COVID-19 Readiness to Return to Work Survey, D’Arienzo Psychology

Posted by: Dr. Justin D'Arienzo, Psy.D., ABPP

COVID-19 Sense of Safety to Return to Work Psychologist Survey

Dr. D’Arienzo, Board Certified Clinical Psychologist here. Everyone loves a little social psychology, so last week I conducted a survey, using a five-point scale, regarding three conditions. One, how safe do you personally feel, feeling is your intuition, that now is the time for you to return to work, two, how certain, this is about thought and data, so how certain are you that now is the right time for you to return to work, and three, how certain are you that now is the right time for the public to return to work. Although this was not a scientific study, I did find some interesting trends. The average score regarding how safe you feel as an individual returning to work was a 3.3, the highest score, yet the average score about how certain you are about you yourself returning to work was 3.0, a little lower, so your intuition says it is more safe than when you slow down and actually think about it. and finally, and very interesting, the safety certainty score for your view of the public returning to work was the lowest, a 2.8. What likely accounts for our greater personal confidence in following measures and being more safe in comparison to our lower confidence in others or the public’s ability is called the Dunning-Kruger effect. It is a cognitive bias of illusory superiority. We are overconfident about our own knowledge and abilities and unfairly less confident about others’ knowledge and abilities. Bottom line most of us are biased self-evaluators and biased other-evaluators, and according to this survey, we think it is more okay for us personally to return to work than for the public. Let’s keep our biases in check and remember that we are all in the same boat. We at D’Arienzo Psychology, are fortunate to be able to continue to be working and assisting those struggling with this sudden lifestyle and economic pause. Be safe and calm. We are all in this together.

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COVID-19 Readiness (Sense of Safety) to Return to Work Survey, D’Arienzo Psychology