Essay: Understanding the Coronavirus Disease and Urgency of Social Distancing

Coronavirus disease also known as the COVID-19, which originated in the city of Wuhan, China, is a respiratory infectious disease which affects different people in different ways (World Health Organization, 2020). Those at a higher risk of contracting the disease are the elderly and the immunocompromised individuals – those who have underlying medical conditions like cardiovascular disease or cancer, making them more vulnerable to the virus (World Health Organization, 2020). The illness ranges from being an asymptomatic individual, to symptomatic with mild to severe symptoms, potentially resulting in death (World Health Organization, 2020). Transmission and reproductive rates of the virus are relatively high and spread from person-to-person. A challenging aspect of this disease is the fact that even if an individual is infected with the virus, symptoms will not surface for around 14-27 days. This being said, asymptomatic individuals are seen as carriers of the virus and pose a great threat to those at higher risk. While there are currently no vaccines or therapeutics for the coronavirus disease, many are being developed and put in clinical trials.
In an attempt to control the spread of the virus, public health officials have been urging citizens to cooperate and practice social distancing and recommending safety measures such as washing hands for 20 seconds. These have been proven to be the most effective methods due to the fact that a cure has yet to be developed. Social distancing is associated with making changes to your everyday routine in order to reduce contact with other individuals. This involves limiting your physical contact with people who are at higher risk, avoiding non-essential social settings and gatherings, and working from home. This situation yields a dire commitment to self and familial isolation. This can become very overwhelming for individuals who are not accustomed to staying home for extended periods of time. Despite the extensive amount of data collected on the virus as well as the announcements made by scientists and political figures stating that the virus should be taken seriously, a significant proportion of the population neglect to express concern about the magnitude of the pandemic. In a leger poll conducted in March 2020, Global News announced that 1 out of 5 Canadians believe the COVID-19 pandemic is blown out of proportion (Bryden, 2020). Roughly 20% of the respondents stated that the coronavirus crisis has not stopped them from visiting friends and family, has not influenced them to practice social distancing, and has not had an impact on them going to stores and public settings (Bryden, 2020). Though 20% may appear as a minimal fraction of the population, it can undoubtedly place the country’s health care system in jeopardy as the rate in which the virus can spread is very high. Similarly, another research survey conducted in February 2020 across Europe, specifically France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland, to examine the people’s perceptions of risk of COVID-19 infection, found that the majority of the participants estimated that less than 1% of the population would be affected by the virus (Raude et al., 2020). This incorrect perception on the severity of the virus is exactly what will influence people to not take the necessary precautions set forth in order to reduce the spread. From a psychological perspective, there are many theories that could be used to explain why people think and behave the way they do. In this paper, I will discuss how the self-enhancement theory and unrealistic optimism explain why this social problem exists.
As previously mentioned, a large majority of the population believes that the virus has been exaggerated. Safety measures such as closures of non-essential public spaces, namely schools and shopping centers, have been put in place in order to limit the level of interaction between civilians and to promote quarantining. However, many adolescents and young adults specifically are failing to comply to the terms set by the government. It is evident that age is an important factor to consider when trying to understand why people are responding a certain way to the pandemic. Bearing in mind what health specialists initially portrayed the conventional victim to be, which comprised the elderly and immunocompromised individuals, adolescents do not see themselves as resembling the stereotypical victim and so, feel as if they will not be affected by the virus. This is explained by the self-enhancement theory described as a type of motivation used to maintain self-esteem (Walker, 2020). To elaborate, self-enhancement is a motive and tendency to see self positively, beyond what objective standards would declare (Sedikides & Alicke, 2019). This leads them to believe that they can avoid becoming infected and fail to realize that even if they may not be directly affected per say, they are still highly contagious and can transmit the disease to those who are more vulnerable. Additionally, adolescent egocentrism suggests that younger individuals are unable to see beyond one’s self (Ravert, 2004). This often leads to inaccurate assessments of personal risk to negative outcomes which results in increased tendencies to take part in unsafe and risky behaviors, ultimately increasing their own and others’ exposure to risk (Ravert, 2004). This is evident in a study conducted by Ravert (2004) regarding college students and their perceived susceptibility to HIV infections. Ravert (2004) found that 83.3% of the participants reported a lower self-likelihood of contracting HIV compared to the average student. Although it is not limited to adolescents, egocentrism is related to feelings of invulnerability which can serve to protect the ego, however, it can also create illusions of optimism.
