Anticipating Greater Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Social Life Is Associated With Reduced Adherence to Disease-Mitigating Guidelines.

ABSTRACT: People regularly make decisions about how often and with whom to interact. During an epidemic of communicable disease, these decisions gain new weight, as individual choices exert more direct influence on collective health and wellbeing. While much attention has been paid to how people's concerns about the health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic affect their engagement in behaviors that could curb (or accelerate) the spread of the disease, less is understood about how people's concerns about the pandemic's impact on their social lives affect these outcomes. Across three studies (total N = 654), we find that individuals' estimates of the pandemic's social (vs. health) impact are associated with an unwillingness to curtail social interaction and follow other Centers for Disease Control

SUBMITTER: Plate RC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8862145 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature