According to reports, in 2020, there were 53.2 million new patients with depression disorders and 76.2 million patients with anxiety disorders worldwide due to the COVID-19 epidemic. Now that the epidemic is in its third year, these figures will only increase. The World Health Organization assesses that the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on human mental health will last for many years.
There is a common sense in social psychology that human beings tend to regard themselves as the center of everything and intuitively overestimate the attention others pay to us. For most people, the most interesting person is themselves. During the three years of the epidemic, we have experienced isolation, working from home, infection with and new crown , business shutdowns, layoffs, unemployment, salary cuts, serious illness of ourselves or our parents and friends, death of relatives, and schemes by opponents... In short, natural disasters, man-made disasters, serious illness, life and death Death is like a drama that takes turns. We, who were proud of the spring breeze, stepped on the earth, and filled our hearts with poetry and distant places, began to become anxious, doubtful, and depressed. We rethink ourselves and others. Of course, the focus is still on ourselves.
The COVID-19 epidemic has affected our lives for three years.
The self in personality psychology is relatively abstract. It refers to self-awareness or self-concept. It is our understanding of our own state of existence, including our physiological state, psychological state, Understanding of interpersonal relationships and social roles. This sounds really confusing. Let’s think about it differently and use social psychology to explain it, that is, how people understand themselves and how our sense of self affects our attitudes and actions.
Our sense of self is also called a self-schema. Schemas are the mental templates by which we organize the world in which we live. For example, we think of ourselves as strong, overweight, smart, beautiful, or otherwise. If art painting is a core part of your sense of self, you will pay special attention to the level and skills of others' painting, and you will quickly recall experiences related to painting, such as how to skillfully handle highlights, light and dark interfaces, shadows, Projection etc.
The self includes not only the self-schema of what we are like, but also what we might become, that is, our possible selves. Our possible selves are rich, passionate, loved, and successful in career, but the COVID-19 epidemic has shattered our original plans for three years. The global economic downturn has affected each of us, and it may make us Become what you fear - a failed self that is unemployed, poor, unloved, career-stagnant or bankrupt. Under the epidemic, our self-development has been challenged by unprecedented challenges that are not based on personal will. In social roles, we may no longer be a successful son/daughter, father/mother, manager/boss. We may be unemployed. We used to be master engineers in the real estate industry, but today we are unemployed and can only work as Didi. Drivers, we are no longer recognized by our original industry and groups, and we feel the obvious difference between ourselves and others. We begin to compare ourselves with each other, and when compared with those who are still doing well in our original industry, we suffer failures and misfortunes, begin to blame others, and even envy them, continuing to deepen this frustration. It is said that everyone in the world hates others and laughs at others. When things go wrong for us, most people are also afraid of unkind comments and ridicule from others. In fact, this series of psychological processes are all about our self-feeling. At work, you are suffering from type A, and others are also suffering from type B. Others do not care about you as much as you think, they are busy with their own things.
All living beings are suffering, and we can only overcome it by ourselves. Especially in times of hardship, we need to look toward the sun. Success can enhance self-esteem and boost self-confidence. Since the epidemic cannot be avoided, we will adjust our expectations and try to challenge some other things that can be done at this stage and complete it. This kind of small success will make us feel quite capable, such as delivering a takeaway or opening a few times. Didi, it would be great to earn a few more living expenses, slightly improve the quality of life, and regain confidence and enthusiasm for life.Of course, if you are not short of money and don’t want to give up your career, you can calm down and study, think carefully about the difficulties that you have not overcome before, and study whether there are new ways to solve them more efficiently, and use positive information Remind yourself: I am very important to this task, I will definitely be able to solve it, etc. This kind of positive psychological suggestion can also improve self-esteem and enhance self-confidence.
In addition to the above-mentioned methods of enhancing self-esteem and improving self-confidence, we must also pay attention to the impact of our cultural environment on our self-perception. In Asia, Africa, and Central and South America, collectivistic culture is highly respected. This culture breeds interdependent selves. People engage in more self-criticism but less self-affirmation. In a collectivistic culture, self-esteem is often closely related to "how others evaluate me and my group." However, in an individualistic culture, many people have learned not to care too much about other people's opinions and ignore other people's evaluations, as but Ding 's famous saying: "Go your own way and let others say it!" The picture below shows the difference between collectivistic culture and individualistic culture. Both cultures have their own advantages. There is no need to attack each other. I need it here What it expresses is that in terms of personal self-confidence, Western culture has something worth learning from. For example, the knowledge they advocate about yourself, positive self-control, self-efficacy , excellence and pride can indeed make us more confident and charming, and help We succeed by overcoming obstacles and accomplishing challenging goals.
