Published on October 27, 2020
On Sunday 25 October, Prime Minister Jan Jambon felt that the Flemish house was not yet on fire and that extinguishing the fire - i.e. stricter measures - was not yet necessary. He chose to coolly wait and see how the situation evolved on the basis of figures, and only to intervene if necessary. One of the arguments was his concern for the mental health and wellbeing of the population. But is it true that our mental health suffers more from stricter measures than from the uncertainty that comes with a wait-and-see attitude, while many signals around us turn red? The data from the motivation barometer at UGent suggest that we should not let the motivational momentum for action pass us by. We learned this from the reactions to the latest decisions of the National Security Council under the Wilmès government. After all, strict measures do not by definition undermine our motivation and wellbeing, quite the contrary. In exchange for certainty and a clear plan of action, the population is prepared to bite the bullet and accept risk-reducing measures. In this way, our well-being is protected in the long term. In this report, we discuss some of the implicit assumptions about behaviour and well-being that policymakers sometimes make and hold them up to empirical observations
Dutch
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