common sense’ and ‘resilience’, it entails abandoning moral and practical support.

Assumptions of this approach: This approach assumes that correct understandings of risk and mitigation already exist in each individual’s ‘common sense’, that each individual is solely responsible for outcomes, and therefore that the public can be blamed (as ‘irresponsible’) when things go badly, providing a rationale for adopting the coercive approach instead.

Practices: Advice to ‘be cautious’, ‘stay alert’, and use ‘common sense’, instead of specific guidance. Emphasis on ‘personal judgement’. Dropping all rules and regulations. Limited material support.

Example: July 19th 2021 so-called ‘freedom day’ in the UK entailed dropping most of the rules and the mask mandate but failing to provide the public with the recommended education on risk and mitigation that would enable informed decisions.

Pros and Cons: ‘Common sense’ is a repository of competing ideas. Without clear guidance, exhortations like ‘be cautious’ are open to multiple interpretations: what does it actually mean in practice? Unlike rules specifying behaviour – such as ‘stay home’ – it’s not clear to do with this advice on ‘how to feel’. By individualizing judgements of risk, there is a danger of people seeing risk simply in personal terms rather than in terms of others (including those more vulnerable than themselves). Worse, insufficient material support (including proper compensation for staying home and support for safe schools) means that, even where people understand how to act safely, they don’t have the resources to do so. Without clear leadership representing the collective will and properly organized support to equip members of the public with the knowledge they need to make informed decisions, this approach risks a chaotic and dangerous individualism.

 

 

 

The psychology of physical distancing

The psychology of physical distancing - The Psychologist

Why collective behaviour will get us through the Covid-19 pandemic

Why collective behaviour will get us through the Covid-19 pandemic: Sussex psychologist Professor John Drury is among a group of behaviour scientists giving the UK government guidance during the coronavirus pandemic.

Don’t personalise, collectivise!

Don’t personalise, collectivise!

The way we deal with the coronavirus is bound up with the way we think about society and about the individual. And the problem is that we are in danger of getting it wrong on all counts, with the consequence that we will be less effective in containing the virus. There is nothing new about us being wrong. But this time, lives are at stake.

The   assumption, which is reflected in the advice being handed out to the public, is that the way to change behaviour is to appeal to individual interests. To make sure people take notice, personalise the message: ‘change your behaviour so that you will survive’. Surely that makes sense? Well no. It is precisely the wrong thing to do. Here’s why. 

At a practical level, those least at risk (young, fit, healthy) may well feel it isn’t worthwhile to make the necessary changes and so continue to act in ways that put the most vulnerable (old and infirm) at risk of infection. Additionally, at a moral level, we have the right to disregard dangers to ourselves and some even glory in being risk takers. It might be foolish, but it isn’t disreputable to ignore safety advice.

On top of this, if we frame things individually – look after yourself! – we run into difficulties when it comes to getting people to behave in ways that are inconvenient to themselves but benefit others (self quarantining, for instance). The same goes when it comes to distributing scarce resources (doctors time, medicines, hand gel etc.). If we prioritise the individual then the strongest rather than the neediest will win out. In both cases, the pursuit of self-interest is inefficient, it undermines the overall response to the crisis and many more will die. 

Our own research on emergencies (Drury et al., 2019)  shows that it is precisely when people stop thinking in terms of ‘I’ and start thinking in terms of ‘we’ – more technically, when they develop a sense of shared social identity – that they start to coordinate, support each-other and ensure that the neediest get the greatest help. Sometimes this sense of shared identity emerges by the very fact of experiencing a common threat. But messaging also matters. When a threat is framed in group rather than individual terms, the public response is more robust and more effective (Carter et al., 2013).

So, let’s look again at the coronavirus response. Instead of personalising the issue we need to collectivise it. The key issue is not so much ‘will I survive’ as ‘how do we get through it’. The emphasis must lie on how we can act to ensure that the most vulnerable amongst us are protected and losses to the community are minimised – after all, from a collective perspective, a loss to one is a loss to all.

