Coronavirus: Why the PM's repeated 'stay at home' message appears to be working
Coronavirus: Why the PM's repeated 'stay at home' message appears to be working
If there is one thing Kiwis should know above all else during the coronavirus lockdown, it's that we should stay at home.
There's no getting away from it, in press conferences, on television ads - the message is clear.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has said the phrase 32 times during her live television broadcasts since the lockdown began on March 25.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has been praised for using inclusive language when framing her government's response to the coronavirus pandemic.
And it's how the Government has delivered that message to the country that could be behind Kiwis' overwhelming acceptance of the strict measures that curtail our freedom, according to one psychology professor.
Not everyone's on board - several people have been charged with flouting the rules, while dozens more have given poor excuses to police on why they are out when they shouldn't be.
But overall, Kiwis are complying and are only too happy to dob in those who don't.
Dr Virginia Braun, psychology professor at the University of Auckland, watched the pandemic unfold while in Spain and the United Kingdom before returning home.
Unprecedented: Auckland's Dominion Rd on the first morning of lockdown.
New Zealand has been incredibly lucky to have leadership which spoke a collective language which in turn invoked collective psychology, she said.
"A pandemic has an impact on a physical and societal level, but it's also a deeply psychological one and how we all respond is different," she said.
"We have social identities, collective identities and our own identity, but the rhetoric and language used have drawn us not as individuals but individuals as part of a collective – it has been a strong part of how the Government has framed its action."
Her sentiment is shared by Stephen Reicher, a Scottish social psychology professor at the University of St Andrews.
He previously highlighted the contrasting inclusive leadership of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, with the divisive and exclusionary leadership of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
"Ardern repeatedly talks of the challenge and the response in collective terms, which created a sense of 'us'", Reicher said in a tweet last month.
A year ago, after the Christchurch massacre we wrote a piece contrasting the inclusive leadership of Ardern with the divisive and exclusionary leadership of Johnson and others: https://t.co/0Hbnu4qOGz. History repeats itself now with covid 19. https://t.co/51Sw9d8ed3— Stephen Reicher (@ReicherStephen) March 23, 2020
However, Braun warned it would be essential to form a global collective, as nationally-focussed rhetoric could spark hatred and racism towards other nations.
"This is a rapid and radically unanticipated upending of the way the world has been organised, rapidly scramble to think and act differently - who will know what will happen on the other side."
Braun added that New Zealand, and most of the world, had been living in a mostly individual society where individual rights in freedoms took priority.
Those individual freedoms have meant some international governments struggled to convince their citizens to relinquish their civil liberties.
In Italy, for example, footage of officials berating citizens for flouting Covid-19 quarantine rules went viral as the country demonstrated its contempt for the state's message.
And in the United Kingdom, Londoners crammed into busy trains despite Westminster's plea to stay indoors.
HOW A CRISIS CHANGES US
Susanna Trnka, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Auckland, said the relationship between citizen and state was being tested all over the world.
But here in New Zealand, trust in the Government had enabled the new restrictions to be enforced quickly and efficiently, she said.
"During a crisis, the balance between individual freedom and being a member of a larger group or nation is renegotiated and put at the forefront," Trnka told Stuff.
"We feel, in a sense, a larger responsibility to the state or the union."
Trnka said the pandemic experience could result in a more permanent renegotiation of the sate and citizen relationship.
"I do think in times of crisis these things are reshaped and can be carried forward in the future."
New Zealand's unique geographical location also had a role to play.
"We are two remote islands, with a lot of space, we can isolate ourselves more effectively than countries in Europe who share multiple borders with multiple countries," she said.
"Because we have a lot of space, it's easier not to break the rules and go outside and keep that social distance and not feel like our liberties have been taken from us."
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