Don’t worry, you’ll (probably) stop yelling at your TV after the pandemic

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Remember when it was normal to touch your face or hug someone?

The pandemic has changed the way we think about behaviours that were innocuous a month or so ago, and it is causing strongly negative reactions for many people.

Some behavioural scientists say our new collective aversion to things like standing too close together was drilled into us quickly as the COVID-19 outbreak spread around the globe and into our communities – we have been conditioned to think of these behaviours as dangerous, and for many people that now triggers anxiety, anger or fear when they see them, even if it is only in a show or movie.

“Most things associated with COVID-19 are bad and even lethal, so it’s not surprising that negative emotions are becoming associated with the objects or behaviors that are associated with COVID-19,” Jana Schaich Borg, a neuroscientist at Duke University who studies social behavior and cognition, tells The Atlantic.

“When a learned association is both strong and unconscious, it can feel like an innate reflex.”

But Schaich Borg says while our new reflexes may have seemed irrational just a short while ago, they can be useful during the pandemic, helping people avoid potentially dangerous behaviours.

Steven Taylor, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia and the author of The Psychology of Pandemics tells The Atlantic that “for most people, this will be a short-term germ aversion. And then in the weeks to months afterward, life will sort of return to whatever normal is waiting for us.”

That means most of us will probably stop yelling at the TV when we see someone touching their face or standing too close to another person.

Eventually.

-With files from Paul James