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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Epidemiol.
Sec. Infectious Disease Epidemiology
Volume 4 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fepid.2024.1418336
This article is part of the Research Topic Modelling the Impact of Human Behaviour on Infectious Disease Epidemiology View all 3 articles

The Impact of Cognitive Bias about Infectious Diseases on Social Well-Being

Provisionally accepted
Radomir Pestow Radomir Pestow *
  • University of Koblenz, Koblenz, Germany

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    We investigate the relationship between bias, that is, cognitive distortions about the severity of infectious disease and social well-being. First, we establish empirically the existence of bias and analyze some of its causes; specifically, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Second, we derive an integrated economic-epidemiological differential equation model from an agent-based model that combines myopic rational choice with infectious disease dynamics. Third, we characterize axiomatically a model of an ethical, impartial, eudaemonistic and individualist observer. We prove that such an observer evaluates the state of society (social welfare or well-being) according to the utilitarian principle. Fourth, we show numerically that while increased risk-perception indeed improves epidemiological outcomes such as peak of infections and total incidence, the impact on social well-being is ambiguous. This result urges to look beyond cases and deaths. Finally, we point out three possible future research directions and highlight some critical issues that arise in the normative direction.

    Keywords: Welfare and Behaviour, Rational choice, welfare, Cognitive distortions, cognitive bias, Well-being

    Received: 16 Apr 2024; Accepted: 14 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Pestow. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Radomir Pestow, University of Koblenz, Koblenz, Germany

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.