The Psychological Immune System

When We End Up Coping Better than We Thought

As I’ve written in the last post, the Coronavirus crisis has turned life upside down for practically everyone, leading to a host of emotional reactions and feelings. Some people are dealing with it better than others, and this of course depends on how much their lives, and livelihoods have been impacted, but it’s probably fair to say that it’s a challenge all around for most of us. Negative emotions are in vast supply, including anxiety, worry, irritability, sadness and even grief. There is plenty of misery to go around, and deep down it might feel like this misery will never end, especially now that it looks like government-imposed lockdowns will be in place for weeks, or even months.

One thing that is worth keeping in mind, though, is that people often show unexpected resilience in the face of even great adversity: They end up coping much better than they (or others) would have thought. In fact, we are generally not very good at anticipating how we will feel in the future, that is, we are lousy at what’s called Affective Forecasting. That's the case for positive events, for example, with people expecting that winning the lottery is the ultimate life-changing event, but the research shows that even after a big win, people tend to go back to their baseline level of happiness after about 6 months. The term Miswanting describes the phenomenon that we chase after stuff that we think will bring great happiness, only to then realise that the resulting pleasure is relatively short-lived. It's a shame that the highs we get from positive events will likely wear off, but it also means that the lows we dread will also tend to wear off, including sooner than we might have expected.

All this relates to the Psychological Immune System, namely our remarkable ability to deal with setbacks and roadblocks, and whatever else life throws at us, and then move on. It’s basically a psychological shield that you didn’t even know you had.

   

A classic study looked at how people would cope if their worst nightmare were to come true: Not getting their contract renewed for the job they always wanted. Assistant professors typically work at universities for 5-6 years, and then are considered for ‘tenure’, i.e., a permanent position. Ask any assistant professor who does not have tenure yet, and they will say that they can’t imagine many things that would be worse than being denied tenure. In a study assistant professors were asked how they would feel if they were not offered a permanent position. Predictably, those who then had this happen to them felt bad right afterwards. But they actually bounced back some time after the event, when their happiness and life satisfaction was comparable to that of assistant professors who did have their contracts renewed. Similar studies have been done for predictions of the long-term unhappiness following a relationship break-up, and other dreaded life events.

Why do people show these patterns when it comes to anticipating their future feelings? One explanation is so-called Focalism, that is, we have tunnel vision and focus only on the one thing we are worried about, but not on all the other stuff that will also be going on in the future. When you ask an assistant professor about tenure, that’s the one thing they are considering. Similarly, when you ask someone right now about losing their job, etc. they will be focused on that, namely that one thing you asked them about. But they might forget about all the other good things in life, such as having a caring, supportive family, being in good health, or the fact that there might be other, perhaps even better jobs out there. Don’t get me wrong: Losing a job will probably feel miserable, but people may be surprised that the misery will not be as intense, and as long-lasting as they expected.

When the Psychological Immune System kicks into action, it also can help people find meaning in life; they may think of the challenges they encountered as opportunities for growth, for example, as ‘fate’ running its course. We are generally remarkably good at reading meaning into past live events, along the lines that “it was for the better”, or it “was meant to be” because there were unexpected positive outcomes. Whether that was objectively true or not isn’t all that relevant, but the result is that people often surprise themselves by coming out stronger on the other side, when they move beyond what earlier felt like an insurmountable hurdle.

The Punchline:

US President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously said in his inaugural speech, held in 1933 during the depth of the great depression, that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." He probably was right: Whatever we encounter tomorrow many not be nearly as bad as what we fear today.

When Anxiety Yields to Grief

A New Roller Coaster of Emotions

Last week the world around us started to shut down. Country after country implemented lockdowns, and by now about 37% of the world population is experiencing some form of restricted movement and limited social contact. It was striking when the German chancellor Angela Merkel remarked in her speech to the country how for her, having previously lived in the German Democratic Republic, freedom to travel was one of the most precious rights. It reflected the seriousness and desperation of the Coronavirus crisis that she was forced to take it away from her own citizens. Many other world leaders followed suit, including India, where now over 1.3 billion people are prohibited from leaving their homes, not even for work.

For those of us fortunate enough to be able to work from home it has meant uprooting daily routines and workflows, re-arranging child care and other family responsibilities, making household preparations for potentially extended periods of limited access to goods and services, and so on. All this involves a lot of uncertainty, which can generate anxiety, an intensive feeling that helps up tackle challenges because it signals that stuff needs to be done. But in addition, we are likely to also go through a range of other emotions, some perhaps more unexpected, so it’s useful to look at some of the relevant research. 

In a classic paper James Russell (1980) grouped emotions along two dimensions, namely Valence, that is, whether the emotion is pleasant or unpleasant, and Activation, that is, whether it involves a high level of physiological arousal. The latter gets the body fired up to deal with problems in life: The heart is pumping, hormones are rushing around and overall we have a sense of urgency as we try to figure out the best course of action. Many theorists view this as the main function of emotions, namely that they propel us to act in specific ways. That’s why there are a whole range of emotions in the upper left quadrant, where activation meets negativity. Feeling restless, agitated, nervous and tense are part of this cluster.

The Circumplex Model of Emotion (Russell, 1980).

Anxiety is an extended, lasting version of fear and as such is high in negativity, and in activation. But because of this high level of activation, at some point it will run out of steam: There is a limit to which the body can sustain a constant a state of alarm because it’s energetically costly, and wears you down. Then different negative emotions are likely to kick in, namely those that are low in activation, further down on the wheel in the figure above, toward deactivation. Sadness is the feeling of having lost something. Its close cousin, grief, is also about loss, but on a much larger scale. It occurs, for example, after having lost a significant other, either due to death or separation (1). It reflects the magnitude of losing something or someone that is irreplaceable, so it’s not just a temporary feeling, but something more persistent and significant.

We can expect that people will experience grief for having lost the lives they were used to. For many, the Coronavirus crisis has meant the end of the world as we know it. This can be on a profound level, with people losing jobs and therefore directly facing the possibility of no longer being able to put food on the table. Already we have seen millions of new unemployment claims in the United States, and this number is likely to go up even more. Many people therefore experience a massive loss in life circumstances for the worse. But plenty of others also experience upheavals of various kinds, on a different scale, but the felt loss can still be very real to them. For example, pupils and students whose graduation ceremonies might not happen as planned, will likely miss the celebrations that usually mark the transition from such a formative period to the next stages of their lives.

For many of us, thankfully, changes will be minor and perhaps even trivial, but they still reflect a clear departure from daily habits, routines, and all the little things we have been taking for granted. For example, every now and then I catch myself making plans about the next time I meet up with someone, only to then remember that this probably won’t happen any time soon. It’s certainly not a big deal compared to what other people are going through, but it does mark the fact that we’re living in different times, and need to come to grips with something we have never dealt with before.

The Punchline:

The Coronavirus crisis has changed people’s lives in so many ways, some that are major, and others that are only very minor. As we adjust to our new realities and settle into new routines we are likely visited by a mix of emotions. In addition to anxiety, the natural response to uncertainty, sooner or later we might encounter more unexpected feelings, namely a strong sense of loss, or even grief. Give yourself permission to experience this whirlwind of emotions. It’s a tough time for all of us, so it’s worth trying to be compassionate and patient with yourself, and with others.

(1) Many people will also experience intense grief following the loss of a loved one to the COVID-19 disease. This is of course much more tragic than the loss of one's routines in life, as described above. I’ll discuss it in a separate post.