Why people are panic buying and what can help
Alan E. Stewart, a professor in the Department of Counseling and Human Development Services, shares his thoughts on the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic and accompanying behavior.
Stewart studies the effect severe weather has on mental health and says the unknown is what drives the public’s anxiety about the virus.
“From an environmental psychology perspective, many contemporary cultures are accustomed to predicting and controlling nature for human purposes—the air, the lands and waters, and animals—even down to the microscopic levels,” he said. “The coronavirus has challenged and, in some ways, inverted the human dominance of nature.”