The social delegitimization of individualism: Exploring potential drivers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic many people supported compulsory vaccination and other far-reaching restrictions for unvaccinated individuals. This indicates that the COVID-19 pandemic was accompanied by a social delegitimization of individualism, which undermined personal autonomy and informed consent.

Purpose & method: Against this background, I intend to identify conceptual notions that can help to explain the drivers of the social delegitimization of individualism during the COVID-19 pandemic. For this purpose, I conceptually analyzed theories from social science research on vaccination behavior by applying the technique of concept mapping.

Results: The theoretical analysis reveals that (1) the essential need for health protection, (2) the demand for complexity reduction, (3) the optimization of social identity, (4) the reassurance of previous decisions, as well as (5) the feeling of being socially underprivileged may have contributed to the social delegitimization of individualism during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Conclusions: The five identified conceptual notions can explain the drivers behind the collective support for compulsory vaccination and other far-reaching restrictions against unvaccinated individuals. From a conceptual perspective, dynamic interactions between these drivers are likely. In the future, the identified notions may become relevant beyond COVID-19 if the social delegitimization of individualism continues to evolve into a ubiquitous phenomenon.