Behavioral limitations of individuals for coping with COVID-19: A terror management perspective

ABSTRACT

Authorities and policymakers have been advocating people to follow the traditional personal protective measures (e.g., social distancing) to avoid COVID-19 disease and to reduce its spread further. Based on terror management theory (TMT) and individuals’ bounded rationality (BR), this study designs a conceptual framework to examine psychological limitations of people for obeying the experts’ instructions—particularly, social distancing—during the pandemic. This is because, contrary to “social distancing,” humans subconsciously use centuries-old defense mechanisms—seeking close relationships, validation or modification of cultural worldviews, and enhancement of self-esteem—by “social gatherings” for the sake of buffering their own paralyzing terror of death in time of a large scale mortality salience (e.g., COVID-19). This study argues that in pandemics in which diseases spread due to human interactions, societies need to trade-off between reducing human or economic losses by imposing immediate stringent restrictions on people movements (e.g., lockdowns) versus mitigating pandemic related psychological or mental issues by allowing them to use anxiety reduction buffering mechanisms (e.g., social gatherings). By studying people’s recent responses to the COVID-19 outbreak and given their BR, this study proposes that governments’ interventions are needed to curtail the disease spreading and its associated costs further. In addition, several recommendations for interventions are suggested.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19 pandemic
• social distancing
• terror management theory (TMT)
• mortality salience
• bounded rationality (BR)
• mental health