Threat(s) and Conformity Deconstructed: Perceived Threat of Infectious Disease and its Implications for Conformist Attitudes and Behavior
We test the hypothesis that the perceived threat of infectious disease exerts a unique influence on conformist attitudes and behavior. Correlational and experimental results support the hypothesis.
https://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~schaller/MurraySchaller2012.pdf (PDF)
See also:
Pathogens and Politics: Further Evidence That Parasite Prevalence Predicts Authoritarianism
According to a “parasite stress” hypothesis, authoritarian governments are more likely to emerge in regions characterized by a high prevalence of disease-causing pathogens.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3641067/
There’s a direct correlation between perceived parasite prevalence, civilian obedience and authoritarianism. Governments and corporations know this.
This also follows right along with the Rockefeller lockstep document.
China’s government was not the only one that took extreme measures to protect its citizens from risk and exposure. During the pandemic, national leaders around the world flexed their authority and imposed airtight rules and restrictions, from the mandatory wearing of face masks to body-temperature checks at the entries to communal spaces like train stations and supermarkets. Even after the pandemic faded, this more authoritarian control and oversight of citizens and their activities stuck and even intensified. In order to protect themselves from the spread of increasingly global problems—from pandemics and transnational terrorism to environmental crises and rising poverty—leaders around the world took a firmer grip on power.
At first, the notion of a more controlled world gained wide acceptance and approval. Citizens willingly gave up some of their sovereignty—and their privacy—to more paternalistic states in exchange for greater safety and stability. Citizens were more tolerant, and even eager, for top-down direction and oversight, and national leaders had more latitude to impose order in the ways they saw fit. In developed countries, this heightened oversight took many forms: biometric IDs for all citizens, for example, and tighter regulation of key industries whose stability was deemed vital to national interests. In many developed countries, enforced cooperation with a suite of new regulations and agreements slowly but steadily restored both order and, importantly, economic growth.