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“Because they are selfish. Stupid. Irresponsible. They are criminals, ”this is how they now speak of people who, during a pandemic, live their lives as if nothing has changed. Psychologists Julia Shaw and Seth Gillihan investigate the reasons for this behavior and urge not to rush to conclusions.
In recent weeks, we have seen an increase in cases, unprecedented government responses to COVID-19, and drastic changes in the daily lives of most people on the planet.
Many of us have already adjusted to home isolation. At the same time, we still see footage of busy streets, beaches and shops on the networks.
With the media brimming with information about the speed of the spread of the virus and the news of what is happening is available to everyone 24/7, it seems impossible that people do not know that they should stay at home. So why do some seem to deliberately neglect the recommendations and ignore the prohibitions?
Emotional epidemiology
In 2009, physician and science communicator Danielle Ofry wrote about a phenomenon she observed in her patients. She found that in addition to viral infection during epidemics, we are threatened by another infection (psychological) – distrust and suspicion.
Just as there are patterns (special patterns) of diseases, there are patterns of emotional response associated with new ailments. These illnesses, like COVID-19, can lurk asymptomatically in everyone we meet, they capture our imaginations and arouse intense fear and insecurity.
And frightened and insecure people, according to psychologist Julia Shaw, often do two things:
- assume the worst in others;
- act irrationally.
Julia Shaw offers to discuss both in more detail.
The Fundamental Attribution Error and COVID-19
Without knowing what people think, we draw conclusions by looking at their behavior. In most cases, this means that we simply attribute some intentions, emotions, or knowledge to them and build our guesses on this. In the situation of the current pandemic, it is exactly the same: we automatically make judgments about those who break the lockdown.
As a rule, we are sure that they ignore the rules on purpose. This phenomenon in social psychology is called the “fundamental attribution error.” Its essence is that we tend to explain the actions of other people by their personal characteristics (he does it out of spite), and our own behavior by external circumstances (I have important reasons).
Panic: why we are buying up buckwheat and toilet paper
In fact, a person who is not able to stay at home (we are not talking about those who have to travel to work) does not violate the regime on purpose, he does not have bad intentions. But we automatically come to this conclusion in a situation of danger, which is evolutionarily justified: our brains are programmed to err in the direction of a solution that guarantees greater safety.
When we are in danger, we become more suspicious, because whoever trusts a sick person takes a risk.
Why we act irrationally during a pandemic
How then to explain the behavior of those who do not observe social distance? According to Julia Shaw, the reasons may be as follows:
They cannot fully comprehend what is happening. It feels like we’re in a dystopian movie rather than real life. The inability to comprehend and analyze events can lead to their complete disregard or denial of scale and reality.
They take wishful thinking. In the digital age, it’s easy to find an article that tells you what you want to hear and pick up arguments that minimize or catastrophize the gravity of the situation.
They do not believe in the seriousness of the next crisis. Our newsfeeds have long been filled with sensational stories. But if we are constantly told about global crises, then we no longer take the news of another catastrophe seriously, even when we are convinced that this time everything is true.
They are confused. They don’t know how to behave. What we did yesterday, following the instructions of governments, today can be seen as a mistake. This leads to learned helplessness, where we simply give up trying to figure out how to behave properly and instead follow our intuition.
Erroneous Thoughts
But cognitive-behavioral psychologist and psychotherapist Seth Gillihan sees the reasons why a person may refuse to self-isolate in the following thinking errors:
1. Overgeneralization
We believe that past experience is applicable to every similar situation. Based on this logic, the COVID-19 crisis cannot be worse than the SARS and H1N1 outbreaks.
But past experience is only as useful as it matches reality, generalizations that ignore the unique features of this coronavirus, such as the ease of infection and the ability of people without visible symptoms to spread it.
2. Understatement
Many of us play down the severity of the crisis by saying that the coronavirus is very similar to the flu, that it is mainly the elderly who catch it, or that “80% of people have mild symptoms.” Not everyone who gets coronavirus ends up on a ventilator, right. But this is no reason to endanger the most vulnerable.
3. Belief that everything is possible
Finally, the belief that “I have the right to do what I want” can also lead a person to abandon self-isolation. He may think that refusing to self-isolate – how to remove the seat belt in the car – is a personal choice that affects only him. But in fact, he “removes the belt” not only from himself, but also from his grandparents.
Change to be: how to support yourself during a crisis?
If any of these “mistakes of thinking” are close to you, try to analyze it in terms of logic. What evidence supports your belief? Is there anything you might be missing or ignoring? Let the truth guide your actions.
The safest way to behave during the COVID-19 epidemic is to listen to the advice of epidemiological experts. They have far more knowledge and data than we hope to get by trying to find answers on our own.
Behavior contagion
Another’s example has a huge influence on our actions.
Each of us unconsciously imitates the behavior of other people, “infects” them. According to Christy Duan and her colleagues, co-authors of The Psychiatry of Pandemics (2019), this “behavior contagion” is similar to real contagion during an epidemic.
Just as one infected person is likely to pass the virus on to two or three others, so a person who refuses social distancing can affect two or three, and looking at him, they will do the same.
But the opposite is also true: adherence to the recommendations of epidemiologists is also “contagious”. If we stay at home, then, most likely, we will “infect” 2-3 more people with our example. This is how each of us can make a difference: the best thing we can do to convince others to stay at home is to lead by example.