Cognitive dissonance and mindset perturbations during crisis: "eco-socio-psycho-somatic" perspectives

Abstract

Mandatory and restrictive health regulations during the corona pandemic caused psychic disorders in many people, which even led to clinically relevant mental disorders. At the same time, there was gradually a polarization of opinions among the population. In order to improve future pandemic management, an integrative understanding of these psychosocial processes therefore seems useful. Here we start theoretically with the mental effects of inconsistencies of the information environment by referring to concepts such as the theory of cognitive dissonance. In a next step, we use the psychodynamic theory to understand the affective-motivational defense mechanisms underlying these cognitive states and processes. However, a broader theoretical framework of psychoanalysis seems to make sense, because self-referential processing also influences the style of thinking. For this reason, we use a more comprehensive psychological systems theoretical framework model to integrate these different perspectives. This integrative view refers in part to basic knowledge of health psychology regarding the resistance of unhealthy ways of thinking and behaviors and the possibilities for interventions for change. We then extend this model to a broader picture that also covers the relationship between men and their environment. This results in the perspective of a multidimensional socioecological theoretical framework, which as a heuristic reference model and related to other ecological approaches could also be helpful for various theoretical questions for public health, and could provide a better public understanding of health issues. In line with this perspective, we hypothesize that with regard to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, the acceptance of public health narratives could be increased if a more consistent picture of the scientific descriptions and explanations of the pandemic - similar to the model proposed - could be provided, which would enable the understanding of the origin, course and countermeasures, and thus could have positive collective psycho-hygienic effects.

Keywords: Affective-cognitive dissonance; Infodemic; Socioecological model; Systems model of the mind.

Figure 1

A hypothetical cognitive scheme of people with vaccine resistance stabilizing through conspiracy narratives (“The Great Reset”). See the text for more information. COVID-19: Coronavirus disease 2019.

Figure 2

The core concept of object relations theory visualized as a quadripolar “experience matrix”: The low-developed polarized configuration of the representations of the self and the environment with poles of positive and negative experiences (left) and the adult configuration with strong distinction of the images of the environment and the self (right)[31]. For simplification, the term “object representation” is translated here as “environmental image”; “Self-representation” is also translated as “self-image.”

Figure 3

A socioecological framework of health with interlinked conceptual building blocks (see text): In relation to pandemics, the virus acts as part of the physical environment at the somatic level of the person/population (horizontal grey arrow, bottom). This process is captured by science as a subsystem of society (vertical grey arrow), and this information is communicated to the population via media (horizontal grey arrow, top), which changes the exposure behavior of the population (horizontal grey arrow).