The corona pandemic has divided society. An international team of researchers with Austrian participation has now investigated to what extent this polarization disrupts the memory of the epidemic. They achieved a surprising result with potential for the future.
The scientists from Austria, Germany and the US evaluated four surveys among 10,800 people from eleven countries around the world, including Austria. Around the first year of the pandemic (2020), people indicated how great the danger was to them and how justified they thought the measures were. When the strict measures against Covid-19 were lifted in most of these countries (early 2023), people were again asked how they had assessed the dangers of the disease and the measures at the time. The researchers compared ratings during the pandemic period with later recalls.
Memories of Corona distorted
The result: People’s memories were constantly distorted – in different directions depending on their vaccination status: Vaccinated people overestimated their personally perceived risk of infection and their trust in science, the researchers reported in the journal ‘Nature’. In contrast, unvaccinated people were more likely to downplay the risk of infection and underestimate their trust in scientists. The corona protective measures were also considered more or less justified.
Money as a Motivator
Memories sometimes improved when respondents received money for particularly good memory skills. Therefore, according to the researchers, the memory distortions are at least partly personally motivated and cannot be explained solely by simple forgetting.
“The results show that there are systematic differences in the way people remember the pandemic, even though their assessments at the time were often not much different from each other,” says Luca Henkel from the University of Chicago (US). The distorted perception of the past would promote social polarization and hinder preparation for future crises.
A clearer memory leads to better processing
The more importance people attached to their vaccination status, the more unrealistic their memories became. Due to a greater underestimation of risk perception at the time, the political measures were also perceived as less appropriate. “Unsurprisingly, these respondents also indicated that they do not plan to follow regulations in future pandemics,” the researchers wrote. “It might be possible to reduce the identification of vaccinated and unvaccinated people with their vaccination status,” says co-author Robert Böhm, a psychologist at the University of Vienna: “This could reduce the motivation to distort memories in the first place.” can reduce the processing of the pandemic.”
“Pandemics exhaust people”
In another study recently published in the journal ‘Nature Communications’, an international team including Robert Böhm used a newly developed ‘pandemic fatigue scale’ to determine the level of disinterest in staying informed and improving health. protection arises during such a crisis. “Pandemics so exhaust people over time that they become less likely to follow public health recommendations,” the researchers wrote.
“Future research should show whether there are effective interventions that can prevent pandemic fatigue from developing or that can reduce it after it has occurred,” says researcher Böhm: “Young people in particular would benefit from such measures, because they are stronger as older persons affected by pandemic fatigue.”
Source: Krone
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