The Fear of Coronavirus is Changing Our Psychology

Rarely has the threat of disease occupied so much of our thinking. For weeks, almost every newspaper has stories about the coronavirus pandemic on its front page; radio and TV programmes have back-to-back coverage on the latest death tolls; and depending on who you follow, social media platforms are filled with frightening statistics, practical advice or gallows humour.

As others have already reported, this constant bombardment can result in heightened anxiety, with immediate effects on our mental health. But the constant feeling of threat may have other, more insidious, effects on our psychology. Due to some deeply evolved responses to disease, fears of contagion lead us to become more conformist and tribalistic, and less accepting of eccentricity. Our moral judgements become harsher and our social attitudes more conservative when considering issues such as immigration or sexual freedom and equality. Daily reminders of disease may even sway our political affiliations.

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Being ill is also physiologically expensive. The rise in body temperature during a fever, for instance, is essential for an effective immune response – but this results in a 13% increase in the body’s energy consumption. When food was scarce, that would have been a serious burden. “Getting sick, and allowing this wonderful immune system to actually work, is really costly,” says Mark Schaller at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. “It’s kind of like medical insurance – it’s great to have, but it really sucks when you have to use it.”

Anything that reduces the risk of infection in the first place should therefore have offered a distinct survival advantage. For this reason, we evolved a set of unconscious psychological responses – which Schaller has termed the “behavioural immune system” – to act as a first line of defence to reduce our contact with potential pathogens.

The disgust response is one of the most obvious components of the behavioural immune system. When we avoid things that smell bad or food that we believe to be unclean, we are instinctively trying to steer clear of potential contagion. Just the merest suggestion that we have already eaten something rotten can lead us to vomit, expelling the food before the infection has had the chance to take root. Research suggests that we also tend to more strongly remember material that triggers disgust, allowing us to remember (and avoid) the situations that could put us at risk of infection later on.

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Why would the behavioural immune system shift our thinking in this way? Schaller argues that many of our tacit social rules – such as the ways we can and can’t prepare food, the amount of social contact that is and isn’t accepted, or how to dispose of human waste – can help to reduce the risk of infection. “Throughout much of human history, a lot of norms and rituals serve this function of keeping diseases at bay,” Schaller says. “Folks who conform to those norms served a public health service, and people who violated those norms not only put themselves at risk but affected others as well.” As a result, it’s beneficial to become more respectful of convention in the face of a contagious outbreak.

The same logic may explain why we become more morally vigilant in an outbreak. Studies have shown that when we fear contagion, we tend to be harsher when judging a breach of loyalty (such as an employee who badmouths his company) or when we see someone who fails to respect an authority (such as a judge). Those particular incidents would do nothing to spread disease of course, but by flouting convention, they have given a signal that they may break other more relevant rules that are there to keep disease at bay.

Even extremely subtle reminders of illness can shape our behaviours and attitudes. Simply asking people to stand next a hand sanitiser triggered one study’s participants to express more conservative (with a small “c”) attitudes associated with a greater respect for tradition and convention.

In the same study, a reminder to wash their hands led participants to be more judgemental of unconventional sexual behaviours. They were less forgiving of a woman who was said to masturbate while holding her childhood teddy bear, for example, or a couple who had sex in the bed of one of their grandmothers.

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