"Time for Spring?"

With my last post ("Castles and Bullet Holes"), I introduced the concept of survivorship bias and told the story of the mathematician Abraham Wald and the Missing Bullet Holes.  Today, I wanted to talk about another type of cognitive bias, starting again with another question.  Have you ever noticed that during the Fall season, as the temperature gets colder, we tend to dress more warmly?  It makes sense, right?  When the temperature drops from into the 50's on the Fahrenheit scale, we break out our sweatshirts, jackets, and long-sleeve shirts.  Okay, now think about what happens in the Spring.  Those same temperatures (50's) bring out our shorts and T-shirts!    

During the Fall season, we think that 50 degrees is cold, but when it comes to the Spring, 50 degrees is short weather (see a couple of articles from the Washington Post and New York Times here and here)!  The explanation seems to be most consistent with something called "framing effect".  When we are used to warmer weather, a drop down into the 50's seems really cold.  However, after we've experienced temperatures in the 20's for a few months, 50 degree temperatures seem like the tropics.    

Our frame of reference determines how we perceive change.  I offer that as a special warning for leaders today.  We just passed the one-year-anniversary this past week from when the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 an official pandemic.  Last year, things changed quite abruptly with lockdowns, remote working, and social distancing.  Now, just over a year later, there's finally hope that things will return back to normal.  We will want to change back just as quickly.  It's like we've been used to wearing winter clothes for so long, and the temperature has gotten just a little warmer.  Our natural inclination will be to jump back into our old routines - metaphorically putting on our shorts and T-shirts, if you will.  But the best available scientific evidence tells us that we shouldn't - we should be more deliberate in our pace of change this time around.  

The SARS-CoV-2 vaccine roll-out is going much better now.  However, we still have a ways to go before we achieve the right level of herd immunity.  So for now, even if you are one of the fortunate ones to have received the vaccine, don't put away your mask just yet.  We've come this far, let's get to the finish line.  Keep those shorts and T-shirts in the closet for just a little while longer.