We’ve had the same thing in UK about using coins/notes, but told in a different way. We’re being pushed towards cashless society because of pandemic – cash spreads virus, so don’t use it. Again, using fear to make us conform. Early days, some shops refused to accept cash, cards only. Disenfranchises the poorest in society, those without access to banks. And allows you to be traced in every transaction.
How SAGE and the UK media created fear in the British public Post author By EvidenceNotFear Post date 27 June 2020
COVID-19 started registering with most of the British public around late February and early March. Many were concerned but not particularly afraid. Only weeks later people were terrified to leave their homes or go near other human beings. How did such a dramatic shift in public perception happen so quickly?
SAGE, SPI-B and applied psychology
SAGE is an advisory group to the UK government responsible for making sure decision makers have access to scientific advice. We are told that the advice provided by SAGE does not represent official government policy.
SAGE also relies on expert sub-groups for COVID-19 specific advice. These sub-groups include:
NERVTAG: New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group
SPI-M: Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling
SPI-B: Independent Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours
The identity of individual committee members themselves were initially kept secret, purportedly due to national security. Some names were eventually released, largely due to efforts by UK businessman Simon Dolan and his legal challenge campaign. Nevertheless, two members remain anonymous.
Persuasion through shame and approval: Covidiots and heroes
The document itself, titled Options for increasing adherence to social distancing measures, was drafted by SPI-B, the behavioural science sub-group for SAGE.
SPI-B highlighted nine broad ways of achieving behavioural change in the public:
Education
Persuasion
Incentivisation
Coercion
Enablement
Training
Restriction
Environmental restructuring
Modelling
In the document, SPI-B focused on the methods most relevant to their stated goals and set out ten options that were evaluated on six criteria.
The six criteria, under the acronym APEASE, were:
Acceptability
Practicability
Effectiveness
Affordability
Spill-over effects
Equity
SPI-B psychologists knew that fear on its own would not persuade everyone. Messaging needed to be tailored to take into account different âmotivational levers.â
Some people will be more persuaded by appeals to play by the rules, some by duty to the community, and some to personal risk.
It therefore suggested using both social approval and disapproval, with compulsion (legislation) as a backup:
Option 6: Use and promote social approval for desired behaviours
Option 7: Consider enacting legislation to compel required behaviours
Option 8: Consider use of social disapproval for failure to comply
âAnyone can get it. Anyone can spread it.â
âDonât put your friends and family in danger.â
âStay home for your family. Donât put their lives in danger.â
âIf you go out, you can spread it. People will die.â
Even in a pandemic, many of us are prone to judge others and find them wanting: the term âcovidiotâ describes any and every person behaving stupidly or irresponsibly as the epidemic spreads. Sometime in early March the word was born, and, almost as fast as the virus spread, so did instances of covidiotic behaviour.
(Real Life Example of) three options in play:Â
Source: METRO, 27 Mar 2020 Social approval:
 âThese local heroes have been doing amazing thingsâŚ
âSocial disapproval: âLake District closedâŚbecause covidiots wonât stay awayâŚâ
Compulsion: âMatt Hancock threatens to close beachesâŚâ
These psychological techniques would have been impossible to deploy on the public without a compliant media. How did the government convince the media to go along with the plan?
âŚthe government is spending more than usual, judging by their bookings. The publishers also pointed out that the lack of activity from other advertisers in the current market means the government campaigns will have an outweighed share of voice compared with normal times.
During that period, the British public started seeing coverage across media outlets with the unified âIn this togetherâ messaging. OâReilly pointed out that the campaign was worth ÂŁ35 million over a three month period.
Last week, the government and newspaper industry launched a three-month advertising partnership dubbed âAll in, all together.â The campaign â worth approximately ÂŁ35 million ($44 million) for the full course, according to sources â kicked off on Apr. 17, with all the U.K.âs national and regional daily news brands running near-identical cover wraps and homepage takeovers, which carried the copy, âStay at home for the NHS, your family, your neighbours, your nation the world and life itself.â
So, we ask again: how did the government convince the media to go along with the plan? The answer is simple and obvious: with lots of money.
Psychological techniques to change behaviour
We can see that the UK Government has a public document outlining psychological techniques to change the behaviour of the population. We see a unified mass-media campaign that falls in line with these techniques. We then see a dramatic shift in public perception and behaviour.
What else can we call this but âbrainwashingâ?
Despite the open nature of what has transpired, it seems to have gained little coverage in the media. This is of no surprise since it was clearly complicit in spreading fear in the public.
