Features of national quarantine: how different societies behave in a pandemic

How do different societies behave under quarantine? Social psychologist, professor at Columbia University Svetlana Komissaruk spoke about this in an interview with the Russian Service "Voices of America".

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Svetlana explained that all psychologists now react differently to the current situation, and this reaction also depends on the country in which the expert works and with which people.

“Now all social psychologists are reacting and sharpening their theories, explaining what is happening to society. One of the theories belongs to Michelle Gelfand - her book was recently translated into Russian. She explains that those societies that lived very crowded, which had a great epidemiological threat, were accustomed to obeying and were accustomed to “building up” and solving problems together. These are the so-called strict compliance societies. These include Germany, Norway, Singapore, Korea, China, Japan. These are countries in which, as a rule, the clock ticks accurately, where people do not turn to red, where it is always quiet in the library, and no one would think of rustling or talking,” says Komissaruk.

“And there are other societies. They calmly accept violation of norms, in which everyone is their own boss and everyone is very creative, where people can always find a trap, a loophole. These are Russia, Ukraine, USA, Italy, Spain, France. Both the first and second types of societies have both advantages and disadvantages,” adds Svetlana. “But now, when we need to unite against a common enemy (disease), of course, societies with strict norms and aversion to deviations from norms win. They have obedience to the government, they have trust in the government. And it is directly embedded in their cultural code to obey. That’s why they stay at home, wear masks, wash their hands and keep their heads down.”

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“In those societies that, in times of peace, are distinguished by creativity and creativity, a large number of small businesses, scientific discoveries, in them this “I am my own master” plays a bad role. And that’s why this is the situation in the United States now,” explains Komissaruk.

But the psychologist also notes that there are countries of a mixed type, where citizens can be both obedient and creative in solving the problem.

“There are ambidextrous countries that can creatively solve problems (in normal, “peaceful” times), but also unite and comply with norms. It seems to me that this is happening in Israel,” says the expert.

Komissaruk explained why post-Soviet societies are considered “naughty,” because Soviet people are used to obeying.

“In societies with rigid norms (Germany, China, Korea) there is a consensus about who to listen to and who is right. While in other societies (USA, Russia, Italy, Ukraine) there is a wide range of criticism of the government, everyone chooses their own information resource. And when there is no absolute prohibition, everyone behaves as they see fit,” explained Svetlana.

“In societies with strict adherence to norms, people have this feeling of cooperation written directly into their subcortex. There, it wouldn’t occur to a person to quickly run to the store if he can’t, because he understands that he could pose a danger to someone,” explains the psychologist. - And in other societies, in big cities, the disunity and lack of concept that we are together is so great that, unfortunately, man is a wolf to man. Every man for himself. I don't want to idealize China, for example. Perhaps there were some attempts at violations there too. But the general norms are so strict that this person will be more of an exception. And most importantly, such non-compliance with norms will be condemned by the entire environment.”

The expert also said that in the head of a post-Soviet person, a lot of things are mixed up, and this is activated in such situations. Another feature is that they are everywhere looking for a conspiracy.

“Yes, usually conspiracy is sought by those who do not trust, albeit subconsciously, the objectivity of information, who are accustomed to being deceived. If people don't trust the media and don't believe in the effectiveness of government, they start looking for reasons. And the more terrible the situation, the easier it is for them to find an explanation that dots all the i’s, no matter how terrible the explanation is, it is better than uncertainty,” says Svetlana. “Rather than sitting and guessing what the real numbers are, how many people have died, how many are actually infected, whether information is being hidden, whether medicine can handle it, it’s easier to find some kind of secret conspiracy that will explain everything, and finally “everything will become clear.” Anyone who finds uncertainty intolerable tends to seek out conspiracy theories.”

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In addition, according to the psychologist, there are several more Soviet character traits that are activated in such situations.

“Many people complain that their quarantine plans are completely impossible to implement (or have not yet been implemented). Soviet people set themselves a high standard and then reproach themselves for not achieving it. We didn’t learn Sanskrit, we didn’t go through all the virtual museums in the world, we didn’t listen to the opera, we didn’t start doing yoga, we planned to clean out our closets, but we still haven’t gotten there,” explains Svetlana. “Now it’s hard for everyone, it’s psychologically difficult for everyone to get ready and do what they planned. But we also scold ourselves for it! We are very critical of ourselves, very demanding, so we are irritated all the time and pass on the irritation to our loved ones. We need to love ourselves, forgive ourselves and understand that now the situation is simply such that it does not bring out our best traits, and we are not at the peak of our ability to work now, we just need to accept it. We must do the minimum - the one that absolutely must be done. That's all."

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