Analysis | Psychological tendencies we wouldn’t have without the pandemic

From instinctively avoiding large crowds to the panic of putting on a mask in public, the pandemic has forced new and habitual psychological tendencies upon people. Photo illustration by DANIEL PEARSON, Staff Photographer

Recently, I’ve been looking through Snapchat memories of pictures and videos I took a year ago. The past version of me was attending countless concerts, spending an obscene amount of money eating out at restaurants and spending quality time with my friends in Orange.

In those moments, belting my heart out to the Jonas Brothers at the Honda Center or stuffing my face with a quesadilla from Urth Caffe, I never thought about truly how many people surrounded me at every given moment. 

The thought of that now makes me wish I could toss pre-pandemic Megan into a bathtub full of hand sanitizer. 

A year into this pandemic, we have formed new habits and psychological tendencies as a result of our new way of living. My mind has eradicated the instinct to pick up a piece of food I dropped on the floor a couple seconds earlier or hug a friend I see walking by. Now, I instinctively grab my mask before leaving the house and avoid as many people as possible without actually forming the tangible thought to do so. I’ve also noticed I have a different vocabulary — saying, “See you on Zoom” and “Is there curbside pickup available” on a daily basis. So what, at a deeper level, is motivating those intrinsic changes?

In the idle time of binge-watching movies and tie-dying sweatshirts in quarantine, people are unknowingly re-training their brain to this new lifestyle. Although the beginning of this nightmare might feel like it happened yesterday, our habits and tendencies have changed immensely. Maya Martinez, a sophomore psychology major at Chapman University, witnessed that firsthand while running on the Santa Ana River Trail. 

“I go for runs every day and normally, you would walk by someone and smile, but now everyone really separates themselves from each other,” Martinez said. “People would cross the street to avoid being on the same sidewalk. I think when I saw that, I started doing it too because I didn’t want to be rude or endanger anyone.”

Whether we are aware of them or not, these pandemic-induced intrinsic actions influence a new set of behaviors. Sophomore psychology major Abigail Ageshen said this training of the brain is why people no longer gravitate toward large gatherings, opting to instead isolate at home.  

“A lot of times, you are classically conditioned to do things; that is what our brain is trained to do,” Ageshen said. “We were classically conditioned to wear a mask any time we go out because if you don’t, you are exposing yourself. Our brain naturally associates safety with a mask or associates (the) coronavirus with a mask, so our brain learns it through association.” 

The other day, I was watching an episode of “Friends,” and experienced sudden, intense confusion when I saw characters Monica and Ross at a New Year’s Eve party and not a single mask was in sight. Ipek Aykol, a psychology professor in Chapman’s Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences, said that although our favorite shows can make us forget our current reality, they can also cause increased confusion within our brain, as COVID-19 is a stress-inducing subject. 

“When somebody sees a picture of a crowd getting together without masks, that automatically brings up, ‘Wait a minute, what if one of them has COVID-19?’ That’s the trigger,” Aykol said. “They don’t question that it’s a movie and that it doesn’t reflect reality. People don’t make those reasonings when they are emotionally alert or triggered.” 

Although they have come to weigh heavily on mental health, responses to this pandemic unfortunately feel like second nature. Just one year ago, I would actively think to strap on my mask as I stepped out of my car, sing the ABC’s while thoroughly washing my hands and think that this era would be a minuscule blip in the timeline of my existence. Now, these habitual actions have become so ingrained I can’t imagine letting them go. 

But while these new psychological tendencies may be hard to escape post-pandemic, Ageshen said they can be used as tools to better prepare for when COVID-19 is just a term in the history books. 

“A lot of institutions, people and businesses are going to apply what we have been learning and the lessons from COVID-19 into the future,” Ageshen said. “I don’t think (life) will 100% go back to normal, because people always learn and carry things that have happened in their lives, and this is a big wake-up call that will be applied in all aspects of the world.”