Other links:

Other links:

“Like we are sleeping and dreaming the same nightmare”: Living with Uncertainty through the Covid 19 pandemic

Dr. Sramana Majumdar, Assistant Professor of Psychology, examined experiences of the public during COVID-19 pandemic in India, focusing on the uncertainty it came with. The study aims to capture the meanings of uncertainty and how individuals made sense of living with this collective emergency

Yukti Arora

10 July, 2024 | 5m read

The COVID-19 pandemic affected the lives of millions of people impacting the basic physical and psychological health. As we know, there were two major waves of the disease, and each had its own sense of uncertainty. The first phase was marked by uncertainty about the nature of the disease, the lockdown, vaccine development etc. As multiple waves of the disease came and went by, daily living became further unpredictable with financial instability, lack of trust in the government and a growing infodemic. Yet, we know very little objectively about what this ‘uncertainty’ entailed psychologically. There has been limited psychological research on uncertainty during the pandemic, specifically exploring the crisis as a collective experience that shaped individual decision making. In psychological terms, Embodied Uncertainty (EU) refers to the subjective, personal experience of uncertainty which is felt by individuals living in risk. It encompasses how individuals and groups understand and interpret living through natural or man-made disasters.

This recent study was conducted by Sramana Majumdar, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Ashoka University and her research group. They examined people’s experiences of the pandemic across two phases of the COVID-19 outbreak in India from the theoretical lens of the EU. The objective was to combine conventional psychological theories that explain how people deal with uncertainty, with extensive sociological studies on risk that focus on how cultural factors, government responses, and technology play a part in managing crises. The study took a Longitudinal Qualitative Research (LQR) approach which is useful when examining time bound changes in the experiences of individual and collective health. The researchers collected and analyzed data shortly after the first wave of COVID-19 and a year later, after the second wave in India.

The study design aimed to capture differences in the lived experiences of the pandemic based on social identity, with a focus on the Indian-Muslim experience of the pandemic, who faced disproportionate stigma. It also examined socio-economic differences in health outcomes by recruiting a diverse sample of participants, including domestic workers, small business owners, and individuals from urban, affluent backgrounds (Table 1). Telephonic interviews were conducted in English and Hindi.

EU talks about four themes that capture the embodied experience of an individual; social identity and trauma, co-production of knowledge, social and institutional structures and policy and long term lived experience of uncertainty. In-depth interviews were conducted to address these four themes. Thematic analysis revealed that immediate anxieties, especially in the first phase, were related to job uncertainty, disruptions in supply chains, rising prices, accessing necessities and a drop in economic productivity. These uncertainties were often more prominent than fears of the disease itself. Yet, the nature of uncertainty shifted by the second wave for those in urban areas and from advantaged socio-economic backgrounds. While these participants spoke about getting used to the pandemic, waiting for the vaccine and adjusting to work from home, pandemic related uncertainties had only exacerbated for others, thus highlighting the significance of social identity in this experience. Interestingly the study also found that disease related stigma had reduced by the second wave (contrary to official predictions) which was a direct outcome of the lived experience of a shared crisis.

Perceptions of governmental responsibility also shifted where anger and confusion about official speeches had transformed into a disappointment with evidence of poor planning, ambiguous messaging, and unhelpful resource allocation by the government. There was also fear of misinformation with a gradual movement from government and medical bodies as credible sources, to social media, resulting in an infodemic. However, ultimately the study also revealed active coping among many, and a sense of optimism for life after the pandemic

This study explored how people navigate uncertainty during crises, considering factors like social identity and government responses. Findings can help contribute to the development of a preparedness framework based on community stories which recognize strengths of lived experiences to alleviate future concerns.

Written by Kangna Verma and Yukti Arora (Academic Communications, Research and Development Office, Ashoka University)

This research paper by Dr Sramana Majumdar won the best paper at the annual convention of the National Academy of Psychology.

Reference article

Majumdar, S., & Tewatia, M. (2024). Embodied Uncertainty and COVID-19: Social identity, stigma, trust and coping through the pandemic. Journal of Risk Research, 0(0), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2024.2340021

Study at Ashoka

Study at Ashoka