If framed in this way, then it becomes important for everyone to wash their hands and cover their coughs because of the implications for others as well as for themselves. Moreover, while we might have a right to take risks for ourselves, we have a moral obligation to avoid imposing risks on others (especially those who are vulnerable and connected to us – just think how your driving changes when you have children in the car). Both of these considerations are powerful motivators of action (Reicher & Haslam, 2009).

What is more, once certain actions become communal issues subject to collective norms, then violating them invokes collective pressure. The best way to stop people going out when unwell or demanding resources they need less than others is not simply to change internal motivations but also to mobilise external disapproval. The feverish person who goes to work, the fit young person demanding access to A&E will be best dissuaded when the community comes together to make clear that these are not acceptable behaviours.

Once you collectivise the response to coronavirus, and once you create clear norms about maximising community well-being, then you become less reliant upon external forces such as the police to regulate behaviours – say around who is prioritised in getting medical help – with all the risk of clashes that entails. Instead, the community itself will constrain would-be deviants in their midst. As always, the best regulation is collective self-regulation (Reicher et al., 2004). 

The difficulty with this approach, of course, is that it is so much at odds with contemporary psychological commonsense, which insists that behaviour is governed by individual self interest. It is also at odds with social changes which relentlessly undermine communities and collectivities, seek to transform social groups into individual consumers and view every relationship as a market based interpersonal exchange. In this sense, perhaps coronavirus is a powerful wake-up call. 

We have to change the way we frame the epidemic.

We have to change we see the individual and society.

We have to collectivise – or we die.

Stephen Reicher, University of St. Andrews

John Drury, University of Sussex

References

Carter, H., Drury, J., Rubin, G., Williams, R. and Amlôt, R. (2013), "The effect of communication during mass decontamination", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 22 No. 2, pp. 132-147. https://doi.org/10.1108/09653561311325280

Drury, J., Carter, H., Cocking, C., Ntontis, E., Tekin Guven, S., & Amlôt, R. (2019). Facilitating collective psychosocial resilience in the public in emergencies: Twelve recommendations based on the social identity approach. Frontiers in Public Health, 7 (141) doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2019.00141

Drury, J., & Alfadhli, K. (2019). Social identity, emergencies and disasters. In R. Williams, S. Bailey, B. Kamaldeep, S. A. Haslam, C. Haslam, V. Kemp, & D. Maughan (Eds). Social scaffolding: Applying the lessons of contemporary social science to health, public mental health and healthcare. London: Royal College of Psychiatrists.

Drury, J., Cocking, C., & Reicher, S. (2009). The nature of collective resilience: Survivor reactions to the 2005 London bombings. International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, 27(1), 66-95.

Drury, J., Cocking, C., & Reicher, S. (2009). Everyone for themselves? A comparative study of crowd solidarity among emergency survivors. British Journal of Social Psychology, 48(3), 487-506.

Reicher, S. D., & Haslam, S. A. (2009). Beyond help: a social psychology of social solidarity and social cohesion. In M. Snyder, & S. Sturmer (Eds.), The Psychology of Prosocical Behaviour Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. 

Vilas, X., & Sabucedo, J. M. (2012). Moral obligation: A forgotten dimension in the analysis of collective action. Revista de Psicología Social, 27(3), 369-375.

Reicher, S., Stott, C., Cronin, P. and Adang, O. (2004), "An integrated approach to crowd psychology and public order policing", Policing: An International Journal, Vol. 27 No. 4, pp. 558-572. https://doi.org/10.1108/13639510410566271

Stott, C., Adang, O., Livingstone, A., & Schreiber, M. (2008). Tackling football hooliganism: A quantitative study of public order, policing and crowd psychology. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 14(2), 115-141. doi:10.1037/a0013419

Originally published in The Psychologist: https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-33/april-2020/coronavirus-psychological-perspectives