Cognitive dissonance and mindset perturbations during crisis: “eco-socio-psycho-somatic” perspectives

Figure 1 A hypothetical cognitive scheme of people with vaccine resistance stabilizing through conspiracy narratives (“The Great Reset”). See the text for more information. COVID-19: Coronavirus disease 2019.

Figure 2 The core concept of object relations theory visualized as a quadripolar “experience matrix”: The low-developed polarized configuration of the representations of the self and the environment with poles of positive and negative experiences (left) and the adult configuration with strong distinction of the images of the environment and the self (right)[31]. For simplification, the term “object representation” is translated here as “environmental image”; “Self-representation” is also translated as “self-image.”

Figure 3 A socioecological framework of health with interlinked conceptual building blocks (see text): In relation to pandemics, the virus acts as part of the physical environment at the somatic level of the person/population (horizontal grey arrow, bottom). This process is captured by science as a subsystem of society (vertical grey arrow), and this information is communicated to the population via media (horizontal grey arrow, top), which changes the exposure behavior of the population (horizontal grey arrow).