Psychology

A spate of news of pet “cullings” and cruel acts against people amid Covid-19 lockdowns in China have captured widespread public attention. While it may be easy to classify the instigators of such acts as heartless, former journalist Jessie Tan believes that those actions may not be borne out of an individual’s ill nature or will, but a reaction to the complex forces amid the Covid-19 lockdown.

After a good laugh over falling for a phone app scam, Chinese economics professor Li Jingkui says seriously that the scammers’ tactics involved simple economics and he should have caught on to it sooner. But perhaps he was just being human and some knowledge of psychology would have been more helpful in this case?

With the lockdown on Wuhan about to be lifted on 8 April and the annual Qingming Festival just over, families in Wuhan are coming to terms with their losses. They want accountability from those who covered up the initial outbreak, even as they deal with the psychological impact of the coronavirus and lockdown.