[Lee Yongbeom's Psychology of Happiness] Are You Afraid? Let's Stay Calm in the Face of This Fear

Excessive Fear Surrounding Epidemics... Easily and Quickly Spread to Neighbors
Discrimination and Blame Against Infected Individuals... Need for Scientific and Ethical Perspectives
Fear Feeds on Ignorance and Grows... Efforts to Support Each Other Are Essential

Lee Yong-beom, Novelist

There is a test method that can diagnose with 100% certainty whether you are infected with a virus. However, this test has a slight error, with a 5% chance of yielding a positive result even if you are not infected. Suppose there are 500 passengers on the cruise ship you are currently on, and one of them is infected with the virus. After conducting a full screening, you tested positive. What is the probability that you are actually infected with the virus?

◆The Fear of Infection=You might think the probability of being infected is 95%. But keep in mind that 5% of uninfected people also test positive. In other words, 26 people, including the one infected person and those not infected, would have tested positive. Since only 1 out of those 26 is actually infected, even if you tested positive, the probability that you are truly infected is about 4%.

In 1978, a research team asked this question to 20 interns, 20 fourth-year students, and 20 doctors at Harvard Medical School. More than half answered that the probability of being infected was 95%. Even experts miscalculated the probability.

We tend to ignore probabilities and overestimate risks. When we witness danger up close, the fear of infection grows even stronger. Recently, the number of deaths from the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) in South Korea has exceeded 160. Although this is a large number, thousands of people die from the common cold every year in South Korea alone. Considering this, it is not a threat deadly enough to be gripped by fear.

Of course, a low probability does not mean it is not dangerous. Even with a low probability, lottery winners emerge every week. Also, although the chance of being struck by lightning is very low, if the entire population stands in a field on a rainy day, the number of deaths increases significantly. The fatality rate of the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918 was only 2.5%, but it claimed tens of millions of lives. Even low probabilities can be dangerous if neglected.

The number of deaths from car accidents is far greater than from infectious diseases. Yet, we do not fear cars. Why do we fear infectious diseases more than cars, which are essentially lethal weapons?

Humans evolved to fear infectious diseases. In 2008, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (VCJD), also known as "human mad cow disease," caused widespread fear among the public. Let's take this as an example. Historically, only a few hundred people worldwide have died from VCJD. Except for those who died in the UK, the number is only in the dozens. Especially in the United States, where beef import resistance was strong, the number of VCJD deaths is countable on one hand. It is less dangerous than any rare disease existing on Earth.

[Image source=AFP Yonhap News]

◆Fear is Contagious=We are not rational. Paradoxically, humanity did not go extinct due to excessive fear surrounding infectious diseases. Infection is a collective issue. If we become complacent, the entire community could disappear. Fear prevented the risk of extinction. Ancestors who were fearful had a much higher chance of survival than those who were insensitive to infection. The fear of infection worked advantageously for survival. Therefore, humans are innately equipped with a risk alert system to prepare for infection. This system helps us more easily transmit fear to others.

It is not only humans. Plants communicate danger through chemical signals. Animals send danger signals through smell. However, humans' sense of smell gradually declined through evolution from primates. Still, research shows that humans transmit fear through smell.

In 2015, a Dutch research team showed 12 white men films that evoked happiness, fear, or neutral emotions. After the screenings, the researchers collected sweat from the armpits of these 12 men. Then, 36 white women were asked to smell the sweat. The researchers analyzed how the women's facial muscles moved afterward.

The results showed that women reacted with fearful expressions to the sweat of men who watched the fear-inducing film. They reacted with happy expressions to the sweat of men who watched the happy film. The researchers concluded that human emotions can be transmitted to others through sweat odor. Psychologists call this "emotional contagion."

We unconsciously imitate not only others' emotions but also their behaviors. Fear breeds fear. During the Great Depression in the United States (1929?1939), tens of thousands of people, gripped by fear, withdrew cash from banks. This caused many otherwise sound banks to go bankrupt.

The same is true today. Descendants of primates, terrified, are reproducing this behavior worldwide by hoarding toilet paper. Fear spreads easily, far, and fast. When fear surges, we lose our humanity and become a herd of animals chased by predators.

Emotional contagion binds members with a shared emotion. Humanity has used emotional contagion to align groups internally. Group hierarchy, loyalty, and community spirit originated from this.

In 2017, Canadian researchers concluded that emotional contagion synchronizes the brains of senders and receivers. They subjected rats to prolonged stress and then returned them to their partners. Later, upon dissecting the rats' brains, they found that even the unstressed rats had altered neural circuits in the hippocampus similar to the stressed rats. Stress was transmitted, changing the neural circuits of other rats.

[Image source=EPA Yonhap News]

◆Let's Look Calmly=In 2008, protests against the import of U.S. beef spread like wildfire in South Korea. This was because the government failed to properly understand the public's fear. The government's response at the time was immature and clumsy. In fact, the root causes of the protests were anger over economic policies favoring the wealthy, the craze for English education, the rise of far-right forces, democratic regression, personnel bias, and unilateral decision-making rather than VCJD itself. VCJD only provided the motive for the protests, not the essential reason. Nevertheless, the government blamed the large-scale protests on the public's ignorance about VCJD. When dissatisfaction reaches a critical state, unpredictable volatility can occur even with minor stimuli.

Once people fall into panic, they remain sensitive even when the threat decreases. In 2018, psychologists at Harvard University discovered that even when the frequency of danger decreases, our brains tend to perceive the previous higher frequency of danger. People believe the situation is worsening even after some problems are resolved. This is similar to how self-employed people complain about fewer customers even after the economy improves.

Discrimination and blame against infected individuals have existed in every society. Discrimination or moral condemnation stems from feelings of disgust. Suppose you accidentally injure someone while driving. People do not morally condemn the driver. But if you unknowingly infect someone else, you become the target of severe blame and hatred.

Fear of contagious things like rats or mosquitoes is closely related to feelings of disgust or hatred. People fear VCJD because our ancestors evolved to feel disgust toward spoiled meat.

Discrimination against infected people is psychologically similar to avoiding spoiled food. This is a natural psychological phenomenon. However, it does not fit today's moral standards. To minimize baseless discrimination, we must view phenomena through the lens of science.

Long ago, when the Black Death swept through Europe, the church propagated that it was God's punishment or the work of evil demons. Fear grows by feeding on the public's ignorance. Today, instead of the church, the media exploits gaps in ignorance. People read the news to escape fear. However, paradoxically, reading the news often traps them further in fear. Moreover, some media outlets achieve political goals, promote hatred and discrimination, and profit through the spread of fear. Fortunately, the waves of infection are gradually subsiding in South Korea.

Now is the time to break free from the fear of infection and strive to support one another.

Novelist