COVID-19 pandemic and emotional contagion

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Simone Belli
Complutense University of Madrid
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8934-7569
Claudia Alonso
Autonomous University of Madrid
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4192-5483

This study will seek answers to a research question that aims to evaluate the patterns and the structure of pandemics and their spread in different ages and territories, always taking into account the COVID-19 pandemic: what is the significance and role of emotional contagion in how people behave during the current COVID-19 pandemic, and how do emotions spread across society from person to person, like viruses?


Our methodology is based on mapping previous experiences on how societies faced collapse due to epidemic outbreaks to answer this research question. Moreover, we present an autoethnography to revise moment by moment how professional and private lives are being affected by this pandemic right now.

Keywords
coronavirus, COVID-19, emotional contagion, collapse, pandemic

Article Details

How to Cite
Belli, Simone; and Alonso, Claudia. “COVID-19 pandemic and emotional contagion”. Digithum, no. 27, pp. 1-9, doi:10.7238/d.v0i27.374153.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

(c) Simone Belli, Claudia Alonso, 2021


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Author Biographies

Simone Belli, Complutense University of Madrid

Simone Belli (Bergamo-Italia) is a Professor in the Department of Social Science and Innovation at Yachay Tech. He received his PhD Doctor Europeus in Social Psychology from the Autonoma University of Barcelona for his thesis on ’Emotions and language’. He is a member of MIRCo Research Group (Multilingualism, Social Identities, Intercultural Relations and Communication), GESCIT Research Group (Social Studies in Science and Technology), CED Research Group (Centre of Discourse Studies and ISRE - International Society for Research on Emotion. Sponsored by the Spanish Department of Education and Science, he worked as a predoctoral fellow at Georgetown University at Washington, DC, University of Manchester, and Manchester Metropolitan University supervised by Rom Harré, Ivan Leudar, and Ian Parker, respectively. He has been a visiting professor at University of California, San Diego and Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, Morelia, thanks to a Banco Santander Scholarship for Young Professors and Researchers. He was a postdoctoral researcher at the San Diego State University, Charles III University of Madrid and Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, by Paulo Freire Innovative Technology/Pedagogy Post-doctoral Visiting Scholar and Alliance of 4 Universities, respectively. He has been a Guest Professor at the University of Bergamo and at the University of Helsinki as a Professor in the Summer School Course “Emotions and Interculturality”. His research is focused on understanding why emotions have a strong relationship with language, and how it is possible to express these emotions in online/offline spaces.

Claudia Alonso, Autonomous University of Madrid

She has a Ph. D. in Ancient History from the Ancient History area of the Autonomous University of Madrid. She has a degree in History from the same university, specializing in Ancient History and Archeology. In addition, she studied the Interuniversity Master in History and Antiquity Sciences UAM-UCM. Her research focuses on the collapse of the Mycenaean administrations ca. 1,200 BC and the Mediterranean context in which it took place. She has participated in numerous excavation campaigns in the Iberian Peninsula and Greece. Also, she has carried out research stays at the Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte und Vorderasiatische Archäologie at the University of Heidelberg, at the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut in Athens and at the Center for Spartan and Peloponnesian Studies at the University of Nottingham. She is also co-founder of the international colloquium Mycenaean Dialogues, held annually in Madrid. Currently, she is the president of the Ganymede Association of Novice Classical Philology Researchers.

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