On The Unseen Battle Between Duty & Health
When you are sick, should you go to work? Your answer to this question may correlate to your generation. At times, societal norms have shifted between treating it as a badge of honor and dedication and putting others at an unnecessarily high risk of infection. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, modern society has emphasized staying home or working from home when someone is sick. But do people follow these norms? If they are ill, do they work from home? Does this prevent them from going out with their friends? This is what researchers from the University of Michigan sought to explore.
In their paper, published recently in the journal Psychological Science, the researchers describe a multifaceted study to unravel the dynamics behind the concealment of illnesses. In their first study, university healthcare workers and students were surveyed about their illness concealment behaviors since March 2020, coinciding with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants were asked about symptom concealment, attending work or campus while ill, and adherence to mandatory health screenings. A subsequent online experiment asked participants to imagine being sick under varying illness severity and transmissibility conditions, assessing their likelihood of hiding their illness in social scenarios.
In their findings, the researchers report a striking trend: over 70% of participants admitted to concealing their symptoms, often to avoid disrupting social plans or due to institutional pressures, such as the lack of paid sick leave. Notably, even among healthcare workers, 61% reported hiding their illnesses. The research also highlighted a discrepancy between people’s predictions of their healthy behavior versus their actions when actually sick, with sick individuals showing a tendency to conceal their illness regardless of its severity or transmissibility. American cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead once said, “What people say, what people do, and what they say they do are entirely different things.” The data from this series of studies appears to support Mead’s assertion.
The implications of these findings are profound, particularly in the context of public health. The study suggests that individuals may prioritize social and professional obligations over the health risks to others, a behavior that could have significant repercussions during pandemics or outbreaks. The research underscores the need for policies and societal norms that encourage transparency about one’s health status, suggesting that individual actions alone may not prevent the concealment of illnesses. Does this mean we should return to masks? Perhaps not. But make sure to wash your hands!
This was Article 232 from the Studio Quick Facts Series.
References:
Ackerman, J. M., Hill, S. E., & Murray, D. R. (2018). The behavioral immune system: Current concerns and future directions. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 12(2), e12371.
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Hemp, P. (2004). Presenteeism: at work-but out of it. Harvard business review, 82(10), 49–58.
Merrell, W. N., Choi, S., & Ackerman, J. M. (2024). When and Why People Conceal Infectious Disease. Psychological Science, 09567976231221990.
Shattuck, E. C., Perrotte, J. K., Daniels, C. L., Xu, X., & Sunil, T. S. (2021). Signaling sickness: the role of recalled sickness behavior and psychosocial factors in shaping communication style. Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health, 9(1), 221–231.
University of Michigan. (2024, January 29). People Likely to Conceal Contagious Sickness for Social Commitments — Neuroscience News. Neuroscience News. https://neurosciencenews.com/social-behavior-contagious-sickness-25540/
