RAPID: Mobilizing Close Relationships to Combat the COVID-19 Pandemic

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To stop the spread of COVID-19, people need to practice the protective behaviors that public health and government officials recommend. To follow such recommendations, people in turn need to trust that government and public health officials are providing good advice. They also need to trust that their fellow citizens will practice the protective behaviors too. Unfortunately, the spread of COVID-19 makes it difficult to trust others because other people are the source of illness. This project aims to understand how people can use their closest personal relationships as a resource in helping them to trust more in other people and in government and public health officials. Understanding how close relationships can be used as a resource in coping with COVID-19 can help identify simple techniques to bolster trust in others and ultimately motivate people to engage in recommended self-protective behaviors.This project centers on the idea that motivating people to trust more in their closest interpersonal partners can also make them more trusting of their fellow citizens and government and public health officials. Trusting in a close partner should have this effect because such trust should make it seem safer and less risky to depend on other people as well. Past research in this area has focused on how partners and family members influence one another. This project seeks to expand this knowledge by considering that relationships might succeed or fail as a consequence of the ways in which people’s lives are intertwined with the actions of those in the collective relational world. The project therefore offers an opportunity to fundamentally transform basic understanding of close relationship dynamics by studying relationships as part of an interconnected system of relationships within the national and global community. A 3-week intervention study examines the effects of a trust-bolstering intervention. Daily experiences are collected each day, focusing on participant’s concerns about COVID-19, trust in others, and self-protective behavior. This project offers a formal test of how trusting a partner can make the world itself seem more trustworthy and motivate people to engage in the kinds of behaviors needed to stop the spread of illness. Understanding the role that close personal relationships play in shaping people’s responses to the world around them can help promote the kind of trust and cooperation needed for people to rise to global challenges.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.