Epidemic Psychology in COVID-19
- Luca Maria Aiello(Research cited)
Press & media:
Press / Media
Press & Media Information
Media Coverage
Title
Researchers have identified the 3 stages of pandemic emotions
Media type
Web
Media name
FastCompany
Media description
According to an analysis of tweets, the pandemic has thrown our emotions into a cycle of avoidance, fear, and acceptance.
Date
2021-07-28
Media Coverage
Title
3 stages of pandemic emotions: Researchers comb through tweets to identify how attitudes spread online
Media type
Web
Media name
Becker's Hospital review
Media description
A group of researchers from Nokia Bell Labs in Cambridge, U.K.; IT University in Copenhagen, Denmark; and Centre for Urban Science and Progress at King's College London, recently published a paper in Nature journal exploring "epidemic psychology" in relation to COVID-19. They found that three specific phases emerged continuously throughout the time period: refusal, anger and acceptance. When it first began, people refused to believe the pandemic was real. Then people became angry when the first Americans died from the virus and restrictions were put in place. As time went on, anger slowly faded into acceptance but still recurred and spiked with each wave of cases.
Date
2021-07-28
Description
In a new paper published in the journal Nature, a group of researchers find that Strong’s ideas were correct—and may put us into a Hobbesian war of all against all, if we’re not careful. According to an analysis of tweets, the pandemic has thrown our emotions into a cycle of avoidance, fear, and acceptance. In total, what the researchers offer is a way to quantify the human psychological response to the pandemic through language. Perhaps one day, this social data mining framework may be used to understand psychological epidemics and, through targeted public health campaigns, drive people en masse toward more positive outcomes.