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

为了阻止COVID-19的传播，人们需要采取公共卫生和政府官员建议的保护行为。为了遵循这些建议，人们反过来需要相信政府和公共卫生官员正在提供好的建议。他们还需要相信他们的同胞也会采取保护行为。不幸的是，COVID-19的传播使人们难以信任他人，因为其他人是疾病的源头。该项目旨在了解人们如何利用其最亲密的个人关系作为一种资源，帮助他们更多地信任他人、政府和公共卫生官员。了解亲密关系如何被用作应对COVID-19的资源，有助于确定一些简单的技巧，以增强对他人的信任，并最终激励人们采取建议的自我保护行为。这个项目的核心思想是，激励人们更多地信任他们最亲密的人际伙伴，也可以使他们更信任他们的同胞、政府和公共卫生官员。信任一个亲密的伴侣应该会有这种效果，因为这种信任会让依赖其他人看起来更安全，风险更小。过去在这一领域的研究主要集中在伴侣和家庭成员如何相互影响。这个项目试图通过考虑人际关系可能成功或失败的方式来扩展这一知识，因为人们的生活与集体关系世界中那些人的行为交织在一起。因此，该项目提供了一个机会，通过研究作为国家和全球社区内相互关联的关系系统的一部分的关系，从根本上改变对亲密关系动态的基本理解。一项为期三周的干预研究考察了信任增强干预的效果。每天收集日常经验，重点关注参与者对COVID-19的担忧、对他人的信任和自我保护行为。这个项目提供了一个正式的测试，测试信任一个伙伴如何使世界本身看起来更值得信任，并激励人们参与阻止疾病传播所需的各种行为。了解亲密的个人关系在塑造人们对周围世界的反应中所起的作用，有助于促进人们应对全球挑战所需的信任与合作。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。

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.