Together Apart

Clinical psychologist Tegan Cruwys discusses the concept of social connectedness and how being ‘together apart’ is both possible and crucial during the coronavirus pandemic.

“COVID has put a magnifying glass on existing inequalities,” says Jolanda Jetten, a professor of social psychology at the University of Queensland, “and it’s clear that the degree of suffering is unfairly on the shoulders of the poorer groups in societies, and also the poorest countries in this world.”

One of the victims of the COVID-19 pandemic, argues social psychologist S. Alex Haslam, are many traditional views of leadership. In this […]

In this 44-minute video, Stephen Reicher addresses what he sees as the two psychologies of COVID, working through the lens of social identity theory.

What might be one of the most severe effects of the pandemic. According to two psychologists who contributed to the book Together […]

When it comes to COVID-19, we’re all in it together. That statement, while obvious, is not always how people react. Why is […]

Near what we now know to be the lengthy saga of the COVID-19 pandemic, four psychologists collaborating remotely put together the edited […]

Table of Contents Author Biographies Contributors Acknowledgements Section A: Setting the scene The need for a social identity analysis of COVID-19 A […]

Hopefully, one day soon we will live in a world where COVID-19 does not dominate every aspect of our lives. It is […]

“Wearing a mask is a sign of respect.” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, May 12th 2020 In the first chapter of this […]

For the people that are now out of work because of the important and necessary containment policies, for instance the shutting down […]

This virus is dangerous. It exploits cracks between us. … Take as an example, ideology, or in one country it could be […]

Social distancing is a privilege. It means you live in a house large enough to practice it. Hand washing is a privilege […]

A disaster (which originally meant “ill-starred”, or “under a bad star”) changes the world and our view of it. Our focus shifts, […]

A traumatic event is one in which a person experiences a genuine fear of death or injury for themselves or others. However, […]

In order to reduce the spread of the virus and to protect vulnerable persons, it is strongly advised to reduce physical contact, […]

They had been sentenced, for an unknown crime, to an indeterminate period of punishment. (Camus, 1947) As Albert Camus observed in The […]

Patient A1.1, who was then still experiencing mild respiratory symptoms, attended a birthday party with nine other people. They hugged and shared […]

The biggest threat to the Territory is clear. It is not us, it’s them. Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan We live in a dangerous […]

Efforts to influence people loom large in a pandemic. In particular, there is a demand for effective leadership which explains what is […]

It is to get rid of non-productive Chinese in the Chinese community, who are non-productive and in the words of George Bernard […]

On March 11th 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a statement confirming that COVID-19 was a pandemic. WHO experts advised that […]

COVID-19 has posed a significant challenge, with whole nations striving to coordinate their activities in response to the pandemic. In the process, […]

Since COVID-19 first began spreading around the world, there have been myriad examples of leadership that has not only motivated people to […]

As we write, at the start of May 2020, 4 million people have been infected with the COVID-19, over a quarter of […]

Plague was the concern of all of us…. Thus, for example, a feeling normally as individual as the ache of separation from […]

We are frequently told that COVID-19 is the greatest challenge of our generation, and perhaps the largest global crisis since World War II. So, what do we know about how people behave in crises? And how can we apply that understanding to manage the current pandemic?

The way we are treated by the police tells us where we stand in society; if this treatment confirms the broader injustices to which our group has been subjected, then everything falls apart.

Pandemics inspire the most remarkable acts of unity and compassion (Solnit, 2009). They also lead to appalling acts of division and brutality […]

It is not surprising that in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, aside from infection fears, gatherings of people on beaches, public transport and in parks were met with concern and even alarm. Crowds are associated with trouble. But crowds can be both destructive and constructive forces.

In an excerpt from Together Apart, three officials with Public Health England argue that he consequences of shared identity, which have been shown to be so important in building an effective community response to the pandemic — the mutual trust, influence and support — are equally important when it comes to community–authority relations.

While the pandemic is different other emergencies, there are important similarities: there is a mortal threat which can create fear; there is not enough protection for everyone under threat; and human action can mitigate (or exacerbate) that threat.

Given the import of its subject matter, SAGE Publishing (the parent of Social Science Space) had agreed to make an e-book o the psychology of COVID-19 freely available.