How do experts in human behavior think the world might change after the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic? What advice do they have for the postpandemic world? Is there a consensus on the most significant psychological and societal changes ahead? To answer these questions, we analyzed interviews from the World After COVID Project—reflections of more than 50 of the world’s top behavioral and social science experts, including fellows of National Academies and presidents of major scientific societies. These experts independently shared their thoughts on possible psychological changes in society in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and provided recommendations how to respond to the new challenges and opportunities these shifts may bring. We distilled these predictions and suggestions via human-coded analyses and natural language processing techniques. In general, experts showed little overlap in their predictions, except for convergence on a set of social/societal themes (e.g., greater appreciation for social connection, increasing political conflict). Half of the experts approached their post-COVID predictions dialectically, highlighting both positive and negative features of the same domain of change, and many expressed uncertainty in their predictions. The project offers a time capsule of experts’ predictions for the effects of the pandemic on a wide range of outcomes. We discuss the implications of heterogeneity in these predictions, the value of uncertainty and dialecticism in forecasting, and the value of balancing explanation with predictions in expert psychological judgment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)

中文翻译：

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社会变革的专家预测：新冠项目后世界的见解。


人类行为专家认为冠状病毒 (COVID-19) 大流行后世界可能会发生什么变化？他们对大流行后的世界有什么建议？对于未来最重大的心理和社会变化是否达成共识？为了回答这些问题，我们分析了“新冠疫情后世界”项目的采访，其中包括 50 多位世界顶级行为和社会科学专家（包括美国国家科学院院士和主要科学协会主席）的反思。这些专家独立分享了他们对COVID-19大流行后社会可能发生的心理变化的看法，并就如何应对这些变化可能带来的新挑战和机遇提出了建议。我们通过人工编码分析和自然语言处理技术提炼出这些预测和建议。总体而言，除了在一系列社会/社会主题上的趋同（例如，更加重视社会联系、增加政治冲突）之外，专家们的预测几乎没有重叠。一半的专家辩证地对待他们对新冠疫情后的预测，强调了同一变化领域的积极和消极特征，许多专家表达了他们的预测的不确定性。该项目提供了专家对大流行对广泛结果影响的预测的时间胶囊。我们讨论了这些预测中异质性的含义、预测中不确定性和辩证主义的价值，以及专家心理判断中平衡解释与预测的价值。 （PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2021 APA，保留所有权利）