The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Problem of Being Normal
In this time of pandemic, one phenomenon is quite common across the world: people show a lack of respect towards World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations to avoid the spread of the new coronavirus. It is possible to see people crowding together or refusing to wear masks to protect themselves and other people. It is hard to define a specific reason why people behave in this way, but it may be possible to relate this to two concepts proposed during the 1970s and 1980s: normosis and normopathy.
Normosis and normopathy are different names for almost the same phenomenon: there are very small differences. The names were proposed by different authors. Whereas the term normosis was proposed by the Brazilian psychologist and anthropologist Roberto Crema, in collaboration with the French psychologists Jean-Ives Leloup and Pierre Weil, in the 1980s (Weil, Leloup, & Crema, 2017), normopathy was proposed by the New Zealand and French psychoanalyst Joyce McDougall during the 1970s (Castelloe, 2018). In general terms, normosis and normopathy describe an obsession with being normal. More specifically, and demonstrating the small differences cited above, whereas normosis refers to an impulse to follow a type of behaviour that is considered to be normal but that can make other people suffer, normopathy represents the desire to be normal in order to stay in a group, at the expense of self-individuality (McDougall, 2013).
In history it is possible to find examples of normosis, such as the slavery considered normal in some countries and at some times, or the fights to the death between gladiators to amuse a crowd in ancient times. These activities were considered normal in their time, even though they caused pain, suffering and death for some people. That is, although this was unhealthy behaviour, people engaged in these activities just because the activities were accepted in their cultural contexts. In the same way, normosis can be identified in some behaviours observed in these pandemic times in which we are living.
Since March 2020, when the WHO declared the outbreak of COVID-19 (caused by the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2) to be a severe global threat, various actions aimed at reducing contagion, such as social distancing and the use of masks, have been required in various countries according to WHO recommendations. These measures are very important to protect people (mainly those in at-risk groups) from contagion, and to prevent the collapse of health systems that may not be able to cope with the number of sick people. However, it can be seen that many people around the world refuse to follow the WHO’s recommendations to do such things as use a mask (McKelvey, 2020) and avoid crowding (Renner, 2020). Among these people it is common to justify the maintenance of their unhealthy behaviour on the grounds that it was always normal, something that ‘everyone does’, although this justification is fallacious and perpetuates a society full of normosis.
In this context, it is possible to relate normosis and normopathy. Normosis is the feeling that leads people to maintain a certain behaviour because ‘it is normal’ and ‘everyone does it’, even if this behaviour causes suffering in other people. Normopathy is the compulsion to maintain this unhealthy behaviour in order to be accepted in the social group. In other words, people can be induced to break the WHO’s recommendations by a normopathic feeling, influenced by other people. In this case, the unhealthy behaviour results from the desire to be accepted among a group of people who are not afraid of COVID-19 or are guided by ideological thoughts that deny the severity of the pandemic.
As a result, normosis and normopathy can create a harrowing atmosphere among people who respect the WHO’s recommendations, giving them the feeling that maybe they are wrong. The result is that, when more people go against the recommendations to prevent the dissemination of the virus, driven by the desire to continue to be normal, other people can be influenced in the same way. Given this, it is important to highlight that it is very important to keep on practising social distancing and using a mask to avoid spreading the new coronavirus and to protect yourself and the people around you. Moreover, this influences other people to continue with the protective measures against the spread of COVID-19.