RAPID: Approach-Avoidance Tendencies to Pathogen-Salience as a Function of Uncertainty and Regional COVID-19 Infection Rates

COVID-19在美国的日益增长造成了现代从未遇到过的规模的社会心理问题。这个时间紧迫的研究项目调查了人们对COVID-19在美国传播的不确定感如何影响避免病毒的情绪和动机行为，即使人们可能不知道自己的感受和行为。假设基于情绪的反应会被放大，因为传染传播中涉及的不确定性。为了验证这一假设，该项目开发了一种新颖的智能手机应用程序，参与者可以在全国各地使用，即使他们处于物理隔离状态。这款智能手机应用程序为研究病毒传播对情绪的影响创造了一种新颖的方式，同时也教育参与者了解他们自己保持健康的动机。该项目就COVID-19传播和预防科学进行宣传和教育，以帮助制定针对此次和未来大流行的干预措施。这个时间紧迫的RAPID项目利用智能手机应用程序在全国范围内对来自全国各地的1000人进行即时测试。检测将持续9个月，以便了解疾病的高峰和下降率。智能手机应用程序评估无意识的动机倾向，以避免可能传播COVID-19的物体和人。该研究还测试了这些动机倾向是如何促进或阻碍与健康相关的行为，如洗手和保持社交距离。重要的是，该项目调查了美国各地感染率的地区差异，以测试感染率的上升和下降对人们的感受和行动的影响。在这个项目中进行的研究和开发的软件将促进未来干预措施的发展，旨在减少致命疾病传播造成的情绪困扰，并增加健康行为以应对这些疾病。该项目由社会心理学项目和促进竞争研究的既定项目（EPSCoR）共同资助。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The growing presence of COVID-19 in the United States creates a social psychological problem of a scale never before encountered in modern times. This time-critical research project investigates how peoples’ feelings of uncertainty about the spread of COVID-19 across the United States impacts emotional and motivational behaviors to avoid the virus, even when people may be unaware of how they feel and act. Emotion-based responses are hypothesized to be amplified because of the uncertainty involved in a contagion spread. To test this hypothesis, the project develops a novel smart phone application that participants can use around the country, even when they are in physical isolation. The smart phone application creates a novel way to study the emotional impact of virus transmission as well as educate participants about their own motivations to stay healthy. This project informs and educates about the science of COVID-19 transmission and prevention to help develop interventions for this and future pandemics. This time-critical RAPID project utilizes the smart phone application to engage in immediate nationwide testing of one thousand individuals from across the country. Testing will continue for nine months so that peak and declining rates of disease are captured. The smart phone application assesses non-conscious motivational tendencies to avoid objects and people which could potentially transmit COVID-19. The research also tests how these motivational tendencies promote or hinder health-related behaviors such as handwashing and social distancing. Importantly, the project investigates regional differences of infection rates across the United States to test the influence of increasing and declining infection rates on peoples’ feelings and actions. The research and the software developed in this project will facilitate the development of future interventions aimed at reducing the emotional distress caused by the spread of deadly diseases and to increase healthy behaviors in response to them.This project is jointly funded by the Social Psychology Program and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.