Social distancing guidelines, Why are so many people ignoring them? 1 curious reason…

social distancing

I wrote the following post on Social Media about why are people are ignoring social distancing guidelines (shared a week ago) and thought it would be useful to share as a blog, so here it is.

I’m seeing a lot of posts asking why so many people are ignoring the guidelines about social distancing so I thought I would share one possible psychological reason.

We are all going through what is known as the Change Curve. The Change Curve is an adaptation of the earlier work of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her 1969 book”On Death and Dying”. The adaptation applies to any major change, good or bad that you might experience.

the change curve - one possible explaination for lack of social distancing

The Change Curve
Image Borrowed from Sussex University

People move through this curve at different speeds.

The people carrying on as if there is no problem are currently in the denial phase.

Those of you getting angry about their behaviour are in the anger/blame/fear/emotion phase. You might also be in this phase if you have been doing anti-social behaviours such as panic buying. It will be driven by fear.

On my post on Social Media, I had one person get very angry about this comment thinking it was an excuse for poor behaviour. It is not, it is merely an explanation.

Some of you may be in stage 5, depression. Whatever stage you are in, it helps to know there is a process. Self-awareness can help you move through the stages quicker. Help from an NLP Practitioner, Coach, Counsellor or Therapist may also help if you are stuck.

Moving to Acceptance will help you regain positivity, adaptability and creativity. We all need to find creative ways to get through this crisis with our mental health intact. Some of us will need to get creative about how to earn money. It is possible.

 

Where are you in your process?

 

Here is the link to the page I borrowed the image from on the Sussex University website