Summary and Concluding Thoughts
We began this article with a description of the resentment held by health care workers for being labeled heroes during one of the worst worldwide health care disasters of the past century. Our goal here was to present a framework for understanding this resentment and its consequences for both heroes and recipients of heroism during major crises. We introduced a psychological and behavioral model for understanding the complex and ever-changing nature of the relationship between heroes and recipients, a model called the Dynamic Negotiated Exchange model, incorporating four different research areas: the conceptualizations of heroism and heroic leadership, exchange theories of heroism and heroic leadership, models of negotiation, and the theory of response stages in emergency situations. Our analysis integrated these four disparate literatures to illuminate the psychology of emotions and behaviors displayed by heroes and by the public during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Our DNE model proposes that the hero label is a commodity in an exchange relationship, and that this exchange is dynamic, not static, and that it is sensitive to perceived and implied inequities that shift over time in response to ever-changing circumstances. This new model dispels any notions that heroic leadership and followership is a static, passive process. The terms of the implied hero contract are under constant review by both parties as circumstances change, and these reviews may occur consciously or unconsciously, again depending on current conditions. Changes in the quality of one’s life conditions and circumstances engender various emotional responses and require action steps from both heroes and the recipients of heroic actions. According to the DNE model, heroism turns out to be a constant negotiation, in ways both small and large, and involving both informal and formal communications.
Heroism has typically been viewed by society and by most scholars as a universally positive phenomenon. Heroism does immense good and heroes are rightly celebrated. Heroism promotes emotional and social well-being; it benefits the heroic actor, the recipient of the action, and society as a whole; it endows people with meaning, purpose, and coherence; it instills us with wisdom, inspiration, healing, and a growth mindset; it confers obvious benefits to the recipient of the heroic act and also benefits to the heroic actor and society as a whole; it offers meaning, purpose, and coherence to readers and listeners; it instills people with wisdom, goals, moral role models, inspiration, healing, and emotional intelligence. The mere act of thinking about heroes endows people with positive emotions and a sense of social connectedness. Counselors and therapists use the hero’s journey to help their clients acquire resilience and achieve heroic transformation. Heroism fosters a readiness to become happy, secure, wise, and growth oriented. This is just a partial list of the unquestioned benefits of heroism (see Allison, Goethals, and Kramer 2017; Allison and Green 2020; and Efthimiou, Allison, and Franco 2018, for reviews).
Despite this impressive listing of the positive consequences of heroism, the COVID-19 pandemic exposed a dark side to heroism, or perhaps a dark side to our naïve, limited, and shortsighted interpretation of heroism. We love doctors, nurses, and teachers, and yet some of us expressed rage toward them over the issue of wearing masks during the pandemic (Jones and Kessler 2020). We appear to support our heroes only when it is convenient to do so, or only when these heroes meet the terms of our implied contract with them. Apparently, people are capable of performing bad behavior toward anyone, most especially toward society’s heroes who presumably are those we love the most.
To gain a better understanding of this pattern, we turn to a recent conceptualization of heroism offered by Beggan (2019), who describes what he calls the grey zone of heroism. Beggan makes the rather provocative assertion that heroism has a downside, and that the heroic response is not always the best response. Beggan argues that there are many social situations in which it is not clear whether a heroic action is necessary, desired, or even heroic. There may be good reasons why people should not act in a heroic manner, and although Beggan does not say so explicitly, his formulation suggests that there are times when heroes should think twice before taking the heroic plunge. Our hope is that the DNE model spells out some circumstances when taking the heroic plunge makes psychological sense and when it doesn’t.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Definitions of Heroism and Heroic Leadership
- Exchange Models of Leadership and Heroism
- Frontliners and the Hero–Recipient Exchange
- Dynamic Negotiated Exchange during Times of Crisis
- Specific Hypotheses Deriving from the DNE Model
- Summary and Concluding Thoughts
- References