In a world that is changed, we can be better. We can be less self-absorbed and give instead of take, we can be more caring, more compassionate, more helpful.

The UK Government isn't talking about the pandemic anymore; we're still in the thick of it and that means the NHS is going to continue to take the flack, when cases start rising again.

Removing precautionary measures

Removing precautionary measures is making it difficult for the vulnerable, clinically vulnerable, for those with special needs, for those who live with anxiety and for those who live with mental illness, also for those who also live with autism and who struggle to implement their lives around change.

Lifting restrictions and quarantine

With lifting restrictions, people like me who are vulnerable and the critically vulnerable from the 24th February are now permanently trapped in their homes, and all it would take is for governments to reinstate masks. Having spoken to friends in the US, they too have the same issues.

With or without a vaccine, you can still catch Covid and long-covid and the vulnerable are still vulnerable. There is still a disruption of our daily routines, for those who are trying to avoid catching the virus.

The uncertainties of the pandemic and how things may pan out, are creating stress and anxiety in people who didn’t struggle previously. For those who did, the pandemic is making their anxiety worse.

Lifespan Developmental Psychology Research

Mirjam Stieger of the Lifespan Developmental Psychology Laboratory at Brandeis University, in Massachusetts is working on a mental health app to help people deliberately change their behaviours.

Personality Change Laboratory Research

According to Wiebke Bleidorn at the Personality Change Laboratory at the University of California, Davis, long periods of changes to our routines may have led to changes in our behaviour that can last long after the pandemic has finished, leading to new norms, which may over time also shape our personalities.

Everyone knows the world is changed and attitudes have changed. Once helpful attitudes, aren't helpful anymore. Mirjam believes that living in these extraordinary times, people’s personality traits have been re-shaped and re-formed as we have all been required to leave our comfort zones and routines.

Personality Change traits

Although psychology's history, from enduring habits of behaviour, thought and emotion form a person's unique identity were considered to be set in stone beyond early adulthood, research over the decades has changed the consensus thinking, that although personalities are relatively stable, they are not fixed and they can change.

In other words, our personality traits evolve through life responses and major life events and that from a theoretical perspective, there is every possibility some of us have been changed in Covid-19, citing lockdown as the main reason. We didn't go into lockdown just once.

According to the research although not everyone will have been affected, there will be people who were affected by being forced into months of solitude. Anecdotal evidence is suggesting the same. (Source: https://www.psychologicalscience.org)

Conclusion

Everyone knows someone who has changed the way they interact with others. The world is changed and attitudes have changed. Social media still continues to talk about the pandemic and how people and the world have changed.

We hear people talk about how different things feel. They're saying, 'people are mean' and that's become one of the bigger issues. We are not the same people we were before the pandemic.

Many people are withdrawn. The research is telling us personalities have changed. For those who deal with mental health, their lives have become more difficult. It is not difficult to notice how attitudes have changed.

That said, we can pull back and take on more supporting roles to help each other. In a world that is changed, it is important that we are supportive. It has never been more important.