Se trata de Luca Henkel, investigador posdoctoral de la JILAEE.

Luca Henkel, investigador posdoctoral de la Joint Initiative for Latin American Experimental Economics publicó en coautoría junto a Philipp Sprengholz, Robert Böhm y Cornelia Betsch el trabajo titulado “Historical narratives about the COVID-19 pandemic are motivationally biased”.

El artículo fue publicado en la prestigiosa revista académica Nature, que tiene más de 150 años de historia y continuidad en la generación de contenido científico de excelencia. Nature es uno de los journals de mayor difusion e impacto en la comunidad académica internacional.

La investigación analiza cuáles son los factores motivacionales que inciden en la forma en la que una persona recuerda la pandemia de COVID-19. En este sentido, los autores sostienen que los recuerdos de las personas vacunadas y no vacunadas están sesgados en direcciones opuestas. Esto las lleva a construir narrativas retrospectivas diferentes sobre el mismo fenómeno.

Luca forma parte del equipo de investigadores y profesores visitantes que todos los años recibe la JILAEE, dirigida por el Dr. Julio Elías, quien también tiene a su cargo la Maestría en Economía UCEMA.

¡Felicitamos a Luca y a todo el equipo de JILAEE por la destacada contribución!

Abstract

How people recall the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is likely to prove crucial in future societal debates on pandemic preparedness and appropriate political action. Beyond simple forgetting, previous research suggests that recall may be distorted by strong motivations and anchoring perceptions on the current situation1,2,3,4,5,6. Here, using 4 studies across 11 countries (total n = 10,776), we show that recall of perceived risk, trust in institutions and protective behaviours depended strongly on current evaluations. Although both vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals were affected by this bias, people who identified strongly with their vaccination status—whether vaccinated or unvaccinated—tended to exhibit greater and, notably, opposite distortions of recall. Biased recall was not reduced by providing information about common recall errors or small monetary incentives for accurate recall, but was partially reduced by high incentives. Thus, it seems that motivation and identity influence the direction in which the recall of the past is distorted. Biased recall was further related to the evaluation of past political action and future behavioural intent, including adhering to regulations during a future pandemic or punishing politicians and scientists. Together, the findings indicate that historical narratives about the COVID-19 pandemic are motivationally biased, sustain societal polarization and affect preparation for future pandemics. Consequently, future measures must look beyond immediate public-health implications to the longer-term consequences for societal cohesion and trust.