The Psychology of Pandemics.

By Steven Taylor. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 2020

734 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This article reviews the current state of knowledge and promising new directions concerning the psychology of pandemics. Pandemics are disease outbreaks that spread globally. Historically, psychological factors have been neglected by researchers and health authorities despite evidence that pandemics are, to a large extent, psychological phenomena whereby beliefs and behaviors influence the spreading versus containment of infection. Psychological factors are important in determining (a) adherence to pandemic mitigation methods (e.g., adherence to social distancing), (b) pandemic-related social disruption (e.g., panic buying, racism, antilockdown protests), and (c) pandemic-related distress and related problems (e.g., anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, prolonged grief disorder). The psychology of pandemics has emerged as an important field of research and practice during the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. As a scholarly discipline, the psychology of pandemics is fragmented and diverse, encompassing various psychological subspecialties and allied disciplines, but is vital for shaping clinical practice and public health guidelines for COVID-19 and future pandemics. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, Volume 18 is May 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/bde907a127cec5e8969d2e47baf1b0cad12bded1

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Citations in the corpus

“Take Your Kung-Flu Back to Wuhan”: Counseling Asians, Asian Americans, and Pacific Islanders With Race-Based Trauma Related to COVID-19 (2020, background): “Experiences of fear and anxiety related to infectious disease often occur when people become threatened by an illness perceived as originating from outside one’s community (Taylor, 2019).”
Anti-Asian Hate Crime During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Exploring the Reproduction of Inequality (2020, background): “This othering process is amplified and replicated during pandemics when widespread fear of catching disease engenders prejudice against groups that are different from the majority population, positioning them as effective scapegoats (Muzzatti, 2005; Taylor, 2019).”
Mental health in the Covid-19 pandemic (2020, background): “1 People who are prone to psychological problems are especially vulnerable.”
Levels and predictors of anxiety, depression and health anxiety during COVID-19 pandemic in Turkish society: The importance of gender (2020, background): “Such viruses can be transmitted more, and more easily, in urban and central areas with denser human populations (Taylor, 2019).”
Coronaphobia: Fear and the 2019-nCoV outbreak (2020, neutral): “Research from other outbreaks of infectious disease suggests that individual difference variables such as the perceived vulnerability to disease may play a role in both coronaphobia and coronavirus-related xenophobia (Taylor, 2019).”
COVID-19 anxiety symptoms associated with problematic smartphone use severity in Chinese adults (2020, background): “Excessive anxiety about a viral outbreak is influenced by psychological variables, including pre-existing anxiety, worry, and negative affect (Asmundson and Taylor, 2020a; Taylor, 2019).”
Development and initial validation of the COVID Stress Scales (2020, background): “People with too little anxiety about a viral outbreak are less likely to engage in hygiene behaviors (e.g., handwashing), less likely to adhere to physical distancing mandates, and are less likely to get vaccinated if a vaccine is available (Taylor, 2019) .”
How health anxiety influences responses to viral outbreaks like COVID-19: What all decision-makers, health authorities, and health care professionals need to know (2020, methodology): “Health anxiety is important in influencing the success or failure of each of these strategies (Taylor, 2019) .”