On the Psychology of the 2020 COVID Response

An examination of the worldwide social reaction to the COVID pandemic of 2020, from the perspective of the psychology of mass hysteria.

Introduction

The public’s reaction to COVID, and in particular its ready acceptance of State mandates, have many observers baffled, disappointed, and frustrated. This essay makes the case that the world is currently in the grip of a genuine, and indeed historic, mass hysteria.

It is notable that within the throes of all mass hysterias, those experiencing it do not recognize their behavior as aberrant. Indeed, they perceive their response as reasonable and proportionate to the problem at hand. It is those who have not fallen victim to the hysteria - those whose critical thinking remains intact - that understand a disproportionate public reaction is taking place.

Observers who find the public’s reaction puzzling are encouraged to keep this in mind.

What is mass hysteria?

Mass hysteria is:

       1. A false belief or irrational physical condition

       2. That is shared among a significantly large group of people

False beliefs were characteristic of these historical cases of mass hysterias: the Salem Witch Trials, the 1938 War Of The Worlds radio broadcast, and the Day-care sex-abuse hysteria.

Irrational physical conditions were manifested in cases such as the dancing manias and laughing manias.

The first psychological requirement for mass hysteria

The most significant and salient factor for mass hysteria is the suspension of individual critical judgement. Whether a given person is affected depends first on their response to the conditions in their environment, based on their personal ability to reason, temperament, biases, and so on. This is why a mass hysteria affects some, but not all in a given population.

External authority

Once an individual suspends their own critical judgement, their responses are necessarily guided by external forces. For example, physical manias, such as the dancing or laughing manias, spread as each person replicates the behaviors they witness in others. Belief-manias spread as each person accepts the ideas of others. In this case the individual accepts the authority of an external party or group. Though the idea is false or misleading, the belief becomes real in the mind of the person.

COVID

COVID-19 is a genuine virus, but has been communicated publicly as a catastrophic threat to humanity. This is an observably false idea. As a result, government responses to COVID are objectively disproportionate.

Readily available statistical charts show the virus’s impact over time. Irrespective of the degree of interventions (lock-downs, mask mandates, social distancing, etc.), the graphs of all regions show the same spread typical of previous contagion pathways. Indeed, if human intervention into the virus’s spread had a significant impact, this would be evident by comparing the charts of regions with differing interventions. Instead, the region (country or state) must necessarily be labelled on the charts; the region cannot be surmised by the graph alone.

Moreover, the health risks of COVID pale in comparison to the side-effects of the government's reaction to it. Yet the human costs are utterly disregarded (undiagnosed cancer or stroke, postponed medical treatments, Third World starvation, additional TB and HIV deaths, increases in depression, suicide, domestic abuse and alchololism; lost wages, lost jobs, the closing of businesses).

The COVID pathway to mass hysteria

A catastrophic threat to humanity

The idea that COVID is a significant threat to humanity was promoted in the early months of 2020. This belief was communicated primarily by government, and bolstered by some medical sources and the major media. Projections and models were not peer reviewed. Many opinion leaders suspended their critical judgement, embracing and broadly communicating the belief that the degree of threat posed by COVID was catastrophic.

The reason this situation led to mass hysteria becomes clear once we examine the role that authority plays in the public mind. As indicated, a pre-condition for mass hysteria is suspension of critical judgment in favor of an authority figure.

The unquestioned status of authority figures

The overwhelming majority of the world’s population accepts the authority of the State. The moral right to rule is considered self-evident and thus unquestioned. The major media also hold this view, and thus it is reinforced regularly. When the State proclaims a threat as serious, the public will, predominantly, believe it.

Moreover, the major media itself is perceived as an institution of authority over reliable, truthful and impartial information. They reinforce the severity of the COVID threat, as well as the legitimacy of the State’s response to it.

The role of science

Today the scientific community is far more enmeshed within political institutions than in past generations. Formerly, a significant degree of information about pandemics came directly from medical sources. They tended to be measured, reasoned and peer reviewed.

Information about COVID, instead, is predominantly filtered through the State. This gave the initial COVID models the imprimatur of scientific authority. And the influence of the State caused the issue to become political almost from the start.

Nonetheless, our modern world acknowledges and respects the importance of science to our standard of living. As such, science itself carries an aura of authority. So the public, in abandoning critical judgement, convinced itself that “science” classified COVID as a catastrophic threat.

