Quotes from Steven Taylor

Conspiracy theories are resistant to falsification in that they postulate that conspirators use stealth and disinformation to cover up their actions, which implies that people who try to debunk conspiracy theories may, themselves, be part of the conspiracy (Douglas et al., 2017).

Evidence suggests that the tendency to believe in conspiracy theories is driven by motives that can be characterized as epistemic (needing to understand one's environment), existential (needing to feel safe and in control of one's environment), and social (needing to maintain a positive image of oneself and one's in-group) (Douglas et al., 2017).

Conspiracy theories may also allow people to feel that they possess rare, important information that other people do not have, making them feel special and thus boosting their self-esteem.

Research indicates unrealistic optimism and related traits—including the sense of invulnerability and the blunting cognitive style—may be associated with low levels of pandemic-related anxiety and nonadherence to hygiene and other health recommendations. People who score highly on such traits would be particularly likely to spread contagion during a pandemic.

Ethnic minority groups and HCWs will likely be targets of discrimination. We will see a proliferation of conspiracy theories. Someone or some organization or agency will be blamed, rightly or wrongly. The news media will sensationalize the pandemic, despite admonishments to engage in more balanced reporting. Unfounded rumors and fake news will spread rapidly throughout the Internet. Heath authorities will struggle to contain rumors and to debunk conspiracy theories.

But many other people will fail to adhere to the recommendations of health authorities. These people will engage in seeming self-defeating behaviors such as refusing to get vaccinated, if a vaccine is available. These people will refuse to stay home when they are sick. They will spread infection to other people.

Healthcare authorities neglect the role of psychological factors in pandemic­ related infection even though these factors are important for many reasons.

Put simply, pandemics of infectious disease are not just events in which some infectious "bug" spreads throughout the world. Pandemics are events in which the population's psychological reactions to infection play an essential role in both the spreading and containment of the disease, and influence the extent to which widespread emotional distress and social disorder occur.

Some people put their faith in violet-leaf tea, goose-grease poultices, garlic buds, castor oil, salt water snuffed up the nose, or hot coals sprinkled with sulphur or brown sugar and carried through the house accompanied by clouds of billowing smoke.

What motivates people to seek out dubious or frankly bogus treatments? Diverse motivations are likely to be at play, including imitation, conformity, desperation, and indiscriminate reliance on authority figures. According to one survivor of the Spanish flu pandemic: My mother used goose grease and turpentine mixed like a salve, sometimes she made a poultice out of it. I think it really helped. She told me it did, so I had to believe it. (Pettigrew, 1983, p. 120)

Anti-vaccination movements are high-pressure, highly conformist organizations in which dissenting views are discouraged. To the extent that people reject science because they wish to present a self-image as critical and skeptical, it can be useful to communicate to them the inherently skeptical nature of science and to portray antiscientific thinking as an example of unthinking conformity (Hornsey & Fielding, 2017).

That is, the psychological effects of the next pandemic will likely be more pronounced, more widespread, and longer-lasting than the purely somatic effects of infection.

People with high levels of health anxiety sometimes regard clinics as a source of sickness rather than a resource for help.

During times of pandemic, people need to be able to tolerate or accept a certain degree of uncertainty. People who are unable or unwilling to accept uncertainty are likely to experience considerable distress.

Superspreading is especially likely to occur for diseases that have substantial incubation periods

For example, it is common for people to fail to wash their hands after using the toilet. To illustrate, a British study found that a quarter of rail and bus commuters had fecal bacteria on their hands (Judah et al., 2010).

Unintentional spreading of infection due to poor hygiene (e.g., neglecting to cover coughs) and lack of vaccination is a more likely way in which influenza will be disseminated during the next pandemic.

the psychological effects of the next pandemic will likely be more pronounced, more widespread, and longer-lasting than the purely somatic effects of infection

Overall, the research suggests that conspiracy theories appeal to people who seek accuracy or meaning about personally important issues, but lack the cognitive resources or have other problems that prevent them from finding the answers to questions by more rational means

When threat is high but perceived efficacy is low, defensive reactions are likely, such as denying the severity of, or susceptibility to, the threat (e.g., disparaging government health warnings) (Goldenberg & Arndt, 2008). The risk needs to be perceived as credible (i.e., not over- or understated) and the preventive or protective measures also need to be perceived as credible.

The reluctance or frank refusal to have oneself or one's dependents vaccinated—euphemistically known as "vaccine hesitancy"—has been identified by the WHO (2019) as one of the top ten global health threats.