The difference between individualistic culture and collectivistic culture self-concept diagram
Self-knowledge
Know yourself, this is the advice given to us by GreekphilosopherSocrates. It’s easy to form beliefs about ourselves and quick to explain how we feel and why we do it, but do we really know ourselves, and how much do we know? Countless psychological studies have confirmed that people often misunderstand their own psychology. We are not as insightful about what makes us happy or unhappy as we think. Sometimes, people predict the actions of others more accurately than they predict their own. As the Chinese proverb goes: "Those in authority are confused, but onlookers are clear." Laozi Li Er, the founder of Chinese Taoism, said: "He who knows others is wise, and he who knows himself is wise." Modern psychology Statistical research has found that most people are wiser than wise.
We misjudge our emotional reactions to certain events. People mispredict how they will feel after a romantic relationship, receiving a gift, missing out on an election, winning a contest, and being insulted. Emotion prediction research shows that it is difficult for people to predict the intensity and duration of their future emotions. For example, the traces of our emotions about good news about our team's victory disappear faster than we expect, and after negative events, we will overestimate The lasting effects of emotional events, because we focus on negative events so that all other events contribute less to happiness, so we over-expect our pain. Surprisingly, Gilbert and colleagues reported (2004) that significant negative events (which activate our psychological defense mechanisms ) are more likely to cause more lasting distress than minor anger (which does not activate our defense mechanisms). The time is actually shorter. In other words, we are resilient.
Self-efficacy Albert Bandura, a psychologist at Stanford University , mentioned the power of positive thinking in his research and proposed the theory of self-efficacy. Optimistic belief in your abilities and effectiveness can pay big dividends. Children and adults with high self-efficacy Children and adults with high self-efficacy are more resilient, less anxious and depressed, they live healthier lives, and have higher academic or work achievements. Self-confidence increases with achievement, and like self-esteem, self-efficacy increases with achievement after hard work. Higher self-efficacy will guide workshop workers to maintain a calm mind and seek solutions instead of repeatedly thinking that they are insufficient, so don't set obstacles for yourself.
If Sister You had wisdom, would she really be killed by Wang Xifeng?
Positive self-control
My fate is up to me. Since ancient times, beauties have had bad luck. Which of these two sentences do you like better? People with an internal locus of control usually prefer the former sentence "I can't help it!" They are the writers, directors and actors of their own lives. People with an external locus of control lament that "beautiful women have had a bad life since ancient times" and feel that it is opportunities and external forces that determine their destiny. People with internal locus of control are more likely to do well in school, successfully quit smoking, wear seat belts, make a lot of money, and be able to delay gratification to achieve long-term goals. People with external locus of control feel that they are stupid, or that their teachers, textbooks, or exams are too bad, and their grades in school are poor. If they do not change after entering society, they usually struggle at the bottom of society for a long time, doing the hardest work, but earning a lot of money. Not much, poor quality of life.
The difference between internal control type and external control type
When I was a child, my father often said to me: "Don't be too picky about the environment. You mainly rely on yourself!" I heard this sentence and my ears got calluses. I shared it with the majority of netizens. My father was born in the 1950s, just a few years after the founding of New China. His youth was during the Cultural Revolution. In that era when there was a lack of food and clothing, he went out to work to support his family at the age of 14. He has three older brothers and sisters. I have three younger brothers and sisters. My grandfather passed away early, and the burden of the family mainly fell on my grandmother and father. But later, whether in my hometown in Sichuan or my second hometown in Yunnan, my father was a minor celebrity within a hundred miles. During the difficult period of the epidemic, we all need to be a internally controlled , confident and sunny person. I hope you can use scientific psychological training methods to overcome anxiety and depression, gain the power of confidence, and overcome the current difficulties. Let's run together. Poetry and distance!
