Читать книгу Psychological Aspects In Time Of Pandemic - Juan Moisés De La Serna, Dr. Juan Moisés De La Serna, Paul Valent - Страница 7

One of the problems facing social psychologists is in achieving customer brand loyalty, a brand being that which is used in the identification of a certain person, product or company. Normally when thinking of a company like Coca-Cola, McDonald’s or IKEA, it is with reference to the products they sell. With other brands such as UPS, Iberia or Microsoft, it is with regards the services they offer. This is something which exerts a decisive influence on the purchase of any product or service, which is no longer based just on one’s own judgement, but on the influence of the opinion of others and the media via advertising.

If one thinks of Stephen Hawking, Barack Obama or Rafael Nadal in the same way, it is no longer in terms of products or services, but in respect of their personal branding or brand they have developed through their scientific, political and sporting careers respectively. In other words, emotional aspects become associated with a brand which may be linked to a person, a company and even a place.

The same happens when it comes to the naming of disasters, as in the case of the tropical cyclones which annually afflict a large part of the Caribbean and North America. According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO, 2020) these names follow pre-established rotating lists, and for many they leave behind the memories of the effects of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 or Ike in 2008.

In principle the names bear no relation to the dates of the events, the damaging incidents themselves, or the most affected areas. Amongst them are English and Spanish names e.g. Barry, Gonzalo and they may be male or female e.g. Lorenzo, Laura. But does the name of a tropical cyclone have any impact upon the population?

An answer to this question has been sought by the Department of Administration and Business in conjunction with the Department of Psychology, the Institute of Communications Research, and the Women and Gender Surveys Research Laboratory of the University of Illinois; together with the Department of Statistics of Arizona State University (Jung, Shavitt, Viswanathan & Hilbe, 2014).

The study analysed the climatic consequences of hurricanes in the USA over the last six decades, differentiating between those with male and female names. The first finding was that those with female names had been the most destructive and the cause of most deaths.

It should be remembered that the list of names is preassigned and their assignment organised consecutively, so a priori there is no relationship between the gender of the name and the intensity of the hurricane. A list of hurricane names, 5 male and 5 female were given to 346 participants for them to rate the considered extent of each hurricane’s intensity on a Likert-type scale from 1 – 7. The results showed that male-named hurricanes tend to be evaluated as more destructive than female-named hurricanes, regardless of each participant’s gender.

This study made it possible to understand why, in the face of warnings from the authorities, sometimes more and sometimes fewer preventative measures tend to be taken. It is, in fact, simply due to whether the hurricane’s assigned name is male or female.

In contrast, the designation of diseases within the health field are usually indicated by an acronym which relates to certain identifying characteristics of its location, symptoms or consequences.

There have previously been several outbreaks of the coronavirus strain, as in the case of SARS-CoV which emerged in China in 2002 and whose acronym corresponds to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, referring to its symptomology. The MERS-CoV virus emerged in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and its initials refer to the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus, describing both its location and symptoms. The acronym for COVID-19, which emerged in China in 2019, refers to the Coronavirus disease of 2019, with no indication as to its symptoms or source.

It should be noted that COVID-19 was not the first name to be used in the identification of this disease, but it was a term introduced almost two months after the first case was reported to the WHO. This has led some to argue that the motivations for changing and assigning it an ‘official’ name, were done to avoid the negative consequences of associating a type of disease with a region or population (@radioskyl,2020) (See Illustration 8).

The aim here would be to eliminate the names of ‘China virus’ or ‘Wuhan virus’, terms which point directly to the source of the infection. Some health professionals denounce this deference towards China, since the same consideration has not been shown towards other populations, as in the case of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus, for instance.

As demonstrated in the previous section, despite the fact that an official name of COVID-19 has been assigned, the population has continued to use the terms ‘virus’ and more primarily ‘Coronavirus’ to find out about the symptoms, prevention measures and extent of this disease, and although it is still too early to understand the reason as to why the official name has ‘failed’, it must be taken into account that to create a new brand that is adhered to, a number of variables need to be taken into account, as analysed by Taylor’s University in Malaysia (Pool, 2016).

Illustration 8. Tweet - Name of Covid-19

[Director-General of WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced that the name of coronavirus has changed to COVID-19. An abbreviation of the disease that has caused the death of more than 1,000 people. The first vaccination “could be ready in 18 months”].

This research aimed to uncover the reasons for the success of certain brands versus the rest. To this end, a selection of fifty best-selling everyday products from the two main marketing companies was chosen in order to verify the brand’s effectiveness. After analysing the messages, pamphlets and publicity of the two brands circulated by the press and media networks, it was discovered, via the application of textual analysis and the interpretative method of research, that in order to maintain the loyalty of their customers, these brands underpin their foundations upon two principles The first principle is the ability to generate positive emotions, and the second the aesthetics of honesty, that is, that the product serves the purpose for which it is designed, whilst maintaining the advertised quality standards.

It should be mentioned at this point that the WHO, together with UNICEF, are the highest valued international agencies worldwide, according to the WIN/Gallup International Survey (WHO, 2014) which indicated that 72% of those interviewed had a positive opinion of these agencies. It would therefore have been expected that, by now, the search term ‘COVID-19’ would have been widely adopted. However, it must be taken into account that the announcement of the new name took place on 11th February (see Illustration 8) , whilst worldwide concern began almost a month earlier, on 20^th January.

Illustration 9. Tweet - Image of COVID-19

[The new coronavirus is called SARS-CoV-2 and the disease it causes is COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019)

There thus remains a tendency for the terms ‘virus’ or ‘Coronavirus’ to continue to be used (CSIC,2020) (See Illustration 9).

In the photo, virus of the family Coronaviridae, to which the new coronavirus belongs. (Photo taken by virologist Luis Enjanes (@CNB_CSIC)]

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