The Atlas of Emotions: the new feelings map of Switzerland

Emotions: the corona paradox

The emotional spectrum of the Swiss German-speaking population was investigated as part of the second phase of the “How are you?” campaign, and the study surveys were conducted in the second half of May 2020, in the middle of the corona crisis. Having evaluated a total of 46 feelings in over 9000 people, the survey shows that “love”, “joy” and “security” were most positively rated by the people of German-speaking Switzerland, while “despair”, “hopelessness” and “disrespect” were most negatively rated. By contrast, hardly any emotions were rated as neutral.

The league table of frequently experienced emotions depicts a positive core feeling in the German-speaking Swiss population, despite the corona pandemic. This corona paradox is fascinating.

The corona paradox

As already mentioned, the survey was conducted in the middle of the corona crisis. Consequently, it is not surprising that almost half of the participants stated that the corona crisis had negatively affected their moods. Only 22 percent saw a positive effect. It is striking that people in a stable life situation were significantly less aware of any negative effect of the corona pandemic on their mood than others. The effect on individual feelings was also investigated, as well as the effect of the corona pandemic on general emotions.

“What feelings have become more important due to the coronavirus compared to last year, and what feelings have become less important?

The result is astonishing. It shows that the corona situation produced more positive feelings and fewer negative ones. A total of 29 percent of those surveyed admitted that they felt increased “gratitude”, 19 percent increased “contentment” and 11 percent more “love”. However, negative emotions, including “powerlessness”, “insecurity”, “fear for the future” and “worry”, have also increased in significance due to corona. Interestingly, however, these were named much less often than the positive feelings. This is particularly noteworthy, because the impact of the corona pandemic on the mood was overwhelmingly described as negative, as indicated above.

The corona paradox indicates that perceived emotions simply cannot be directly compared with the overall mood. It seems that, although the crisis has indeed created uncertainty, it has also created a deep awareness in people of their own privileged situation. Gratitude, the feeling by far the most commonly named in connection with the new coronavirus, is an example of this. Almost a third of those surveyed selected this feeling as one of the feelings that had become more important to them due to the corona crisis.

While the participants named on average 2.5 feelings that had become more meaningful due to the corona pandemic, they only named 1.1 feelings that had become less important throughout the crisis.
 

“The corona crisis affected everyone directly, and has broadened the emotional spectrum of people in Switzerland.”(Atlas der Emotionen, 2020)


People of different ages assessed the significance of emotions differently. Those aged over 65 listed more feelings overall that have gained in significance due to the pandemic – above all positive feelings, whereas people aged between 15 and 34 listed fewer feelings overall that have gained in importance throughout the corona situation. In the process, it became clear that, for this age group, “fear for the future”, alongside the positive emotions “gratitude” and “contentment”, had particularly gained in significance, while “powerlessness” was a feeling that became more meaningful to the middle age group (35 to 65).

The top 10 most frequently experienced emotions

Using the question “when you think of your life since last summer, which of these feelings do you experience particularly often?”, a list of the top 10 emotions most frequently experienced people from German-speaking Switzerland could be put together. Overall, it can be stated that women tend to experience more differing emotions than men. And younger people are aware of a larger spectrum of emotions than older people. The top 10 most frequently experienced emotions vary depending on age; while for younger people, aged between 15 and 34, six of the ten feelings are negative, the top 10 for the over-65s are only positive.

  • The top 10 emotions of people aged between 15 and 34: joy (43%), fatigue (42%), love (38%), contentment (37%), stress (34%), gratitude (34%), insecurity (27%), pressure (23%), fear for the future (22%) and worry (22%).
  • The top 10 emotions of people aged between 35 and 65: contentment (43%), gratitude (39%), joy (37%), fatigue (33%), love (30%), interest (25%), stress (24%), relaxation (23%), empathy (21%), and security (20%).
  • The top 10 emotions of people aged over 65: contentment (55%), gratitude (53%), interest (40%), joy (36%), relaxation (25%), empathy (25%), appreciation (23%), love (23%), security (22%), and self-awareness (18%).


This is only an extract from the study, which discovered a great many other fascinating things about emotions in Switzerland. You can read about the others in the Atlas of Emotions. Enjoy!

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