The Psychology of Big Changes
“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.”
- Victor Frankenstein
It was a dreary Sunday night. The wind was howling and the moon was in hiding. I lugged my beaten body through the empty streets of Singapore, tugging along a 50-pound suitcase that was to be my faithful companion for the next three months. Any excitement that once burned within me had been doused by the cold. My phone was dead, and all I had was a set of written directions. As luck would have it, I was no better than a goldfish at following directions. The only difference was I had legs.
I was confused, exhausted, and ultimately, overwhelmed. And it was not because half the people I talked to on the street spoke Chinese — though that is admittedly a nightmare in itself. It was the abominable thing called Change. An unfamiliar place teeming with new faces. I was, wholly and unquestionably, lost. Lost in another man’s country. Lost in thought.
I can never be thankful enough for the people who helped me that night. To the landlord who stayed awake, the friend who fetched me from the airport, and the old man in khaki shorts who pointed me in the general direction of my apartment, I am forever grateful. Their acts of kindness led me home to my apartment block, though an hour longer than expected. In a sense, they were a buffer to the unsavory effects of Change.
But what would happen if everyone on the street that night was lost? If everyone was asking everyone for directions, and no one had a map? In such a world, all sense of familiarity goes out the window. And if you’re reading this, then chances are you’ve lived through it. A time when a cataclysmic pandemic shook the world to its core and took the innocent lives of millions.
The COVID-19 pandemic came as a surprise to many people. It had been a whole century since the Spanish flu pandemic killed 50 million people in a matter of two years, and close to seven centuries since the Black Death took half of Europe’s population. Unfortunately, we were so used to taking on a historical perspective of things that we failed to take a realistic view of the world around us.
When the fateful day came, the virus caught countries unprepared. In particular, the USA lagged behind in establishing solid quarantining measures, leading to the deaths of over 1.1 million Americans in the following years. The tragedy was, by all accounts, the summation of our unwillingness to adopt change. Our lackadaiscal approach to the “New Normal”
Just months after dismissing the virus, the world was in turmoil. Suicide rates skyrocketed and governments were questioned. We searched everywhere for an explanation, which came in the form of conspiracy theories and protests. Luckily, the answer has been provided for us half a century ago. It came in the form of a simple line — Things were going to get better.
The Change Curve was first published by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in 1969 to depict our response to change. She had worked closely with patients who were nearing the end of their lives, and so, she drew inspiration from them. If you look closely at the labels, you might find these terms familiar. This is because the curve is based on its more popularized form, the five stages of grief.
At first, Elisabeth only sought to understand how people would react when informed of their terminal conditions. However, she soon noticed how the process is applicable to any dramatic changes we undergo in life. Flunking a subject, moving on from relationships, seeing stock prices plummet— all of these human experiences can be roughly plotted into the same curve.
Perhaps a more salient example can be found in our subjective pandemic experiences.
- Shock:
News of the virus broke out. Schools were dismissed. Face masks and toilet paper were emptied from shelves. The stock market is a perfect representation of the palpable fear. - Denial:
My country remained untouched by the virus. People started believing our people were inherently immune to this virus due to our rougher upbringings. It was hard not to internalize these beliefs at the time. - Frustration:
The virus began spreading inside the country, and with it, mass paranoia. People fully isolated themselves. I remember being glued to the screen with my family, watching the death toll grow exponentially day by day. - Depression:
The number of new deaths per day reached its peak. Employees were laid off by their companies and suicide rates spiked across the globe. The lockdown was in full effect. - Acceptance (Experiment, Decision, Integration):
Lockdown measures were progressively being alleviated as people started to develop new hobbies to deal with the mundanity. From playing chess to making Dalgona coffee, people started to adapt to the change.
However, not all changes are equal. Some leave a bigger impression than others.
Big Changes Leave Big Impressions
Imagine a bowl of cold water in front of you. It is just cold enough to make your skin crawl, which happens to be 14°C. You are asked to do the following two trials for an experiment:
- Keep your hand submerged in 14°C water for 60 seconds
- Trial 1, but add another 30 seconds where the water temperature goes up by 1°C.
You are now asked to redo one of the two trials. Which would you pick?
Daniel Kahneman conducted the experiment above to study how we retrospectively evaluate bad experiences. He was interested in how our decisions are controlled by our past experiences, which in turn is governed by our retrospective analysis. Surprisingly, 69% of the participants opted for the second trial when given the option!
Kahneman reasoned that the participants left on a painful note in the first trial. The 15°C water seemed to leave a much bigger impression than the what we might anticipate. This psychological phenomenon is known as the peak-end rule: Our bias for the worst and final moments over the duration of an experience. It was as if those extra 30 seconds were simply… Forgotten.
The research was later published under the title “When More Pain is Preferred to Less”. I highly encourage readers from any educational background to read Dr. Kahneman’s works.
The experiment elucidates how we perceive the past through irrational lenses. The past we remember might be distinctly different from the past which happened, a concept which, unfortunately, is often brushed off in arguments and conflicts. We might remember the stinging feeling of a breakup, but not the months leading up to it. Or the celebrated end of lockdown, but not the long hours of isolation it put us through. Compounded by our inability to deal with sudden changes, we remember the peak effects of changes, but not the paths that lead to them.
Although the pandemic has come to pass, the world is still changing at an unprecedented rate. Russia is still stubbornly continuing its invasion of Ukraine; AI is growing faster than we can distinguish good from bad; the US-China trade war is gradually dividing the world; and climate change threatens to end it all. In a stagnant, unchanging world, these problems do not grow out of control in a matter of days. But our world is a dynamic, erratic place, filled with surprises awaiting every turn. Conflicts, diseases, and innovations go out of hand before we can even acknowledge them. And yet, it seems that our brains are inherently against big, sudden changes.
It is very easy to adopt an over-optimistic or pessimistic view of the world. We are very much human. However, it is only by recognizing our biases that we can correctly assess the severity of any given situation, and ultimately, adapt to the change.
We need to stop assimilating facts that only support our claims. This is equivalent to subjecting ourselves to ignorance, which places us even higher on the denial phase. The higher the climb, the harder the fall. But even when we dive into the pit of depression, know that things will get better. Change is commonplace in the 21st century after all. We are all just as lost. Embrace it.