This leads to the second psychological theory able to explain the behavior of these individuals, and it falls under the self-enhancement theory. Specifically, unrealistic optimism of the self-serving belief. This phenomenon is described as a tendency to form biased and often false beliefs in order to grow and protect the self (Jefferson et al., 2017). Individuals tend to distinguish themselves as more likely to experience positive outcomes and less likely to experience negative outcomes compared to others (Walker, 2020). Furthermore, these irrational beliefs can be maintained even if counter-evidence has been presented and so, the self-risk assessments of individuals tend to be unrealistically optimistic compared to objective assessments of those same risks (Jefferson et al., 2017). This being said, these positive illusions can have behavioral consequences and negative effects in the long run. A study conducted by Kim and Niederdeppe (2013) studying optimistic bias in the context of an H1N1 influenza outbreak found that individuals with an unrealistic view of invulnerability towards the virus had lower intentions to practice good hygiene and thus, less inclined to wash their hands. As mentioned previously, individuals evaluate their likelihood of experiencing negative or positive events based on how well they fit the stereotype of those who experience it. This demonstrates the presence of an information processing component known as the representative heuristic, a type of automatic thinking and mental shortcut whereby people classify something in consonance to how akin it is to a standard case (Walker, 2020). This can lead to accurate evaluations and decisions, but it can also lead to errors in judgment.
In uncontrollable events where people attain base rate information and perceive their predictions may be disputed, especially in the near future, it has been found that unrealistic optimism is less pervasive (Shepperd et al., 2015). A possible solution to this social problem would be the use of emotional appeals. Particularly, an effective tool health officials can use is fear appeals which are persuasive messages that attempt to scare people into changing their behaviours and attitudes by invoking undesirable consequences that will occur if they do not comply with the recommended safety measures (Walker, 2020). This method will be successful as long as it arouses a moderate amount of fear in the recipient through salient and relevant information, while presenting solutions to the problem (Walker, 2020). People need to believe that they are capable of avoiding the threat in order to change their behaviour. In other words, people need to believe they have what it takes to succeed and have some positive outcome occur. If people do not believe that they can take the recommended actions, they will not take those actions. Nevertheless, there are always barriers to solutions of any sort of problem. A direct barrier would be if the message arouses too little fear, where the threat is perceived as irrelevant, or too much fear to the point that the recipients are so scared that they react by negating or altering the message being delivered (Walker, 2020). Furthermore, people can become resistant to persuasion. This resistance can be caused by four things: selective attention, elective avoidance, reactance, or simply, the message fails to overcome our previous beliefs (Walker, 2020). All of these causes can influence an individuals’ way of processing information due to the fact that one can deliberately ignore information if it is inconsistent or challenges one’s pre-existing attitudes and beliefs. Also, persuasive appeals containing factual and accurate data may not work if a person is committed to certain views, beliefs, or attitudes, especially public commitments (Walker, 2020). This is highlighted by dissonance which states that if people know what you believe, your behavior will remain consistent with that belief. Lastly, base rate fallacy, the tendency to ignore base rate information, can be another barrier to the solution due to the fact that many people use automatic thinking when making judgments about the social world (Walker, 2020). In the context of COVID-19, a person with deeply rooted beliefs or attitudes will continue their behavior of not taking the necessary precautions which will only make matters worse and force greater measures to be taken by the government.