An Existential Analysis of Responses to the 2020 Coronavirus Outbreak

Bibliographic Data

ID9057930
AuthorsRoman Palitsky (0000-0002-0415-6411, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA, corresponding author), Harrison Schmitt (University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA), Harrison J Schmitt (0000-0002-1630-3976, University of Arizona), Daniel Sullivan (0000-0003-4389-4190, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA), Isaac F Young (0000-0002-9440-1571, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA)
Year2021
Volume61
Issue2
Pages231-243
Publication date2021-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Humanistic Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-1678 • E-ISSN: 1552-650X
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0022167820946900
OpenAlexW3048170385
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited32

This essay examines people’s responses to the 2020 coronavirus pandemic from the perspective of existential psychology. The existential anxieties associated with the pandemic, as well as people’s responses to them, can be understood and articulated through Sartre’s concept of bad faith. Using this existential lens, we examine the ways in which people’s responses to the virus interact with long-standing societal patterns of interconnection as well as inequity, and how these processes are rooted within the cultural context of late modernity. This analysis reveals that our interconnection simultaneously constitutes the most profound challenges in our psychological response to the pandemic, as well as our greatest source of hope

Context (archaeology) · Coronavirus · Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Existentialism · Geography · Modernity · Pandemic · Perspective (graphical) · Sociology · Emotions and Moral Behavior · Leadership, Courage, and Heroism Studies · Medicine · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology

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