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

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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.