Pandemic Induced Psychological Stress

An analysis on the article "Types of pandemic-induced psychological distress, clarity of responsibility, and support for incumbents", from the Journal Of Public Policy, published by Cambridge University Press.

Introduction

During the COVID-19 pandemic five years ago, many individuals felt scared, anxious, and lost, causing them to often feel desperate for some form of human connection. I believe that when the standard amount of human connection is lost, an individuals' mental health can worsen, and other social and emotional distress increases. I also noticed that there were many after affects that the pandemic had on individuals regarding social interaction, the small, simple interactions that seemed easy to have with people, suddenly became more challenging. These were things such as making small talk, holding up a conversation, and advocating for my needs seemed a lot more challenging. In the article I read, "Types of pandemic-induced psychological distress, clarity of responsibility, and support for incumbents", the writers are able to shed light on, and address in more depth how and why individuals began to act the way they did post- pandemic, and how these mental health related challenged correlated with how people viewed the government's actions during that time.

Types of Stress Found In the Pandemic and its Affects on Individuals Views of the Government

The article discusses two prominent types of stress that most individuals experienced in the pandemic, social stress and non social stress. The writers express how the way in which individuals coped with the stress from the pandemic, was the main determining factor in the way they viewed the governments actions during COVID-19. The researchers found that the people who used social coping mechanisms agreed positively with the governments actions, whereas people who used more emotional based coping mechanisms, did not. The writers argued that the affects of mental stress only affected individuals political opinions when the same party controlled both state and national governments, "We argue that the partisan identity of incumbents in federal and state-level government cabinets crucially moderates the effect of the psychological implications of COVID-19". The leading message of this part of the article was to inform individuals about how different types of distress can affect a person's political opinions in varying ways. When different types of stress are at play, such as physical stress, which is stress caused from things such a as job loss, versus social stress, which is stress that occurs from loss of connections and isolation, can not only impact an individual in varying ways, but also their political views. The article states, "Social stress – pandemic-induced increase in social isolation... may appear more governable and responsive to politics because of its origins in the specific actions of specific individuals – the abusive partner, an unsympathetic workplace supervisor etc." Emphasizing on how an individual's home or personal life can have affects in regards to their political views, and how they may view the protection policies that politicians may have implemented due to the pandemic.

Data and Results

The writers of the article used telephone survey data from India in June 2020 and it's data, as an example to display how mental distress can correlate to an individual's opinions on the government's actions. The surveys that they tool were nationally representative, conducted in multiple Indian languages, and in three different waves of the survey they asked about the individual's mental health, voting decisions, and coping strategies. The results were varied in comparison to their original hypothesis. The social stress had no impact on voting decisions, which was not what the researchers originally expected, they thought that higher social stress, led to less support for BJP, the Indian government. As predicted, if individuals had worse mental health, they were less likely to support BJP, and people who used social based/problem solving coping strategies often supported the BJP and it's policies, whereas individuals who used emotional based coping strategies reduced the support for the BJP.

Why Does This Matter?

Mental health and well-being can overall have major impacts on individual's life in general, and, proven by the ""Types of pandemic-induced psychological distress, clarity of responsibility, and support for incumbents" article, can have impacts on the government, and how an individual viewed their actions in times of distress such as the pandemic.

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