In an op-ed in the Houston Chronicle, Vivian Zayas, professor of psychology, says the effects of the coronavirus pandemic will be imprinted on the personality of the United States for a long time.
“No doubt in the future people will mourn those who’ve died and remember the challenges of this period. But how would COVID-19 shape people’s personalities – and into what?” she writes in the piece. “I am a psychology researcher interested in how people’s minds shape, and are shaped by, their life circumstances. Human beings are born into this world ready to deal with basic problems – forming close relationships, maintaining status in groups, finding mates and avoiding disease. People are adaptable, though, and react to the circumstances they find themselves in."
