Behaviourally speaking… what was lockdown?
· New group contingencies in place
· Massive change to environment
· New rule governed behaviours

Psychological flexibility for the win
· Are you ‘trapped’ at home, or ‘safe’?
· Are you bored or do you have additional free time to pursue new hobbies and activities?
· Are you miserable about the state of the world or hopeful about the future?

Your environment counts… doesn’t it?
· On paper, it makes ‘sense’ that during lockdown we had more control over our environments, especially in terms of our eating behaviours.
· So we should have all been living our healthiest lives, right? Wrong!

Routines and habits are important… sometimes
· When our old routines were removed (e.g. get up, coffee, breakfast, commute, work), we became a lot less productive.
· But other habits, like spending time doing some activities or seeing certain people were stopped during the pandemic and we felt better for it

Technology is the future… but it’s a whole new skill
· Processing many different faces and voices on a screen requires a lot of cognitive effort.

Rule governed behaviour is variable across different people and wears out for some
· E.g. those who started off being very cautious but eventually less cautious having not experienced illness in themselves or loved ones.

Our health matters
· And we previously were unsanitary goblins
· We’re more aware of our own immunity and sanitation than ever before

Absence really does make the heart grow fonder
· Increased MO for family, friends and socialising
· Deprivation hypothesis

Unpaid work gender gap:
· Before lockdown, the gap in unpaid work between men and women – which includes unpaid childcare and other unpaid work such as housework and volunteering – was 1 hour and 50 minutes a day, with men instead spending more time engaging in paid work and travel.
· Compared to 2014 to 2015, men reduced their work and travel time by 1 hour and 37 minutes a day on average during lockdown, while for women this reduced by 1 hour and 2 minutes. The time spent doing unpaid work rose by 22 minutes for men and fell by 20 minutes for women and, taken together, these effects reduced the 1 hour and 50 minute gap in unpaid work to 1 hour and 7 minutes a day

Timing is everything:
Lockdown a few days before Christmas

Governments need behaviour analysts

Misc / funny observations:
· I can cut men’s hair (specifically Jim’s hair) pretty well!
· I’ve never been so grateful for Amazon Prime, grocery delivery services and key workers
· My face on Zoom is not what I pictured it was in my head…
· We have new words in our vocabulary – to Zoom is now a verb, mascne is an atrocity, keyworkers have a word to define them and they are loved by all, and while the word furlough is not a new word, we all now know what it means.
· Athleisure is fun for the first 9 months… and then it’s time for some structure and style

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Disclaimer: While we’re both behaviour analysts and qualified in our respective fields, this podcast is for education and information sharing only and should not be taken as personal, medical or behavioral advice or services.