Vilares Quoted in the Star Tribune

A Star Tribune article titled, “As the omicron wave grew, Minnesotans adjusted quickly, kept going out,” discusses that, despite the surge in the Omicron variant, Minnesotans continued to go out throughout the past month. Iris Vilares, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Minnesota, shared that most people are “conditional cooperators,” meaning that they tend to follow what the crowd is doing in order to not feel left out. Vilares notes that people have become fatigued, and some even fatalistic, seeing catching the virus as inevitable. Additionally, some individuals have begun to make their own risk assessments based on personal experiences due to distrust in government regulations as they have changed throughout the pandemic. Now, a few weeks after the Star Tribune article, organizations are beginning to roll back vaccine-or-test requirements, and some states have announced plans for ending mask mandates in the near future.

Composed by Flora Pollack, communications assistant.