The public readily accepted the belief

There is nothing particularly different about the humans of early 2020; they are not more-or-less intelligent, gullible, or compassionate than in the past. They are as likely to have fallen victim to a mass hysteria as those of any era.

Combining the psychology of mass hysteria, with the particulars at work in early 2020, it is not surprising the COVID hysteria occurred. A fictional scenario helps illustrate this.

Suppose the public was falsely persuaded that a deadly asteroid was approaching Earth. Unlike its reaction to a more common or mundane form of bad news, people would more readily:

• Suspend their own judgement in favor of perceived experts

• Adopt behaviors or make sacrifices they would not otherwise consider

• Dismiss contrary views as denying the truth

The COVID news was framed much like the asteroid scenario: an extreme threat, world-wide, affecting all of humanity. Thus, the public overreaction to COVID, while objectively unnecessary, is as understandable as we would imagine in the asteroid scenario.

The reaction is perceived as justified because the threat is perceived as catastrophic.

This also shows that it takes an extreme threat to illicit mass hysteria. Indeed, the 20th and 21st centuries were times of unprecedented war and economic upheaval. Yet only COVID produced a global mass hysteria.

Conditions during the mass hysteria

At this writing, the COVID mass hysteria continues. Public discourse and public actions show the expected parallels with previous belief-hysterias.

• Those who promote the belief-narrative are given the greatest attention. The more threatening the communication sounds, the more likely it is accepted. This is because frightening news is consistent with the perceived threat, and reinforces the already-adopted belief. This is in the face of overwhelming evidence of the serious side-effects of the overreaction to COVID.

• Opinions that run counter to the accepted belief are quickly and roundly rejected. This is because they create immediate mental discomfort: the faith in the belief cannot be questioned because the authority cannot be questioned.

• Reactions to contrary views tend to be emotional (close-mindedness, verbal censure, public silencing).

• The public adopts behaviors or make sacrifices they would not otherwise consider. In the same way their belief is deferred to authority, their actions are as well. Indeed, they must act as the authority instructs in order to maintain the belief.

• Facts, logic and reason are notably absent.

What conditions permit the hysteria to persist?

Public fear

The proponents of hysteria get greater attention simply by being loud and frightening. This helps prevent the public from employing critical thinking; they gain greater comfort deferring to authority.

Pride

Many of the general public who tend to be “busybodies” in normal times, use COVID as a ready excuse to righteously promote the hysteria.

Self interest

The State assumes greater control over peoples’ lives, because the hysteria is a valuable opportunity to leverage public fear.

The major media hope to increase their audiences during a public crisis. Frightening news will gain more attention, while news that is positive or well-reasoned will not.

The medical community is highly incentivized to promote the catastrophic-threat narrative. The State provides financial incentives, and favors those medical experts who support the narrative.

What factors mitigate the hysteria?

The silent skeptics

All but invisible are the incalculable numbers who silently comply. They do so either from passive compliance (“I don’t know what to think but I just want to get along – and for it to be over”); or resentful compliance (“I know it’s overblown but it’s easier to keep my head down”).

The vocal skeptics

There were very few vocal skeptics in the early weeks of the hysteria. Relatively little was known about the virus, and critical thinkers are notably cautious when fewer facts are available. But facts emerged quickly and since then a courageous minority have spoken against the hysteria. As more facts emerge, vocal skepticism continues.

Time

Working against all hysteria is time. Panic cannot continue indefinitely because it requires humans exist in a state that is not conducive to survival and stability. People can adapt to extreme conditions only to a limited extent. There is a real-world need to both survive and live a life of normalcy. This chips away at the relentless inconveniences of a false hysteria.

The end of the COVID panic

To sustain a mass panic, the pre-conditions needed to trigger it must remain intact (unquestioned authority, and perceived catastrophic threat). The panic ends when one or both of these conditions lose their efficacy.

For this particular mass hysteria, the first pre-condition is not likely to end. The State enjoys the firmly entrenched perception that it is a legitimate institution of authority. This general and historic indoctrination is firmly rooted in the public mind ¹.

This means the COVID hysteria ends when the virus is no longer perceived as sufficiently serious ². For the time being of course, the voices of the hysteria continue and predominate. Dissenting voices are a minority and heavily censured.

However, increasing numbers in the scientific community are expressing dissent, emanating from a broad array of sources. Additionally, there are examples of entire regions, such as Sweden and South Dakota, that successfully handled the virus using limited and targeted strategies. These strategies contradict accepted dogma.

