JonathanDenial in a crisis. đ§”
It's a maladaptive response trying to reimpose order on a world that to the person has lost sense.
I keep saying we need psychologists to weigh in.
[originally posted Aug 2021 on moron's site]
This is why you see it out of people who are ... odd.
And their followers as well. You will see the followers ssying thank you for the good news.
They are not looking for accurate facts.
They are looking to be soothed.
For any raft they can find in this storm.
I rather suspect the GIVER of "good" (fake) news feels good about giving it and reassuring the RECIPIENT.
And lo and behold we see that happen.
The two adults have self-soothed.
This is why my opposition to idiots in public health "soothing" the public. It is a myth that the public panics. These are just weak people in charge.
Took me 10 s to find a Foreign Policy piece referring to this _disaster sci expert_ saying it's a myth.
And here is the Foreign Policy piece itself.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/16/trump-woodward-elite-panic-coronavirus-pandemic/
But just to close out, I cannot see that infectious disease doctors (for ex) take a single disaster management course in their training.
Further, public health requires (in Ontario) one year of ID, and to be a doctor.
As I said from the start, these people are not trained for this.
Which is why, and this is just my opinion, we might see so much "be kind" messaging out of them.
It might be as much about being kind to THEM (i.e. not criticizing) as to each other. (Or it's straight career PR. Some are very good at that.)
To be frank, considering what people are going through, most people have continued to be pretty kind to each other
Why did countries in Asia do better than we did? No, IMO, it was not simply they threw on a surgical mask.
They have effective DISASTER RESPONSE systems.
Again, one minute of searching found this Korean article. Korea dealt with MERS.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7123823/
"The recent major disasters in Korea ... taught Korea important lessons that cooperation among all relevant organizations, ...is essential for effective disaster response ...and [government] should execute a joint field training program"
And in 15 more seconds, I found this Japanese article discussing mental health consults in times of crisis.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7084937/
Within WEEKS the consults are down to a low level.
Acute Mental Health Needs Duration during Major Disasters: A Phenomenological Experience of Disaster Psychiatric Assistance Teams (DPATs) in Japan
Background: How long acute mental health needs continue after the disaster are problems which must be addressed in the treatment of victims. The aim of this study is to determine victimsâ needs by examining activity data from Disaster Psychiatric ...
Not zero. We shouldn't expect them to be zero.
But the myth that people panic and the world goes to pieces is exactly that:
a myth.
Reminder to follow the disaster science expert, above!
(Sure, I may read up before I open my mouth, but I am no expert.)
P.S. This is why people stating risks get called "fear mongerers"
It's a tactic to try to stop messaging that contradicts the worldview of the person trying to self-soothe.
Same with anti-mask sentiment.
Mask is necessarily a signal of risk. Incompatible with "no big deal", the fantasy they desperately want to believe in.
(It should go without saying, but I'd better say it: yes, there are of course people who stoke fear for personal gain, and this is not what I am referring to here.)
For reference, to leave here, an example summary of what infectious diseases is, from one school of this field.
I don't know why I didn't think to search Wikipedia until now but there we go.
Article about how CDC had a messaging plan and it went out the window during this pandemic.
Link to PDF about disaster myth. Hosted at CDC, ha.
https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/emergency_response/common_misconceptions.pdf
Department of Homeland Security has a link to 2002 guidelines for communication in a crisis.
CDC emergency manuals etc.
Short article about panic myth
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1525/ctx.2002.1.3.21
In Disasters, Panic Is Rare; Altruism Dominates
Group panic and irrational behavior did not occur at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Instead the event created a sense of "we-ness" among those threatened, says Rutgers University sociology professor Lee Clarke. In his article, "Panic: Myth or Reality?", in the fall 2002 edition of Contexts magazine, he explains that 50 years of evidence on disasters and extreme situations shows that panic is rare, even when people feel "excessive fear."
Here are the two streams of response:
1. Denial, which avoids the cognitive dissonance and worry about death by simply suggesting to ones' self the danger does not exist. We see this in animal accounts on the bird site.
2. Actually changing behaviour to reduce risk.
The contagion of mortality: A terror management health model for pandemics
The novel coronavirus, COVIDâ19, proliferates as a contagious psychological threat just like the physical disease itself. Due to the growing death toll and constant coverage this pandemic gets, it is likely to activate mortality awareness, to ...
Hugh Ferguson@jmcrookston never thought of it that way. Thank you for bringing it up. I suppose I had always believed that those of us who mask up make everyone else uncomfortable because we remind them that COVID IS NOT EFFING OVER!!!
@hfinyow i think that's very similar or the same issue!
Jo - piÚce de résistance@jmcrookston some people are like babies and are fooled and pacified by a dummy. But it offers no love or the necessities of life.