Last week, we had the privilege of hearing from Dr. Emily Bianchi from Goizueta Business School. Given her expertise in recessions, she discussed psychological strategies often used to manage uncertainty. She noted that humans despise uncertainty, so much to the point that humans would prefer to definitely get shocked and know the frequency of those shocks that will be administered as opposed to having a 50/50 chance of receiving or not receiving shocks. She suggested that the hatred of uncertainty may stem from the anxiety and fear neurologically arising from uncertainty, and we thus have many compensatory strategies to overcome uncertainty.
One such compensatory strategy is relying on conspiracy theories to explain challenging concepts. During Dr. Bianchi’s discussion, I was immediately reminded of the numerous conspiracy theories about COVID-19. The Alliance for Science at Cornell University eloquently outlines the top 10 conspiracy theories about COVID-19 as of April 20, 2020—during the early stages of the pandemic in the United States (Lynas, 2020). Several conspiracies, from those involving Bill Gates to big pharma, were not rooted in logic. One widespread conspiracy theory I heard was that COVID-19 was created by Chinese scientists to be used as a biological weapon; in fact, 23% of Americans thought that COVID-19 was intentionally made (Schaeffer, 2020). Some (ideologically) conservatives, like Senator Tom Scott, pushed this theory that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was involved in biological warfare (Stevenson, 2020). Nonetheless, there is now genetic sequencing evidence that the coronavirus in question has origins in bats (Lynas, 2020).
Considering that conspiracies tend to come from uncertainty, do you think that there would have been fewer about COVID-19 if the Trump administration shared some notions with certainty about COVID-19 (ex: what the government will do to mitigate the spread of the virus instead of not addressing it)?
Hi Sreyas,
This was a great post! I remember, especially at the start of the pandemic, everyone would receive emails with buzzwords, such as “these are uncertain times”, “new normal”, etc. Everyone was super scared because of all the uncertainty, yet it was intriguing to see how we all came together, whether that be making bread, dalgona coffee, netflix watch parties, or conspiracies theories. Regarding your question, I definitely think that there would have been fewer COVID-19 conspiracies if the administration would have them shut down by using certainty tactics instead. This would have also helped to stop hate against Asians, and would have inhibited the spread of anti-vaccine propaganda.
Sreyas, great post. I think there was SO MUCH uncertainty coming from so many places. The CDC wasn’t sure, our healthcare workers were/are learning on the fly, masking and vaccination became politicized so depending on who was in charge of your state, the people around you may have been following very different rules than the folks in the next state. It created/creates a cognitive dissonance that is so overwhelming. I think as we move into year three of this pandemic, we have gathered quite a bit of evidence: masking (with the right mask) works, vaccines keep you out the hospital and alive, but there are still so many more unknowns.