Dissention is found at the individual level as well. Across the globe people simply live normal lives: they have family gatherings, social gatherings, attend church, etc. Whenever possible, they quite simply disregard the hysteria.

COVID – from the State’s perspective

Is it a conspiracy?

It is unlikely the pandemic was fabricated or planned. However, the State will naturally gravitate toward any opportunity to use fear, because this is its most effective tool to gain public acquiescence. The State by its nature requires that any threat is perceived as coming from an outside force, so as to distract the public from the State itself as an impediment to human progress and peace. COVID, in essence, provided the State a ready threat that was easy to exploit.

Will State interventions remain after COVID?

It is well known that State intrusions into private affairs are rarely retracted, even in the face of failure. The war on drugs is such an example: utter State failure, while its interventions persist and grow. So it is unfortunate that the overreaction to COVID has set a new bar for State intrusion.

Will the State try again?

Because the State does not operate long-term, it overplayed its hand. Essentially, it framed COVID as a “deadly-asteroid” scenario: a global and imminent threat to humanity. It has been a successful tactic, but one that relies on mass hysteria to persist. Whether it is months or years, eventually herd immunity will be reached and the hysteria will end.

The State of course will continue to use fear to manipulate the public. The traditional threats will continue: a dangerous foreign country or leader; a radical terrorist; climate change; racial division, etc. But the State will not likely succeed in framing future threats as catastrophic as they did COVID. To replicate its success with COVID, the State will likely try to rekindle mass hysteria by means of another pandemic.

But time will put COVID into perspective. Of course, a significant segment of the public will forever attribute the end of COVID to State intervention. But a significant segment will not. The next claim of a deadly pandemic will be met with greater skepticism. This will be aided by documented repercussions of the State’s overreaction to COVID.

A return to normal, or a police State?

As a “deadly asteroid”, COVID permitted the State to intervene in private affairs well beyond what was conceivable only a year before. Precedents were set. As is typical of State inertia, many of the COVID measures will become normalized. Enough has changed to make a return to pre-COVID normalcy impossible.

But a police State is unlikely, because one factor is easily overlooked: individual human adaptability. People adapt to changing conditions every second of every day. It is likewise for conditions imposed by the State: these are necessarily met with a response from individuals. As powerful as the State appears to be, individual human actions, in sum, occur on a far greater scale. And because it is individual and constant, the ebb and flow of the human experience is unpredictable. Most importantly, it is unpredictable to the State.

Navigating the hysteria

For the time being, critical thinkers are outnumbered. Persuading the closed-minded is difficult during normal times; it is next to impossible in a hysteria where, by definition,  reason and facts are rendered impotent. Moreover, speaking against the dogma risks censure and retaliation. Patience and prudence must be exercised.

Nonetheless, rational discourse should be used wherever possible. But more emotion-oriented strategies can work as well. For example, some people respond to negative pressure. It may help to point out the shame in condemning the elderly to loneliness, or depriving the young of the normal joys of youth.

It is also important to guard against personal discouragement, by noticing the positive trends on the horizon. The State will likely lose more of its institutional legitimacy. The major media, complicit in the hysteria, will continue its decline in relevance. Public education will continue to decline in the face of technology-based private educational options. Work-from-home proved itself viable, and the efficiency of this option will unquestionably continue post-COVID. This will give less relevance to large cities, which are disproportionately influential in culture and politics. This could quite possibly lead to a long term trend away from centralized control. Government spending during COVID far exceeded that of any time in history. The inevitable result will be less trust in government currency; this will accelerate the evolution and adoption of stable private currencies.

Today's critics of the COVID hysteria would do well to see fresh opportunity in these trends.

1. Indeed, the very belief that the State has moral legitimacy, is itself an example of suspension of critical thinking. The State is only possible because the false idea of its legitimacy is accepted on a mass scale. Of course, this mindset is not an example of mass hysteria. Rather it is an example of a traditional commonly-accepted, but false, belief. Historical examples of such false beliefs are: the earth’s shape as flat; slavery as acceptable; royalty having authority from religious deities.

2. It is not necessary the public understands the threat was exaggerated. It is sufficient the public sees no serious threat, regardless of how this happens. Indeed, it is possible natural herd immunity will be reached, yet the State will claim victory.