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Overconformity, Lethargy and Reactance - Berlin Central Station
Photo: Michael Sohn / AP
Fever, cough, loss of taste, the now well-known Covid symptoms.
After a year of pandemic, however, symptoms of non-illness also become clear, we recognize a psychology of the shutdown: Anger is often followed by corona cynicism.
Most people should have got to know him at least temporarily.
Seizures of contempt for the world, those short phases in which, contrary to our better judgment, we think everything else doesn't matter.
Sociopsychology has discovered that cynicism arises when people feel disrespected and cannot do anything about it, i.e. are helpless.
I believe that a new social malfunction is hidden in corona cynicism, the
collective
learned helplessness
.
In the classic one-person variant of learned helplessness, you believe that you cannot change your own difficult situation and that you are to blame for it.
With the collective, learned helplessness, many believe at the same time that they cannot change their own difficult situation - and everyone else is to blame, whether politicians, the media or the population.
With their unwise behavior, with their clueless reporting, with their irresponsible decisions.
Sascha Lobo, arrow to the right
Photo:
Urban Zintel
Born in 1975, is an author and strategy consultant with a focus on the Internet and digital technologies.
In 2019, Kiepenheuer & Witsch published his book “Reality shock: Ten lessons from the present”.
In his debate podcast, Lobo responds to responses to his columns.
The American psychologist Martin Seligman coined the concept of learned helplessness in the 1960s and subsequently researched three of the most important reactions to it:
overconformity, lethargy and
reactance
.
They fit disturbingly well with the behavioral patterns that a large part of the population exhibits after a year of Corona.
I believe that these are also the symptoms of non-disease, or more precisely, reactions to the fact that a disease that one does not (yet) have still determines life.
1. Overconformity
Perhaps a bit surprising, but taking social rules very, very carefully, at least when others are watching, is a common response to helplessness.
Quite annoying, but deeply human, because it has been proven that feeling helps to counteract the feeling of powerlessness.
Somehow.
It's not just about adhering to the rules exactly, but about staging this fact in front of an audience.
Overconformity feels most comfortable on stage, and if it's only the smallest, in the stairwell, in the Zoom conference or on Twitter.
Overconformity is also a way of making sure you're on the right side.
You then write passive-aggressive things on the internet like "I haven't been to the hairdresser's for a year" or "I always hold my breath in the elevator" and somehow expect applause.
Overconformity, however, no one thanks you, although it is enormously exhausting, so at some point it leads to complete exhaustion as well as self and world hatred.
Overconformity is therefore also a special derivation of corona cynicism, because you can look down on all other, only 95 percent corona rule knights.
2. Lethargy
Lethargy can be seen as a defensive function; indifference is a great protection against emotional overload.
A pandemic blunting has long since spread, and its corona-cynical twist is obvious.
At some point, thoughts creep into the everyday brain flow like: Then 967 people died today, that doesn't change the fact that I'm too tired to cook today, I just click pizza for the ninth time in a row.
Corona lethargy can destroy all empathy in its mildew of equality.
Disappointed hopes strengthen a lethargy once acquired, especially if they are renewed regularly, i.e. every little hope plant is trampled again.
Which is why Merkel's grand coalition vaccine blockade is so devastating.
As well as the news that at least one of the vaccines does not work or does not work well against the virus mutants.
Or that there are always new mutants that you can be afraid of, that was otherwise only in X-Men, South Africa, Great Britain, Brazil, Bristol and so on, in the past the B117 was a federal highway.
The lethargy of corona cynicism is dangerous because, in addition to being dull, at some point you can no longer muster the strength or want to stick to the rules.
Because humanity requires a certain amount of energy and therefore people who are already cynical and lethargic might want to avert a possible third lockdown at the cost of human life.
3. Reactance
Reactance is a psychological quantity that can be translated as "defiance" for simplified domestic use.
With corona cynicism, dissatisfaction with one's own situation or with the general course of the world turns into unrest.
The goal of reactance is obvious: dissatisfaction with government action has increased, the defiant defense then relates to communication and the ever new rules.
In communication science there is a demonstrable connection between the frequency of so-called persuasion (communication for the purpose of persuasion) and reactance.
If you know about yourself: If you are warned for the 26th time to kindly do something, the chance of compliance does not increase excessively.
On the contrary.
Defiant reactance is one of the most dangerous pitfalls in terms of the next few months of the corona fight.
Because at some point the effectiveness of fear appeals wears out and can even turn into the opposite.
Because at some point the constant repetition also gnaws at credibility and damages trust.
Many decisions not to be vaccinated after all are likely to have come about in this way.
The effectiveness of communication is as context-dependent as it is a scary little animal, the same sentence that may have sparked enthusiasm for vaccinations in November can appear authoritarian, desperate and therefore repulsive in March.
Because in times of pandemic dullness and virus fatigue, an analysis without proposed solutions is often perceived by the audience as an imposition, here the hopeful message follows.
If you want to defeat corona cynicism, there are ways out of the collective, learned helplessness.
It starts with admitting them collectively in order to unlearn them again.
It continues with a central finding from the science of waiting: Even long waiting times are considered less of an imposition when one is busy and can actively do something to shorten the waiting time.
Why, for example, private rapid tests would have a resounding effect.
In any case, it is hard to understand why Germany has so far operated such an under-ambitious test regime.
Where temperature is measured everywhere in other countries or rapid tests are a matter of course in schools.
The next point lies in the hands of those responsible, the federal government and the various committees from the conference of ministers of culture to the state governments.
They finally need to convey the feeling that they are learning from mistakes, if only a discernible will not to do them twice.
That new scientific, digital and social findings and also experiences from better pandemic-ruling countries are somehow also reflected in German actions.
That the transferable part of the successes in Vietnam, South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, New Zealand and Australia are taken into account.
But the most important aspect of overcoming the corona cynicism of the collective learned helplessness is clarity and truthfulness in the corona communication of those responsible.
No more campaigning for self-portrayal, no more promises to be collected days later, no more glossing over like "What do you have, is it going great?"
Oh, and for the schools after twelve months a different solution than "just ventilate".
That would be pretty too.
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