Social cognitive factors outweigh negative emotionality in predicting COVID-19 related safety behaviors.

ABSTRACT: Emotion-motivation models propose that behaviors, including health behaviors, should be predicted by the same variables that also predict negative affect since emotional reactions should induce a motivation to avoid threatening situations. In contrast, social cognitive models propose that safety behaviors are predicted by a different set of variables that mainly reflect cognitive and socio-structural aspects. Here, we directly tested these opposing hypotheses in young adults (N = 4134) in the context of COVID-19-related safety behaviors to prevent infections. In each participant, we collected measures of negative affect as well as cognitive and socio-structural variables during the lockdown in the first infection wave in Germany. We found a negative effect of the pandemic on emotion

SUBMITTER: Hein G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8450590 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature