RESUMO
Recent work has found that an individuals beliefs and personal characteristics can impact perceptions of and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Certain individuals--such as those who are politically conservative, endorse conspiracy theories, or who believe the threat of COVID-19 to be exaggerated--are less likely to engage in such preventative behaviors as social distancing. The current research aims to address whether these individual difference variables not only affect peoples subjective and behavioral reactions to the pandemic, but also whether they actually impact individuals likelihood of contracting COVID-19. In the early months of the pandemic, U.S. participants responded to a variety of individual difference measures as well as questions specific to COVID-19 and the pandemic itself. Four months later, 2,120 of these participants responded with whether they had contracted COVID-19. Nearly all of our included individual difference measures significantly predicted whether a person reported believing they had contracted COVID-19 as well as whether they had actually tested positive for the virus in this four-month period. Additional analyses revealed that all of these relationships were primarily mediated by whether participants held accurate knowledge about COVID-19. These findings offer useful insights for developing more effective interventions aimed at slowing the spread of both COVID-19 and future diseases. Moreover, some findings offer critical tests of the validity of such theoretical frameworks as those concerning conspiratorial ideation and disgust sensitivity within a real-world context.
RESUMO
Past research has established the value of social distancing as a means of deterring the spread of COVID-19 largely by examining aggregate level data. Locales in which efforts were undertaken to encourage distancing experienced reductions in their rate of transmission. However, these aggregate results tell us little about the effectiveness of social distancing at the level of the individual, which is the question addressed by the current research. Four months after participating in a study assessing their social distancing behavior, 2,120 participants indicated whether they had contracted COVID-19. Importantly, the assessment of social distancing involved not only a self-report measure of how strictly participants had followed social distancing recommendations, but also a series of virtual behavior measures of social distancing. These simulations presented participants with graphical depictions mirroring specific real-world scenarios, asking them to position themselves in relation to others in the scene. Individuals social distancing behavior, particularly as assessed by the virtual behavior measure, predicted whether they contracted COVID-19 during the intervening four months. This was true when considering only participants who reported having tested positively for the virus and when considering additional participants who, although untested, believed that they had contracted the virus. The findings offer a unique form of additional evidence as to why individuals should practice social distancing. What the individual does matters, not only for the health of the collective, but also for the specific individual.
RESUMO
A study involving over 2000 online participants tested a general framework regarding compliance with a directive in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study featured not only a self-report measure of social distancing but also behavioral measures -- simulations that presented participants with graphical depictions mirroring multiple real-world scenarios and asked them to position themselves in relation to others in the scene. The conceptual framework highlights three essential components of a directive: (1) the source, some entity is advocating for a behavioral change; (2) the surrounding context, the directive is in response to some challenge; and (3) the target, the persons to whom the directive is addressed. Belief systems relevant to each of these three components are predicted, and were found, to relate to compliance with the social distancing directive. The implications of the findings for public service campaigns encouraging people to engage in social distancing are discussed.
