The impacts of cognitive biases and heuristics on Covid-19 preventive behaviors

Abstract

The covid-19 pandemic disease became part of the study of many scientific disciplines recently since its impact area is large and it threatened millions of lives. One of the important disciplines is public policy since the characteristics may easily influence the spread of covid-19. It is assumed that an individual’s irrational tendencies can increase this spread since they are highly correlated with the most important actions of prevention of the spread such as isolation, wearing a mask, and washing hands. Moreover, public policies can be effective in such a pandemic period if they take into consideration of individual’s irrational tendencies. Hence, in this study the psychological background of why individuals do not follow the regulations that can decrease the spread of covid-19 will be presented: cognitive biases and heuristics.